Publicly-Elected Police We elect judges. Why not cops? We have eight “justice” precincts in Harris County. And each one of those precincts has a Constable. Constables serve four-year terms and “ex...

County Tax Assessor-Collector The office of county tax assessor-collector originates in Article VIII of the state constitution. In each of Texas’ 254 counties with more than 10,000 people, county ...

County Treasurer The office of county treasurer originates in Article XVI of the state constitution. In each of Texas’ 254 counties, county treasurers are elected to serve four-year terms.12 Dr. ...

We’ve looked at the office of Harris County Clerk (i.e. chief recordkeeper, marriage licenses, deeds, birth & death certificates, and even elections oversight in counties without an elections a...

Where we’re at There are quite a few elected positions in Harris County1 and City of Houston governments. Not all are up for election or re-election in 2023, but the aim here is to at least lightl...

Sheriff? Hardly even know if… County sheriffs serve four-year terms pretty much in line with what children imagine a sheriff does. The Texas Constitution1 and Local Government Code23 outline a few...

Two County Attorneys? District Attorney and regular County Attorney. What’s the difference? Both elected positions draw their power from the same paragraph in The Texas Constitution. One is a crim...

With SB 1750 all but signed into state law1 — we look at the position that may re-absorb election oversight responsibilities: Harris County Clerk. County Clerk County government sits between stat...

Updates June 2, 2023, 10:30p The State of Texas has officially taken over the local Houston Independent School District, appointing a new superintendent for the district, as well as a state-appoin...

What the #3©k is county government? When we think of elections, we’re looking at the federal government, sometimes the state government, and only rarely do we think of city government. So what the...

Updates 9:35a, May 29, 2023 Brent Webster, Paxton’s second-in-command, has taken over Paxton’s duties as TX Attorney General. The Tribune has more. HR 2337 Impeaching Warren Kenneth Paxton, Attor...

Updates May 23, 2023, 2p After a cordial conversation with Sen. Bettencourt’s District Director in Houston, Elizabeth Stinsman, I sent over a few thought-out questions: What’s the story on why ...

“KHOU urged to retract meow-sleading election story.” Now that’s good writing. Thanks ChatGPT. Prompt engineering notes First I asked it to summarize the primary source for an Off The Kuff post ...

One day when we’ve lost our way five years from now, we’ll scroll and scroll and scroll just to get back here, just see how we started. Help us see HOU we’ve become. Wow, really setting the tone ...