The Chronicle‘s Liz Austin Peterson reported on some excitement at Commissioners Court this week:
Fresh from a decisive re-election victory, Harris County Judge Ed Emmett is wasting no time trying to build his office’s influence as he fights for more authority over the county’s lobbying effort in Austin.
He brought the matter to Commissioners Court on Tuesday, the first regular meeting since Election Day, and butted heads with County Attorney-elect Vince Ryan and Commissioner Sylvia Garcia when the two Democrats sought to delay a vote on the change.
For a body known to vote on an entire agenda without discussing a single item at length, the debate offered a public peek at the increasingly tense relationships between some court members.
The county’s Office of Legislative Relations has been a part of the county attorney’s office since 2006. Ryan said he wanted to have a chance to evaluate the proposal once he takes office in January. Garcia said she does not believe the office should fall under any one member of Commissioners Court, and she questioned Emmett’s motives for proposing the switch.
Since 2006? In other words, all of… two years.
The Chronicle‘s Rick Casey provides some useful background on this maneuvering in his most recent column:
The fact is, in this skirmish [Vince Ryan] was poorly armed. He lacked any arguments for why the lobbying squad should remain in his bailiwick. The location doesn’t actually seem to make a whole lot of difference.
It was in the county judge’s office until 2001, when it was moved to the office of Dick Raycraft, the county’s director of management services. I’m not sure why.
Two years ago it was moved to County Attorney Stafford’s office, apparently because Cathy Sisk, who was tapped to lead the lobbying operation, already worked for Stafford as an attorney specializing in environmental matters and preferred not to move.
Nobody thought her location was worth worrying about. Emmett was appointed county judge later and, he says, at some subsequent point later he began worrying about it.
He says he had talked to his staff about recapturing the office well before the election and planned on bringing the matter to Commissioners Court as soon as he solidified his position by winning an election, even if Republican Stafford had won re-election.
“I’m the one legislators call,” he said, asserting that it was not a power grab, but an effort to assert control.
After all, it’s Commissioners Court that sets the county’s legislative agenda, always by unanimous vote, not the county attorney.
From an institutional perspective, the change proposed by Judge Emmett makes sense.
From the perspective of partisan politics and politician egos, it probably would have been wiser for Judge Emmett to take a page from Mayor White’s playbook, and get his Commissioner’s Court colleagues on board ahead of time by consulting with them as he apparently did his staff.
* By most accounts, this is about as exciting as it gets.
