Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo only has three months left in office but says she doesn’t plan to spend her final days as a lame duck.
The judge, a Democrat elected in 2018 as the first Latina to hold the position, isn’t seeking a third term, and it appears she’s going to go out sparring with her colleagues. Hidalgo said in an interview with the Houston Press on Monday that she won’t vote to re-elect her precinct commissioner, fellow Democrat Lesley Briones, in November.
On September 17, Hidalgo joined the lone Republican Commissioner Tom Ramsey in voting against a $3.1 billion budget. Prior to that vote, when the court was setting the highest tax rate in recent history, Hidalgo left the room. She says she wishes Ramsey had followed her out because, due to a lack of quorum, the tax rate would have reverted to last year’s. But Ramsey stayed and voted against it. Briones, Adrian Garcia and Rodney Ellis voted in favor.
A quorum can be three people under typical circumstances but a “supermajority” of four is required for a tax rate vote. The budget is based on the tax rate and the amount of revenue it’s projected to bring in.
“Please don’t perpetuate this story that only one member of the court voted no on the tax increase. It is misleading,” Hidalgo wrote on Facebook the day after commissioners court approved the controversial items. “It’s a no vote that actually allowed the tax rate to pass. If [Ramsey] had stepped out with me and not voted, because of quorum rules, taxes would not have gone up.”
Hidalgo told the Press that Ramsey and former Republican Commissioner Jack Cagle thwarted a tax hike in 2022 by leaving the room during the vote, “so he knows how to do it.”
Hidalgo said she passed Ramsey a note during last week’s meeting asking if she could talk to him during a lunch break, hoping to make a plan to walk out together. According to Hidalgo, Ramsey dismissed the note. “I was pretty sure he was going to be there for the vote but I still decided to walk out, just to show that I wasn’t contributing to the quorum but also just in case he did walk out with me.”
Ramsey hasn’t spoken publicly about why he chose to stay and vote and he could not immediately be reached for comment Tuesday. He posted on X that he was disappointed that the court approved a tax hike.
“As you know, I voted against that and even offered an alternative responsible budget,” he said. “Like someone caught with their hand in the cookie jar, some are blaming others rather than taking responsibility for taking more of your hard-earned paycheck. Elections have consequences. If Harris County wants something different and a different direction, we need representatives with a vision and a way of governing that listens to residents’ wishes.”
Hidalgo was a little more direct. “I’m going to get in that voting booth, and you better believe I’m not going to vote for Lesley Briones,” she said.
“You can see how people vote and what that says about who they are. I really hope folks continue to watch that. I won’t be in office three months from now but I am calling on Harris County residents to make their voices heard in November. I can’t tell people who to vote for but I think we need elected officials who are more concerned about the community than being a perpetual political machine.”
Briones and Garcia are up for re-election this year, with Briones facing former Commissioner Steve Radack and Garcia up against pastor Richard Vega. Ramsey and Ellis are not on the ballot. Democratic nominee Letitia Plummer and Republican Orlando Sanchez are vying for the judge’s seat.
The budget adopted last week includes pay raises for law enforcement that were approved in 2025 as part of a five-year plan. The tax rate of 67 cents per $100 assessed valuation is the highest in recent history but those who voted for it said it was necessary to close a $180 million deficit, provide essential services and compensate for unfunded mandates imposed by the state and federal government.
“Rising costs, state restrictions, and federal funding cuts put greater pressure on working families and local governments alike,” Ellis said in a September 17 newsletter to constituents. “Further local cuts would not make our communities’ needs disappear — they would weaken the services residents increasingly rely on and risk creating more costly and dangerous crises down the road.”
Briones referenced the unfunded mandates at a September 9 press conference in which she advocated for pay increases for Harris Health workers.
Garcia brought it up at a Greater Houston LULAC event earlier this month, saying, “I’m not ready to close clinics and libraries. I’m not ready to shut down my senior programs. I’m not ready to balance the budget, as was done during the previous Republican-controlled commissioners court, on the back of the Harris Health system. They kept a flat tax rate but look at what they did to Harris Health. They gutted it.”
Commissioners have authority over four district taxing entities: Harris County, Harris Health, the Port of Houston and the Harris County Flood Control District. Ramsey said the higher tax rate “certainly is going to have a tremendous impact on the residents’ ability to afford their homes.” The new rate will cost the average homeowner about $200 more per year.
This isn’t the first time Hidalgo has voted against fellow Democrats Ellis, Briones and Garcia. She doesn’t appear to have any beef with Ellis but she has in the past referred to Briones, Garcia and Ramsey as “the GOP three.”
“It’s not about Democrat versus Republican,” Hidalgo told the Press. “The fiscal irresponsibility has been bipartisan for the past three years. It’s one Republican and two Democrats.”
Hidalgo said last week’s budget discussions marked “the culmination of three years of votes that have been very detrimental to the financial sustainability of the county,” she said. The new tax rate affirms a commitment to spending hundreds of millions of dollars “knowing that we didn’t have the money,” she said.
The county judge is apparently still salty over last year’s law enforcement raises, which she supported, but wanted to take before voters as a ballot measure rather than having them baked into the budget.
“It didn’t even occur to me that we could possibly pass something that big without having the money for it,” she said. “They insisted that we had to pass it because all these officers were going to resign and it was urgent.”
This year’s budget includes $72 million in law enforcement raises, an effort to match a five-year plan adopted in 2025 for salary hikes at the Houston Police Department. Based on a 3-2 vote taken during the last budget cycle, Harris County’s eight constables now earn more than $300,000 annually, which is more than Sheriff Ed Gonzalez’s salary. Ellis and Hidalgo voted against the constable raises.
Last year, Hidalgo fought unsuccessfully to fund early childhood programs. She said the 2027 budget, which takes effect October 1, eliminates a $400,000 proposal for children survivors of domestic violence.
“They voted on a budget without knowing where the money would come from to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, but they wouldn’t allocate $400,000 when we had the money. When we have 10 things and you can only choose eight, and one of them is for kids, it’s like a law of the court that the kid thing doesn’t make it.”
Meanwhile, the judge said there are core inefficiencies that should have been addressed, such as consolidating nine 911 call centers into one hub.
“Going forward, we cannot be committing any money without knowing where the money is coming from,” she said. “We need to look at structural changes and programmatic issues. Once you decide you’re going to commit $300 million to something, you have to cut $300 million somewhere else. You cannot sustainably balance the budget without cutting programs.”
She says she hopes that once her term ends in December, future commissioners courts will “stop spending on things we can’t afford, address systemic waste, cut programs and keep the ones that align with the strategic plan and statutory responsibilities.”
Budgets reveal priorities, she said, noting that she hopes when people go to the polls in November they’ll remember who voted in favor of constable pay hikes while simultaneously slashing a program for children survivors of domestic violence.
“This isn’t about whether Harris County can fund everything everybody wants,” she said. “It’s about what we choose to protect and also how we behave when we can kick the fiscal responsibility can down the road and get some applause or actually make some tough decisions.”
