If I were DJT and running for Harris County Judge, I would sue the Chronicle, as they are pushing one candidate for Judge, and that would be Annise Parker. They are giving her hundreds of thousands of dollars in free advertising. Why are they doing that? Today, I read an article that again suggested that Annise Parker would be the person to beat.
From the Houston Chronicle, one of their employees, Regina Lankenau
And now Harris County may lose a much-needed Hispanic in a highly visible job. Sure, the candidates include Orlando Sanchez, a Cuban immigrant and Republican who was the first Hispanic immigrant ever elected citywide in Houston. But judging by the polls so far, it seems unlikely that this perennial candidate will manage to beat the centrist frontrunner, former Mayor Annise Parker.
Source – bold print above was done by this writer
Annise Parker is as far left as Trump is to the right.
The poll she is using is several months old; Orlando Sanchez and others had not yet joined the race for county judge.
Annise Parker was not a centrist; people forget that she introduced the HERO Ordinance that would have allowed men who believed or said they were women to enter women’s bathrooms or showers. Imagine your mother, wife, or daughter standing next to a man with all of man’s body parts next to her.
Don’t trust what I write, investigate, and you will find that Annise Parker would not be a good steward for the taxpayers of Harris County.
Houstonians soundly defeated the HERO Ordinance.
Houston’s controversial equal rights ordinance (commonly referred to as HERO) failed by a wide margin on Tuesday. Houstonians rejected the proposition by a vote of 61% to 39%.
On May 28, 2014, the Houston City Council voted 11–6 to enact the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO) which was authored by Houston’s then-Mayor, Annise Parker.[2] The measure banned discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, sex, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, religion, disability, pregnancy, genetic information, family, marital, and military status. The ordinance applied to businesses that serve the public, private employers, housing, city employment and city contracting. Religious institutions would be exempt. Violators could be fined up to $5,000.[3] HERO took effect on June 27, 2014 and enforcement for it was suspended 6 days later on July 3, 2014.[4]
Opposition to HERO arose because the ordinance protected “transgender residents’ ability to use the restroom consistent with their gender expression, regardless of their biological sex.”[5] HERO became known to some as the “Bathroom Law.”[6] Shortly after the ordinance passed, opponents of HERO drafted a petition and began gathering signatures to add a ballot measure to the November 2014 ballot to repeal the ordinance. City law required 17,296 valid signatures from registered Houston voters for a successful veto referendum petition, which would require the city council to either rescind the targeted ordinance themselves or put it before voters. This requirement was calculated by taking 10 percent of the greatest number of votes cast for mayor in any of the three preceding years. Moreover, signatures had to be submitted before the ordinance was scheduled to take effect or within 30 days of the publication of the approved ordinance, whichever came first. Opponents of HERO presented about 50,000 signatures to the Houston city secretary’s office on July 3, 2014.[5]
Annise Parker’s attorneys subpoena local pastors. Is that what a centrist would do?
HERO opponents filed a lawsuit[9] against Mayor Annise Parker and the city on August 5, 2014.[2] In response, city attorneys defending the law filed subpoenas for sermons from local Christian pastors. Attorneys for the pastors called the subpoenas retaliation against Christians for opposing the ordinance. Parker maintained that the attorneys who dealt with the lawsuit for the city were outside lawyers (i.e., not city employees) and that she and City Attorney David Feldman had been unaware of the subpoenas. After what some news organizations called a “firestorm”[10][11] of criticism over the subpoenas (Parker said that she had been “vilified coast to coast”[11]), Parker directed the city’s attorneys on October 29, 2014, to withdraw the subpoenas.[12] Source
Annise Parker and the “Rain Tax.” Anyone who claims that Annise Parker is a Centerist would probably also refer to Donald Trump as a Centerist.
On Friday, Houston Mayor Annise Parker and the City of Houston got some very bad news from the Texas Supreme Court. In an unambiguous, 14-page, 8-0 decision, Justice John Devine (writing for the Court) ruled that by omitting any reference to how the initiative would be funded, the language chosen by the City for the rain tax referendum was deceptive and misleading. The case has been remanded to the lower court, “for further proceedings consistent with [the] opinion.”
It’s quite a smackdown for too-clever politicians like rain-tax proponents Annise Parker and rain-tax architect Stephen Costello, who misled voters from the start on the cost of the program (an issue the Court saw no need to address, given the dishonesty of the ballot language itself). The full opinion may be downloaded here. Source
The Rain Tax was still in the news recently, as the City has not been using the money as it should.
Houston’s $7 billion proposed budget for fiscal year 2026 can now move forward following court approval of a settlement in a years-long legal dispute over misallocated drainage funds.
On Friday, Houston Mayor John Whitmire notified the city council that the settlement had been approved. He expects the budget to be certified soon.
City Controller Chris Hollins had refused to certify the budget until the settlement was finalized, citing unresolved legal obligations, fiscal risks, and, in a new statement, what he calls “ten hard truths” about the administration’s assumptions.
The dispute stems from a 2010 voter-approved charter amendment requiring a dedicated drainage fee to fund street and drainage improvements. A 2018 measure further mandated that 11.8 cents of every $100 in property tax revenue be directed to the Dedicated Drainage and Street Renewal Fund.
However, beginning in 2016, the city allegedly diverted these funds to general operations to stay under a voter-imposed revenue cap. In 2019, engineers Bob Jones and Allen Watson sued the city, alleging it shortchanged the fund by up to 40 percent.
The Texas Supreme Court declined to hear the city’s appeal in early 2025, effectively upholding a lower court ruling that Houston must fully comply with the funding mandate.
Annise Parker could be held responsible for the current state of our roads.
HOUSTON (KTRK) — Road paving in Houston has sharply declined, the number of sections of craggy streets replaced by city crews has dropped off dramatically, and the amount of patchwork done to repair streets has fallen off a cliff, records obtained by ABC-13 show.
It’s uncertain whether Houston road repairs will improve in the immediate future.
According to city records, curbside-to-curbside road paving has dropped markedly over the past five years; around 140 miles of Houston’s pothole-marked and craggy roads have been paved this year, compared to nearly 280 miles paved in 2008 – a 53 percent decrease.
The number of concrete panels used to replace sections of fractured and cracked streets dramatically declined. Just over 250,000 panels were used this past year, down from nearly 400,000 panels used in 2009. That’s a 38 percent drop.
The number of pothole-fixing asphalt patches is hovering at 16,000, which is down from 19,000 in 2012.
And when it comes to Houston’s major capital road in transportation improvements, $265 million was spent in 2010. That dropped to $221 million in 2014.
Mayor Annise Parker has said that less money is being spent on projects in order to pay down debt and build up the city’s savings to pay “as you go” for future projects, but records show there will not be a major increase in capital project spending until 2019 four years after Parker has left office.
These numbers are probably no surprise to drivers. They certainly aren’t to Eric Dargan, deputy director of the city’s Public Works Department.
“When I was hired on 12 years ago, we were doing twice than we’re doing now,” Dargan said. “Over the years, we’ve had budget cuts or we’ve had budgets being held in place. Fewer roads are being fixed.”
And are fewer roads being fixed now compared to three years ago?
