Harris County officials Tuesday approved hiring administrative staff for its new elections management office, brushing off Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s threat to sue the state’s largest county over its formation of the independent office.
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A bid by Republicans to get more than 127,000 drive-thru votes tossed out as illegal in Texas’ biggest county was rejected Monday by a federal judge who found they lack standing.
Read moreThe Texas Republican Party sued the Democratic clerk of Harris County to block his expansion of curbside voting in the Houston area, arguing a lack of immunity to Covid-19 is not a qualifying disability.
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The Democratic election administrator of Texas’ most populous county cannot send absentee ballot applications to all its registered voters, the state’s high court ruled Wednesday, handing a victory to Republicans who said it would lead people to mistakenly believe they qualify for voting by mail.
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Texas county clerks’ authority to manage early voting is limited to things like setting the air conditioning at a comfortable level at polling sites, not mailing unsolicited absentee voting applications, the state argued before the Texas Supreme Court on Wednesday.
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The Texas Supreme Court stepped into a political firestorm Wednesday, blocking the chief of elections in the state’s biggest county from proceeding with his plans to send mail-in ballot applications to all registered voters.
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Texas’ Republican attorney general on Monday sued the county clerk in Houston, a Democratic stronghold, seeking an order to stop him from mailing absentee ballot applications to the county’s 2.37 million registered voters regardless of whether they qualify.
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A Houston-area rehabilitation facility claims county officials have put it in the unique position of operating as a hospital but
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A federal judge on Thursday approved a settlement mandating most misdemeanor arrestees in Houston be released promptly from jail without paying bail, brushing off concerns of prosecutors and police that it will endanger public safety.
Read moreHarris County (Houston) Judge Alexandra Smoots-Thomas surrendered to federal agents Friday to face charges she used campaign contributions to pay her mortgage, travel and buy luxury merchandise, federal prosecutors said.
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Attorney Tony Buzbee spent $10 million of his own money to run for Houston mayor — but a pile of horse manure he used as a prop defined his over-the-top campaign.
Read moreA proposed settlement to end cash bail for most misdemeanor arrestees in Houston emerged seemingly unscathed from a fairness hearing Monday, despite concerns from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that it will give a free pass to undocumented immigrants.
Read moreTwo Texas Republicans prevented their Democratic colleagues from voting to raise property taxes in the Houston area on Tuesday by not showing up for a meeting of the county’s executive board.
Read moreA group of bail bond companies claim Harris County criminal court judges and the Harris County sheriff unconstitutionally changed bond requirements for individuals arrested on misdemeanor charges, threatening their business.
Read moreMade a lame duck by a Democratic takeover of Houston’s judiciary, a Republican juvenile court judge raised public safety concerns Wednesday when he released several youths from jail and reset their hearings for his replacement’s first week on the bench in January.
Read moreMisdemeanor court judges in Houston urged a Fifth Circuit panel Tuesday to scrap a federal judge’s injunction they say is to blame for a spike in people failing to show up for court.
Read moreTexas sheriff warned the public Tuesday about the dangers of fentanyl after a deputy removed a flyer from her car’s windshield, began to feel lightheaded and was hospitalized, and the opioid was found on another flyer in the area.
Read moreCriminal justice reform in Texas’ biggest county took another tortured step forward Thursday, as combatants in litigation over the county’s bail policies laid out their differences before a federal judge who is narrowing her injunction in the case.
Read moreParents of a black man who was shot to death by a Texas sheriff’s deputy have evidence that rebuts the story he attacked the lawman with a knife, a federal judge found this week, refusing to dismiss their wrongful death lawsuit.
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