It is kind of difficult to take someone serious about what they will accomplish when they start out by making excuses for their possible failure.
Whitmire said “I will speak out. First of all, we will increase HPD officers. We will collaborate with the other departments. When it comes to the areas I do not have jurisdiction over, the courts, we will speak out. Houstonians elect those judges. By far, we’re the largest bloc of votes in the county,” Source
Will he be pushing for Republican judges in 2024, like he did in 2022? One of the main groups to push for Whitmire was the HPD union, which had the following to say about Judges that are Democrats.
Harris County is the most violent county in Texas, based on crime data. That’s not because police aren’t doing their jobs, Ray Hunt, executive director of the Board of the Houston Police Officer’s Union (HPOU), told The Center Square. It’s because of “Democrat activist judges” who release violent offenders, who then go out and commit more violent crimes. Source
Below is an interview that Whitmire had with the station that the MAGA people love:
Whitmire: Data would show we are allowing repeat violent offenders on the streets of Houston and Harris County and other urban centers settings. So while we tried to fix the bond issue for low level offenders it has also allowed more violent offenders to be released. It is just unheard of that you would give a violent offender, a murderer and even instances in Harris County Capitol murders, a bond. And you see individuals violate conditions in their first bond and get another one. The murders of Houstonians by people out on bond is just reprehensible. It doesn’t have to happen. People are staying home. They are scared. It’s not good for Houstonians. Source
So it was the County Judge’s fault for “defunding” the police or the judges for letting out violent criminals. Sorry soon to be mayor the buck will stop with you, if crime does not go down the buck stops with you.
Who knows, maybe Whitmire will go complete MAGA and blame our President Joe Biden for failing to control the border.
Maybe he will surprise us and be a good mayor, he has a high bar to clear to be the worse, which I would name Annise Parker for that distinction.
She was so unpopular that she barely defeated a small group of people with no money in her reelection.
Avoiding a runoff, Parker received 51% of the vote while her nearest competitors struggled in the mid-teens during an evening of low voter turnout. The victory did not come as a surprise to Houston political observers: Parker had led the field in campaign spending by a considerable margin — $2.3 million versus negligible sums raised by her opponents. Source