Charles Kuffner (host):
[I'm] speaking today with Annise Parker former mayor of Houston who is now in the Democratic primary for Harris County judge. Annise as always thank you for taking the time to speak with me. Let's get right into it.
Annise Parker (candidate):
We've done this before.
C. Kuffner (host):
We have done this before more than once.
Annise Parker (candidate):
Long time ago.
C. Kuffner (host):
Yes, so why are you running for this office?
Annise Parker (candidate):
Because I know I can do a good job, and I thought we needed a change in leadership at Harris County. There's not anybody who could run for this position that has more experience in local government than I do, and while it is different than being mayor it is still focused on the fundamentals of local government, public safety, public health, public infrastructure, emergency management, all of which are in my wheelhouse. I left my job at the end of last year not expecting [President] Donald Trump and the dismantling of democracy that he started when he came in, and I don't think any of us expected DOGE and the dismantling of the bureaucracy, so here I was sitting at home with time on my hands watching chaos in Washington [D.C.], chaos in Austin, and chaos in Harris County government, and I said I can do this. I want to do this.
C. Kuffner (host):
We'll get into some of that in a second, but tell us what have you been doing since your last day as mayor.
Annise Parker (candidate):
So immediately after I left office I was offered a fellowship at Harvard [University], a three-month fellowship. I know there are folks who think I moved to Boston or something; no, it was a three-month fellowship to lecture at the Kennedy School, and I came back, and I was trying to figure out what to do, and I received an offer from Neighborhood Centers, which subsequently became Baker Ripley, and I spent 15 months at Neighborhood Centers as a senior V.P. chief strategy officer.
I left right after [Hurricane Harvey] essentially, and thought I'd take a little time off, and in November I was offered the job as C.E.O. of something called the LGBT Victory Fund and Victory Institute. It's a more than 30 year-old organization that focuses on helping LGBT candidates around the country get elected, every level of the ballot, all parts of the country, completely non-partisan, and so they needed help. The organization was in trouble, and I said okay I'll give you two years, and I gave them two years, and I turned a new strategic plan over in February of 2020, and March came COVID, and so I stayed, and one day I looked up and it was seven years in. I said I don't want to be in a plane all the time. I was spending at least half my time on the road, and decided to come home and focus my intention on Houston.
But I did come home with the intention of retiring. I didn't leave Victory to run for office, but I'll tell you it had something to do with me running because by spending seven years working with primarily entry-level candidates, not all entry-level candidates; we had a presidential candidate in Pete Buttigieg, and we were all in, but almost all of our candidates are new candidates, first-time candidates, and it reconnected me to why people want to run for office in the first place. They just want to serve the community. They're not all the best and the brightest, but the candidates I worked with they were passionate about the issues, and passionate about their communities they want to serve, and we have to have people who aren't running for office because they need a job, or aren't running for office because they want attention, but who are running for office because they know they can do it, and they want to do it, and it got me reinvigorated.
C. Kuffner (host):
Okay, I guess we need talk about one of those candidates that's caused a bit of a fuss for you here, and that's former [Harris County District Attorney] Kim Ogg. You know the reason why I'm bringing this up, so would you like to say a few words about that?
Annise Parker (candidate):
I have known Kim Ogg for a very long time. We're out lesbians of a certain age. We've kind of been in community around each other, but Kim was always a Republican. She ran for office as a Republican. She changed parties when she decided to go for D.A., and I'll remind anybody who's watching that the entire Democratic community embraced her. She had great ideas and great energy, and for a time actually until she was replaced by Sean Teare she was the most progressive district attorney we have ever had. Now her intra-party intra-family squabbles with [Harris County Judge] Lina Hidalgo were bad for all of us, but she ran for re-election after four years, still overwhelming support by the Democratic Party, won the Democratic primary over two opponents, won the general, but re-election and her election last year, she was a Victory-endorsed candidate. It was literally my job to get her elected, and I'm frustrated but also sort of amused. I had [Texas State Senator] Molly Cook. No one complains that I went all-in for Molly Cook. No one complains that I went all-in for Lauren Ashley Simmons or Jolanda Jones, all three LGBT candidates. They complain that I went all-in for Kim Ogg. I didn't make the endorsement decision, and I would have supported her. I'm not trying to say I wouldn't have, but it was literally my job.
C. Kuffner (host):
Okay, so let's talk about Harris County. Let's start with a broad question. What's your overview of the county's situation right now. Give me your high-level pitch of how we're doing.
Annise Parker (candidate):
We have all the tools to get it right, but we don't have the right leadership, and every challenge we currently have in Harris County is going to get worse before it gets better because of all of the things that are happening at the state and federal level. Trump's efforts to do away with FEMA. I don't know any city in the Hurricane Belt that's not worried about that. DOGE came in and laid off hurricane forecasters at NOAA which means that we're having to do our own weather forecasting and hurricane forecasting.
As the so-called Big Beautiful Bill throwing people off Medicaid and Medicare, and then assuming that Congress won't figure out a way to keep people on health insurance, all those people are going to end up at the door of the Harris County hospital district with no money to pay for 'em. We are the provider of last resort for public health down here in Harris County. All of this stuff is rolling downhill.
The state has been at war with the urban areaas for years. It seems to be [Texas Lieutenant Governor] Dan Patrick's raison d'être to stamp out the ability of local government to provide the services that are necessary, so we have all of these pressures coming at us, and we have a completely dysfunctional [Harris County] Commissioners Court centered around the current county judge who for whatever reason hasn't figured out that that job is all about maintaining relationships with the four commissioners. When I was mayor of Houston I was the CEO of the city. County judge is not the CEO. County judge is the chair of the board, and the four board members that you work with have bigger budgets and just as much authority if not more than you do, and it is about keeping everybody focused on what is best for Harris County, and how do we work together to achieve the county's agenda. That's the biggest problem. There's no permanent problem. It's mostly about leadership.
C. Kuffner (host):
How will you be different? What will you do differently to make it work better?
Annise Parker (candidate):
Well first I already have a working professional relationship with all four of the commissioners. I have a very public track record. People understand how I work, how I operate. There have been no scandals on my watch. There's no drama. I'm there to help move the agenda forward, and I also bring a very deep knowledge of the region where the resources are, how county and city government and the 34 cities within Harris County can and should work together, but I also when I was mayor met regularly with the county judges of the eight counties here in the region. As much as we are under pressure from changes at the federal level and the state level, we're going to have to figure out a way to wire around that and provide mutual aid and support, and to focus on the priority projects.
When I travel around everybody's worried about jobs and the economy. They're worried about the price of housing. Crime is there, but it's not the biggest issues, but they're also very very worried about flooding, and while the cities all have a role in that the ultimate responsibility for flood management is Harris County, and we are woefully behind in getting projects out the door from the big $2.5 billion dollard bond election that we had, and we all saw what happened in July when the county government fails its constituents in a major weather emergency. We have to get ahead of this.
C. Kuffner (host):
There are of course financial issues right now in Harris County. Money's a little tight, which is another thing you're familiar with.
Annise Parker (candidate):
I became mayor in the middle of the recession with the mortgage crisis. First thing I had to do was lay off city employees.
C. Kuffner (host):
Yeah which was a lot of fun I know. I would argue that the current issues of the county is one part they attempted to do more than the previous county government had, and one part state putting handcuffs on us, and then other stuff that you can't necessarily foresee or predict, stuff that just happens. What's your plan to get the county's finances in better order?
Annise Parker (candidate):
A couple of things. I agree with you completely. Some of it was this is just the normal ebb and flow of the way money comes and goes, and crisis happens, and what the state and the federal government decide to do, and where they decide to help and not help, but the commissioners put themselves in a bind when they gave a major tax increase to law enforcement and not saying that they didn't need more money, but they did it withought thinking through the implications. They did it without thinking about the impact across the budget. They didn't choose to phase it in. They didn't really think about do the constables perform the same job as Houston police officers. Why do we want to have parity, etc. They created this problem on their own, but there is in any big bureaucracy, there is always some amount of waste. I don't think there's a huge amount of that.
Then it becomes a matter of setting priorities, and you said it. The county's trying to do a lot more things than it's done in the past. Worthy things, but leadership is about setting priorities, and making sure that those priorities align with the best interest of your constituents, and I think that what we have is four commissioners going in different directions, rather than a body of five sitting and having public transparent conversations about what do we need? What are our priorities in Harris County, and how can we get there?
I do think that the role of county administrator is something that I want to look at very very closely. That was created after Judge Hidalgo came in and that budget has grown phenomenally, tens of millions of dollars, and I really want to look under the hood there. I can see in a county the size of Harris County, third largest county in the country I believe, that it could be helpful to have a funnel to bring things into commissioners court to address, but that doesn't seem to me how it's been working. I think it's become more of a speed bump or a dam, and the bureaucracy keeps growing, and they keep doing steadies rather than just focusing on the fundamentals. The blocking and tackling of local government which has to always be done first, not the bright shiny object.
C. Kuffner (host):
You talked about the pay raise that was given to law enforcement within Harris County. I think commissioners might argue that some of that was foisted on them by the amount of money that the city of Houston has provided given to its police force, and they are just saying hey we gotta be able to be competitive in hiring people.
Annise Parker (candidate):
I'm going to say I disagree with that argument a little bit. There's a lot of the constables are retired Houston police officers. They're not going to go back to Houston police department.
C. Kuffner (host):
Where I was going with this question is that you famously had a very productive and cordial relationship with then-County Judge Ed Emmett when you were mayor.
Annise Parker (candidate):
I also had a very cordial and productive relationship with the Houston Police Officers Union while I was mayor.
C. Kuffner (host):
True. As county judge you would need to have a hopefully productive relationship with Mayor John Whitmire who right now very much does not have a cordial and productive working relationship with Judge Hidalgo. Mayor Whitmire as you know is his own person with his own ideas about things. How do you foresee that relationship going?
Annise Parker (candidate):
I think we're going to have a good professional relationship. Now that doesn't mean that we're going to agree all the time, nor does it mean that I can call him up and persuade him to do things. I think he has his own mind, and he's going to do what he wants to do, but we've both been, I not nearly as long as he, but we've both been in government for a long time, and we both understand that it doesn't work if we don't work together. We both have very public records of being able to work across the aisle. Frankly, I've been able to work with every other public official I've come in contact with. Probably the one I have the the most challenges with is Lieutenant Governor [Dan Patrick], but even with Lt. Governor Patrick I've figured out a way to at least have communications, and you do what you need to do to protect your constituents, and John has not been particularly interested in creating a relationship with Judge Hidalgo, but we already have an established relationship, and I'm not worried about it.
C. Kuffner (host):
Okay, and also on the subject of law enforcement we have to talk about ICE and collaboration, or collaboration with or not with ICE. That's certainly a contentious issue right now at the city of Houston. It seems to have gotten less attention in Harris County. What's your view on how Harris County is dealing with or not dealing with federal immigration enforcement, and what's your priorities there?
Annise Parker (candidate):
The short answer is that that is under the control of individually elected constables and the sheriff, not subject to rules and regulations from the [Harris County] commissioners court. That said under the previous sheriff, and I believe the department participated in the 287(g). I don't believe the current sheriff does, and I think the constables and the sheriff and the city of Houston police officers should have the same position which is you would never ignore an active felony warrant for someone who is undocumented, but the fact that the federal government has decided to load all of these administrative warrants in to create a broader finer net to catch immigrants, that should be optional. I actually support the initiative that I know one of my opponents in this judge race on the Democratic side was trying to push through at the city, and that is expressly say in the general orders that administrative warrants are subject to the discretion of the officers because the belief now is and the position and use of police department now is that any warrants need to be called in, and there's a clear wire around that. I hope the city adopts it, and I hope the elected law enforcement leaders do the same.
C. Kuffner (host):
In terms of flooding let's talk a little bit more about the bond. That bond was built with the assumption that Harris County was going to get a bunch of matching funds that didn't work out; that's why it was as ambitious as it was. There are projects moving forward; this was an election in 2018, and we're still talking about it almost seven years later. What can you do, what will you do to bring more of this to completion as best as it can be done?
Annise Parker (candidate):
There are a lot of things that went sideways on these desperately needed projects, and first I think we needed the bond election to pass. We needed these projects. I think they just took the Christmas wish list of all these projects and just kind of threw them out there without really thinking through the prioritization, so then we get the authorization and the first prioritization was we'll do the projects that have matching funds, and a great idea, perfectly legitimate reason and way to prioritize, but those funds come in at different paces and at different times and you have to jump through different hoops to get them. I don't know at what point the county decided that well maybe we'll reprioritize.
Any time you change directions suddenly mid-project, you slow things down, but they reprioritized, and they said now our priority is going to be providing projects in underserved communities. Again, perfectly legitimate way to do it, but it's the change that starts slowing things down, and neither one of those lenses was applied to all that list of projects, so they sort of did it backwards. There really wasn't a clear and consistent plan at the beginning. The direct answer to your question how do you deal with it, currently prioritization is underserved commmunities. Fine. Paired with where we have matching funds. The piece that's not happening is the cadence of accountability. You need to be loading a public presentation by head of flight control, monthly, bi-monthly, whatever the appropriate cadence is, to stand up and have the conversation. These are the projects that have launched; these are the ones that are in-flight. You get a regular dashboard that everybody can see.
That's one, and the other I don't know that anyone has really gone out and had conversations with the community. I actually did a windshield tour of the North Forest area earlier this year, just going around with a couple of activists out there. What are the concerns in your community, and we spent a lot of time talking about flooding. Nobody talked to them, and flooding is tricky because if I want to solve flooding in one area I might have to do a project five miles away on a tributary, or cleaning out a canal or a drainage ditch. No one has presented to these various communities that are on the margins and that have flooded and that are worried. This is where we are. This is the plan. They've never come back. They went out and sold it, but they never came back, and that is one of the fundamental responsibilities of local government leaders is communication.
What I see when I look at Harris County government is the huge lack of communication among the commissioners centered around the judge, but then all of us have that responsibility to go back out and make sure the community knows what's going on. I look forward to having some of those conversations, so moving the projects by expediting, put it in front of the commissioners on a regular basis, so there's no way to say I didn't know this was happening; I don't understand. And then forcing the prioritization, and then having the realistic conversations out in the community. I guess I could have condensed my answer down to that.
C. Kuffner (host):
All right, that's all on the mitigation and prevention side, but there's also response. Harris County is the emergency responder when we have disasters which obviously includes flooding but lately also includes fires; it includes freezes; it includes pandemics.
Annise Parker (candidate):
It includes droughts. In my 18 years in office, six years as mayor, but in my overall 18 years in office we had 12 federally declared disasters here. There were three when I was mayor, and there's what you do up-front to prevent problems from occurring; there's what you do in emergency management during the crisis; and then there's what you do in emergency management after the crisis has hit. I've experienced all of those, and then even after I left office my time at Baker Ripley, we operated the evacuation shelter are [NRG stadium] for Harris County. I was the daytime manager for that shelter for nearly 30 days, so I'm very familiar with the various roles and responsibilities, and the Harris County judge, the county judge in every county in Texas is the ultimate emergency management authority. The best thing that I can do as county judge is to make sure I have the very best people in place; watch what they're doing; and stay out of their way. That would be a change.
C. Kuffner (host):
Okay, a lot of this conversation and broader conversation has been about how Harris County has to fight off state government and the federal government on a number of fronts, and one obvious way of fixing that is to make some changes to the state and federal government by electing people who actually want to work with us and do good for us rather than screw us. That means electing more Democrats. What are you going to do in 2026 to help not just yourself get elected but other Democrats get elected so that we're more and better represented at other levels of government.
Annise Parker (candidate):
I'm a sustaining member of the Harris County Democratic Party. I invest in the party. I've been a Democrat all my life, and I'm active in Democratic clubs. I have already stated publicly that as the top of the ticket in Harris County should I be the nominee for Harris County judge that commit to trying to bring the entire ticket along with me. I'm not going to say I'm not going to campaign with that person or that person because I don't like their policies. We are one Democratic ticket, and we can't let divide and conquer tactics split us apart, which is why it's somewhat frustrating to see that happening already within the party prior to the primary. I'm committed to doing everything I can for a unified ticket, and we have to stay on message. This is about the economy; it's about safety; and safety includes making sure that we keep water out of people's homes and just do the fundamentals of government.
C. Kuffner (host):
Okay, and in order to do that you've got to first get nominated, and you have two opponents in the primary, so when people go to vote for the Democratic nominee to be Harris County judge in March 2026, why should they vote for you and not one of your opponents.
Annise Parker (candidate):
I am experienced. I have a demonstrated skillset in this area, and I have public track record of being able to work with people at all levels of government and across the aisle to get things done, was for my city, now it is for my county. Neither of my opponents can say that, and really I don't know who the Republican nominee will be with six Republicans duking it over there, but if this is an election based on I want someone who can get the job done, there's no competition. Now I will also be the best-funded campaign on the Democratic side; I'll have the ability to bring my message to voters, and I absolutely believe that if this is about winning in November, I'm the strongest person we can put at the top of the ticket. So vote for me because I know what I'm doing; vote for me because I can help other Democrats win.
C. Kuffner (host):
All right, Annise Parker, thank you very much for speaking with me today.
Annise Parker (candidate):
Happy to.