In a deeply personal 60-second ad aired in September ahead of the state’s midterm elections, Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa shares her tragic pregnancy loss story. More than two decades ago she and her husband were “overjoyed” expecting their first child until an “unimaginable diagnosis” of trisomy 18, a severe genetic condition, assured a fatal outcome. 

“The doctor said I need you to understand she is not going to live,” said Hinojosa, her voice cracking through tears. “I did understand, but I was making that choice. I chose her.”

Hinojosa proceeds to say her daughter, who did not survive birth, is “why” she fights for Texas families’ “right to send their kids to good neighborhood schools. For an economy where their kids can afford to stay, where the powerful don’t get to tell the rest of us how to live.” Glaringly absent from the heartfelt political ad is any mention of reproductive rights, abortion, or Texas abortion laws. In fact, with anti-abortion undertones, the video could reasonably be interpreted as projecting a “pro-life” message to viewers unaware of Hinojosa’s robust pro-abortion legislative record during her almost 10 years serving in the Texas House. Reproductive rights advocates—while proudly and publicly endorsing Hinojosa as a gubernatorial candidate—told the Texas Observer that the campaign spot has even disappointed some in their community.

The “choice” Hinojosa so painfully explains she could have made many years ago—that is, between giving birth and undergoing abortion—is today, virtually non-existent as an option. The ad, likely meant to appeal to moderate and Republican voters, is a strategic one in what is considered a competitive race, at least based on recent polling. 

“We have been encouraging candidates like Gina to speak about abortion access unapologetically and with clarity. When we don’t explicitly use the word abortion, we produce greater stigma and shame,” said raven Freeborn, chief executive officer at reproductive rights advocacy group Avow Texas. “This is a crisis that ends in death. It is necessary for our candidates to be brave, bold, and direct about abortion rights.”

Gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa speaks at the 2026 Texas Democratic Convention in Corpus Christi. (Photo by Eden Shamy )

In a state that barred nearly all abortion care months prior to the fall of Roe v. Wade and enforces one of the strictest criminal bans in the nation, with no exception for rape, incest, or lethal fetal anomalies, and which has led to a devastating string of deaths amid a maternal mortality crisis) abortion rights would seem to naturally dominate the November midterm election cycle; instead, leading statewide Democratic candidates such as Hinojosa and Senate candidate James Talarico appear to be placing the issue on the back burner. 

Freeborn says there is a “noticeable difference” between the way local and down-ballot candidates, like some running for the Texas House, are vocally embracing reproductive rights versus what candidates at the top of the ticket are saying, and that appears intentional. 

While Hinojosa signaled she would help “do away” with the steep criminal penalties doctors face for performing abortion, including up to life in prison, during a recent Politico interview, she also admitted that widening abortion access “will not be my priority as governor because that takes way more than the election of a governor.” However, if elected governor, Hinojosa could certainly use her power to veto Republican-backed bills that come across her desk, set legislative priorities, and issue executive orders, as Governor Greg Abbottt did during the COVID-19 pandemic to temporarily block abortion care. 

When asked to comment on concerns that the campaign is avoiding the issue of abortion rights, especially considering her opponent’s aggressive track record of championing anti-abortion policies, Hinojosa issued a statement that omitted the word. “[Abbott] has put countless women’s lives and fertility at risk because he decided we should be forced to carry sick babies that will not live. When I’m governor, I will make sure that Texas women have the right to make their own choices, and be able to do so with privacy and dignity.”

Hinojosa certainly isn’t alone. When asked about the issue during a recent CNN town hall, the Presbyterian seminarian and Austin state Representative James Talarico, vying for a U.S. Senate seat against Attorney General Ken Paxton, told an orthodox Catholic “pro-life” voter they could find “common ground” on abortion. He vocalized support for reducing abortions by decreasing the number of unplanned pregnancies through expanding access to sexual education and contraception. And drawing from his religious education, Talarico has continually asserted the Bible is “silent” on abortion. When asked by the Observer for a response to those who say he is not highlighting abortion enough, his campaign issued a laundry list of Paxton’s “disastrous” attacks on reproductive rights; yet Talarico doesn’t appear to be prioritizing exposing his opponent’s vast anti-abortion record on the campaign trail. 

For Democratic state Senator Nathan Johnson, who is hoping to replace Paxton as the next Texas attorney general over Republican Mayes Middleton, abortion rights are omitted as a priority on his campaign website, a stark departure from previous Dem AG candidate Rochelle Garza, who made the issue a key focus of her run in 2022—when Roe was overturned—and vowed to stop enforcement of the law. 

Paxton has wielded the power of the attorney general’s office to zealously defend the state’s extreme abortion laws, threatening hospitals, doctors, and abortion funds with legal action, and fighting in court against nearly two dozen women who suffered under the ban. As attorney general he opposed federal emergency protections for pregnant Texans; criminally charged and sought to imprison a Houston midwife for alleged abortion care; and is currently facing a lawsuit from the family of Tierra Walker, a Texas woman who died as a result of the state’s ban. 

“Paxton is such a clear target for Talarico, there is so much available to criticize when it comes to abortion rights,” said Freeborn. “But candidates are not seizing these moments, it feels like such a wasted opportunity.”

One factor at play is the perceived lessons gleaned from unsuccessful campaigns of the the recent past. Elevated by her 13-hour filibuster meant to defeat a package of abortion bills, former state Senator Wendy Davis ultimately lost her 2014 bid for governor, after being smeared “Abortion Barbie,” by the right wing. In reality, Davis sought to distance herself—or at least moderate her stance—from the very issue that propelled her, saying she would support a 20-week abortion ban (albeit if deference is given to the woman and her doctor), drawing ire from abortion rights advocates. Beto O’Rourke, easily bested by Abbott in his 2022 gubernatorial campaign, promised to rescind the state’s abortion ban and widen reproductive health care if he ascended to governor. And presidential candidate Kamala Harris chose Houston to host a heavily attended pro-abortion campaign rally in 2024 before her defeat by Trump. 

“One of the things that you’re seeing in this election cycle is largely an avoidance of an issue that has been front and center in many previous elections,” said Joshua Blank, Texas Politics Project research director at the University of Texas at Austin. “Democrats feel that campaigning around abortion would be a losing issue for them right now.”

However, recent polls show Texans are widely supportive of abortion rights, with even a decline among Republicans advocating for stricter abortion policies since the state’s laws went into effect. Nearly 40 percent of Texans strongly disapprove of how lawmakers have handled abortion policy and 43 percent believe abortion laws should be less strict, according to polls conducted this summer by the Texas Politics Project. And a 2025 study from the University of Houston’s Hobby School of Public Affairs found that almost half of Texans want the Texas Legislature to pass laws that make it easier to access abortion. An overwhelming majority, more than 80 percent, believe exceptions for rape and incest should be allowed as well as abortion in the event of a lethal fetal diagnosis. 

Demonstrators march and gather near the Capitol following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in June 2022. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

Shellie Hayes-McMahon, executive director of Planned Parenthood Texas Votes, the group’s electoral arm, said that while Democrats are clearly “shying away” from abortion this election cycle, reproductive rights are still at the top of mind for Texans facing some of the most punitive laws in the nation. 

“I don’t think abortion access is being talked about enough this election cycle. It is not a priority issue on the campaign trail right now because Democrats are extra cautious,” said Hayes-McMahon.“But abortion is still a very important issue for voters, for families in Texas. These bans are literally killing women in Texas. How can it not be?”

Blank points out that the affordability crisis has dominated the midterm campaign cycle and for good reason, as rising fuel, housing, and food prices make the everyday cost of living untenable for some Texans. When the economy is strained, it tends to “crowd out” what are classified by political strategists as “social” issues like abortion care, he said. (Hinojosa exemplified this during a recent Texas Tribune interview by saying, “I live in reality. My agenda is an economic agenda. I have no interest in being in the space of culture wars.”)

“Democrats are trying to stay laser focused on the economy because they feel it provides them with the best chance of winning, even if that means they’re going to ignore some issues that are really important to their voters,” Blank said. 

Yet relegating abortion to merely a “culture war” issue is myopic, reproductive rights advocates argue. Abortion is inextricably tied to affordability, especially in Texas where the trek out of state for legal care—which may include gas, flights, hotel stays, and lost wages—can total thousands of dollars. Those Texans who are unable to obtain access and forced into parenthood must contend with escalating child care costs—and state-led cuts to assistance —amid inflation. Studies show denying women that access is linked to household poverty. In a recent lawsuit against anti-abortion activists, Texas mother Maria Puerto quantified the price of not having the economic resources to travel across state lines for care: Forced into two pregnancies while struggling as a single parent earning minimum wage, Puerto has requested $459,782– the average cost of raising two children in the state of Texas. 

And Texas abortion bans may be hurting the economy overall. A study from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research estimates that the laws cost the state nearly $15 billion annually in financial losses for women and businesses. 

“The ability to plan the size of your family is directly related to your financial security,” said Yvonne Gutierrez, executive director with Reproductive Freedom For All. “Reproductive rights are not just a social issue like some politicians want you to believe, they are absolutely intertwined with economic freedom. You cannot untangle them.” 

Still, not all Democratic candidates seem worried about speaking explicitly about abortion. Joining advocates during a recent rally outside the Department of State Health Services to demand the release of delayed maternal mortality data, state representative and candidate for lieutenant governor Vikki Goodwin stood as the sole statewide political candidate to attend the event. “Women are leaving this state because they don’t feel safe being pregnant in Texas. That is unacceptable,” she said, sharing that her daughter only felt comfortable giving birth outside Texas. Goodwin’s campaign website lists an action plan for reproductive health care, including a targeted call to repeal Texas abortion laws. 

“I think there’s hesitancy from some of the statewide candidates to make abortion a central issue, that it may harm their campaign,” Goodwin told the Observer in an interview. “But I think it’s just the way you talk about it. I don’t think anyone wants to see women dying during pregnancy. … It’s something that’s incredibly important to me, and it will be a high priority when I’m lieutenant governor.”

The post Why Aren’t Texas Democrats Talking About Abortion? appeared first on The Texas Observer.

This article is a collaboration between the San Antonio Express-News, El Pais, and Puente News Collaborative, a bilingual nonprofit newsroom and funder dedicated to high-quality, fact-based news and information from the U.S.-Mexico border.

EDINBURG — South Texas voters who embraced Don Trump two years ago have largely soured on the two-term president, and many of them are now smiling on a Tejano music star who’s running for Congress as a Democrat, according to a new poll.

Less than two weeks before a pivotal midterm election, Bobby Pulido appears poised to flip the 15th Congressional District seat in this heavily Latino district where Trump dominated in 2024.

The poll — commissioned by the San Antonio Express-News, El Pais and the nonprofit Puente News Collaborative — found that likely voters favor Pulido 51% to 44% over Republican Congresswoman Monica De La  Cruz.

Pulido with student musicians (Michael Gonzalez for Puente News Collaborative)

Among Latino likely voters, the gap widens, with about 57% for Pulido, compared with 40% for De La Cruz. The Latino population accounts for about 82% of 15th District residents and 65% of its likely voters. 

Pulido is also pulling ahead among independents, 55% to 33%.

The poll, conducted in Spanish and English, was carried out Oct. 13-16 by Texas Southern University’s Barbara Jordan Public Policy Research and Survey Center. The survey has a margin of error of 3.8%, with 5% of voters still undecided.

The Cook Political Report rates the 15th District race in the Rio Grande Valley as a toss-up. 

“If the economy was booming then Republicans would be doing much better in South Texas,” said Mark Jones, a political scientist at Rice University and co-director of the poll. “But the economy is not booming.”

Moreover, Jones added, the 15th’s new district map, part of the president’s gerrymandering plan to add more Republicans in the House of Representatives, may not be working out as envisioned.

“The false assumption that Republicans made was that Latinos would vote the same way they voted for Trump in 2024, but that was very unrealistic — Latinos remain a swing vote,” Jones said. “Trump is underwater in the Valley, by 10 points. His bubble is bursting.”

Among the poll’s key findings:

52% of likely voters in the 15th District report being worse off economically than a year ago, while 21% report being better off and 27% report being about the same.

57% of likely voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy. Just 37% approved.

51% of likely voters disapprove of the president’s handling of immigration and border security, while 47% approved.

Separately, in the gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races — and among the district’s likely voters — Gov. Greg Abbott leads Democrat Gina Hinojosa 49% to 46% and Democrat James Talarico is favored over Republican Ken Paxton 48% to 46%, according to a poll by the University of Houston Hobby School of Public Affairs.

If Pulido wins, he will have surfed a wave-like, nationwide retreat of the Latino vote from Trump and the Republican Party, analysts say. That swing has upended Republican plans and underscored the growing importance of the fickle — or persuadable — Mexican American voter.

Many of these voters don’t have strong ties to either major party.

Accordingly, Pulido has been running less as a Democrat and more on his personal popularity and a rejection of Trump, who won the district by 18 percentage points in 2024. 

“I’m not going to Washington to serve a political party. I’m going to serve you,” the two-time Latin Grammy Award winner told some 9,000 rambunctious fans at an Oct. 17 concert in his hometown of Edinburg, which he said was the last one of his 31-year music career. “I made music for me. I’m running for Congress for you.”

Much of Trump’s appeal two years ago may have been in his vows to fix what many here and nationwide saw as a broken border. This year, with undocumented border crossings reduced to a trickle, voters’ focus appears to have shifted from border security to the high cost of gas and groceries, according to the El Pais-Express News-Puente News poll.

The fear factor — a sense of chaos and conflict at the border — isn’t dominating the election cycle. Instead, ICE raids are increasingly seen as a drag on the economy, Jones said, pointing to the construction and trade sectors.

“A lot of industries that depend on undocumented immigrants have simply stopped functioning,” Jones said. “Houses aren’t being built, and therefore construction supplies aren’t being purchased.”

‘Promises turned out to be lies’

Pulido is hugely popular across South Texas. Nearly everyone seems to have a personal connection with the singer or claims to. That’s why he’s largely built his campaign around singing at dozens of quinceñeras — coming-out parties for 15-year-old girls that are cultural touchstones. 

Though De La Cruz is also from the Valley, her support is stronger in counties farther upstate and ranchlands away from the border, according to the poll results.

Her campaign did not respond to interview requests. 

Looking like a jigsaw puzzle piece, the 15th District runs north from the border through sparsely populated, brush-choked oil and cattle country. The Stars and Stripes dominate among the few flags flying on ranch gates and along urban streets. Deeply proud of their Mexican heritage, many district residents also are resolutely American.

Lourdes Trevino-Cantu, 73, a retired high school librarian and lifelong resident of Falfurrias, now runs the town’s small but intriguing Heritage Museum, which focuses heavily on ranch life, the Texas Rangers and Mexican American culture.  

With the decline of ranching and the local oil industry, many Anglos who once held sway here — in politics and business — have moved away, Trevino-Cantu said. The Mexican Americans who remain feel their political allegiances pulled left and right.

“If I wasn’t personally connected to Bobby Pulido, I would probably be confused,” she said. “Those who voted for Trump last time are going to vote for Trump again because they don’t want to admit they were wrong. They believed in his promises that turned out to be lies.”

‘A terrible policy’

Ads on televisions in restaurants in Falfurrias, George West and other district towns warn that Pulido, Talarico and other Democrats are “radical” and “dangerous” Texans. One ad advises South Texans and Texans in general to vote Republican to get Trump’s agenda “across the line.”

Valley businessman Abad Morales, 36, said he’s done with fear-mongering. Though he supports tightening enforcement on the border, Morales has been outraged by detention and deportation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement of undocumented migrants who are otherwise law-abiding.

“I’m not going to lie, I did vote for Trump,” said Morales, who’s running as a Democrat for city commission in Weslaco, a border city in them15th District. “I am not against controlling the border, but what they are doing with deporting people is different.”

In an interview, Pulido said he supports tougher border enforcement. But he is also calling for immigration reform to help border families as well as farmers, builders and other businesses that depend on migrant labor.

“Catch and release,” the Biden-era policy that allowed entry to hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers, “was a terrible policy, terrible,” Pulido has said. Apart from attracting millions of poor migrants to the border, the policy resulted in log-jammed immigration courts and delayed or derailed residency claims by residents or their relatives. 

‘A rejection of both parties’

Pulido’s bid to unseat De La Cruz, an ally of Trump, is among the most watched races in the country because it might be indicating another shift in the Latino vote. Long a bastion of the Democratic Party, the Mexican American vote shifted dramatically in favor of Trump and the GOP in the past decade.

Latino voters are becoming even more crucial as they look for a political home.

“What appears to be happening is more of a de-alignment than a re-alignment,” said Mike Madrid, a Republican political analyst and expert on the Latino vote. He co-founded the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump organization. 

“It’s really more rejection of both parties,” Madrid said. 

Pulido’s son Rodrigo and wife Mariana (Michael Gonzalez for Puente News Collaborative)

African American voters are largely sticking with the Democrats, Madrid said. The Republican base — working class, white and non-college voters — are sticking with the party, despite economic pain, the Iran war and other worries, he said.

“The only group that’s moving are Latinos, and that swing you’re going to see a full display in the San Joaquin Valley, Allentown (Pennsylvania) and Rio Grande Valley,” Madrid said. “In many ways, the valleys in Pennsylvania, California and Texas represent the future of this country.”

‘Almost at the finish line’

Inside Bert Ogden Arena, Tejano music fan Martha Garcia, 54, anxiously waited for Pulido’s “La Ultima Desvelada” — the last sleepless party — to begin. She had mixed emotions. 

A lifelong fan of Pulido, she said she felt “sad that he won’t sing again,” but “I don’t know him as a politician. I don’t know how or what he will do.” 

She remains unsure if she’ll vote this time around. “The Democrats ignored us, but the Republicans are killing us” with high prices, tariffs and those “ugly ICE raids,” she said.

“I hope if Bobby wins he can turn the page,” she added. 

Pulido’s chances may rest on getting people like Garcia to cast a ballot. About half of registered voters didn’t bother in the 2024 presidential election.

While he’s popular in the borderlands, turnout in the northern parts of the 15th District could overwhelm his support.

“We’re almost at the finish line,” Pulido said at a recent event for other local candidates. “But if you don’t vote, we can lose this.” 

The post Poll: Bobby Pulido Appears Poised to Flip the 15th Congressional District appeared first on The Texas Observer.

This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy, and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.

Regulators in Texas did not stop processing permits for data center projects when Gov. Greg Abbott ordered a pause last month, according to an analysis of public records released Monday by the oil and gas watchdog group FracTracker. 

Amid an upswell of public opposition to the booming buildout of digital infrastructure in Texas, Abbott directed the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality in a Sept. 21 letter “to halt all permits sought by data centers.”   

But FracTracker, in collaboration with Public Citizen, identified 35 permitting actions taken by the TCEQ for data center projects in subsequent weeks.

“TCEQ has continued reviewing applications and issuing approvals that allow data center development to proceed,” the groups said in a press release Monday. “These actions do not signal an agency trying to pause.”

Greg Abbott speaks during an election night campaign event in November 2022. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

In response, Abbott Press Secretary Andrew Mahaleris indicated that the pause applied to approval, not processing, of permits.

“No permits have been approved,” Mahaleris said in a statement. “In line with the Governor’s directive, TCEQ has not taken and will not take any proactive actions related to the approval of data center permits.”

Abbott has described his moratorium as an opportunity for state agencies to evaluate the facilities’ impact on water resources and grid stability. 

“No other state agency shall move forward with regulatory approvals related to data centers until this information is acquired,” Abbott wrote in his Sept. 21 letter to TCEQ executive director Kelly Keel. 

TCEQ responded to Abbott in an Oct. 19 letter, which was provided to Inside Climate News by Ryan Vise, TCEQ’s director of external relations.

In the letter, Steven Schar, TCEQ’s interim executive director, wrote: “TCEQ staff are screening pending permit applications to determine if they are subject to the directive. If a permit application is subject to the directive, TCEQ has paused that permit application.”

Since the Sept. 21 directive, the TCEQ has fast-tracked or assigned engineers to 14 permits, approved stormwater coverage for 11, certified emissions estimates for seven and issued public notice for three, according to permitting documents collected by FracTracker and Public Citizen. 

The permits regard construction of gas power generation facilities for energy-hungry facilities. All of the largest gas power projects currently proposed in Texas are specifically intended to serve data centers, which are primarily planned to run artificial intelligence.

The projects would release tens of thousands of tons of regulated pollutants, according to permitting documents, as well as more than 100 million tons per year of greenhouse gases—an enormous amount roughly equal to the annual emissions of a mid-sized industrialized country.

The day after Abbott’s pause on data center permits, on Sept. 22, FracTracker and Public Citizen found that TCEQ mailed notices of preliminary approval to three major projects: NRG Prairie Energy Center, VoltaGrid’s ABI-1 power plant and Nexus’s self-powered data center in Hubbard. 

The agency opened public comment periods on two of those projects in following days. 

FracTracker and Public Citizen found approvals of stormwater management permits for data center construction issued after Sept. 21, including for Caldwell Valley Technology Park in Caldwell County, Crusoe’s Abilene campus and EdgeConneX’s Cedar Creek campus.

The report identified numerous other projects that continue to advance through permitting. For example, records show the TCEQ received a permit application for generators at Edged Energy in Dallas on Oct. 6, and an engineer completed an initial review on Oct. 9.  

“Our research uncovered glaring inconsistencies between regulatory actions and Governor Abbott’s directives,” said Sam Law, manager of communications at FracTracker Alliance and author of the report. “We need an actual pause to study the threats posed to the land, water and livelihoods of Texans.”

The post Texas Continued Permitting Data Centers After Abbott’s Pause, Report Finds  appeared first on The Texas Observer.

The call came at noon on a Friday from a number I did not recognize. It was my client’s brother. He had been trying to reach me for days, as I had been trying to reach my client for weeks through the jail’s messaging portal. 

My client never replied. 

“He is nonverbal,” is the first thing his brother told me. The brother went on to explain that my client has a severe intellectual disability, that he has been through the county’s mental health system, and that a court found him incompetent earlier this year. Because of the nature of his disability, his competency was never going to be restored.  Still, he was stuck in the county jail unable to post a $10,000 bond. 

The charge? A non-violent misdemeanor. 

In the tired voice of someone who has told this story many times before, his brother explained that my client likes to take walks in the evening. Sometimes officers stop and question him and because he cannot answer, they mistake it for noncompliance—failure to comply, resisting, or interfering are criminal offenses in Texas—and arrest him. This was not the first time.

While this man sat in jail, a key document that could get him released sat in the county’s files. A doctor had examined him and had filed a written report finding him incompetent in February, in an earlier case, in front of the same court. Still I, the lawyer appointed to defend him, didn’t get that information. Instead, I received only a one-page mental health intake sheet from the jail that said my client had answered “no” to questions about suicide, alcohol, and drug use.

I now know that information was wrong. He is nonverbal. He cannot answer no.

I have thought about that piece of paper more than is probably healthy, and I still do not know how a government form recorded the “spoken” answers of a man without speech, and at the end of that process, a magistrate judge set bond at $10,000 for a man who could not have asked for a lawyer even if his life depended on it. Which, in a way, it did. 

Most of us never consider how bail works, but we should. Almost everything that happened to my client happened because of that dysfunctional system. A bond is money you put up to guarantee that you will return to court. Post it and you go home while you fight your case; fail to post it and you sit in a cell until the case ends. A bondsman will assist for a fee of around ten percent, which on a $10,000 bond is a thousand dollars. My client is cared for full time by his brother, and he has no income and no way to earn any, so there was never a version of this story where he paid and went home. 

Fortunately, the prosecutor on this case is one of the best I have worked with. I called him that Friday and told him what I’d learned, and I asked that we move to dismiss the charges given the prior evaluation. I told him I did not want my client sitting in jail through the weekend. He immediately filed to dismiss, and my client was released.

I could tell you at least a dozen stories similar to this one. They all share a common theme: In a cash bail system, justice depends on the size of your bank account. Asking a judge to lower a bond means requesting a separate hearing that can take months, especially in a small county. And if you cannot pay, the fastest way out of a cell is to plead guilty, not to win and not to be found innocent but to give up. People take the plea, and if I were in their position, I probably would too. 

This kind of thing doesn’t happen much in Harris County anymore, which is the reason I am telling you this. It happened 100 miles down the road in one of the small Texas counties where I take court appointments.

In Harris County, it would not have gone the same way, and not because the people there are any better at their jobs. It is because a federal court order prevents it. Since 2019, Harris County has operated under the ODonnell consent decree, which came out of a lawsuit filed by a woman arrested for driving with an invalid license who could not afford a $2,500 bond. 

That decree clearly works and saves taxpayers’ money—though it is currently being challenged in federal court. Before that decree, roughly 40 percent of everyone arrested on a misdemeanor in Harris County sat in jail for the entire time their case was pending, not because a judge found them dangerous but because they could not pay. And 84 percent of those still in jail when their cases ended pled guilty just to get out. 

Under the consent decree, most people arrested on Class A and B misdemeanors are released automatically pretrial. Those reforms, researchers found, have cut misdemeanor system costs by about a third, roughly $1,191 per case. Almost 28,000 cases a year now qualify for release without anyone paying a bond.

In response to an appeal, Senior U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal refused to vacate the order on October 5. She reasoned that the four misdemeanor judges who filed motions challenging the consent decree, and the Texas attorney general, had all missed their deadlines to make certain arguments. But another appeal has already been filed.

Two things from that briefing stayed with me. First, Harris County, the government that actually got sued, said it would need a full year to prepare if the consent decree were to be vacated in order to hire staff and possibly build another jail facility. So Harris County is on record saying that if it returns to cash bail, it lacks room to house all the people who would be stuck in custody, unable to bond out.

The second is the attorney general’s argument that throwing out the order takes away no remedy an individual arrestee could pursue in state court.

Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks outside the U.S. Supreme Court. (Bryan Olin Dozier/NurPhoto via AP)

I practice in state court, and I would love to tell you that the system works. Unfortunately, pursuing a remedy there looks like filing a written motion and waiting months for a hearing you may not get. It looks like appearing by video on the day your client, still in jail, pleads guilty just to go home to family. It looks like a man who cannot speak and was stuck in jail on a $10,000 bond because nobody sent his lawyer the document saying he had already been found incompetent. 

Harris County is rare, because a multitude of people here are fighting for the rights of clients like the one I described. In fact, 12 of the 16 misdemeanor judges, the county itself, and the sheriff all fought efforts to overturn the order that helps poor people accused of minor crimes who can’t post bond—even though the order also limits county officials’ own authority. That’s not something leaders often do. 

My job is mostly to point out how and when the system fails, and for that reason I think it is equally important to say so when the system gets something right, but the fight is not finished. 

What should worry everyone outside Harris County is none of these reforms reach the rest of us. In the rural county I described above there is no consent decree, and no published data on how many people remain stuck in jail on minor charges because of an inability to post bond. The only reason Harris County knows that 28,000 cases a year clear the jail without anyone paying bond is that the county is required to track that data.

Pretty much everywhere else, nobody is counting. This is not about any one judge, prosecutor, or officer. Most have done right by my clients when it counted, including in the case I described. It’s about what a cash bond does to a person who has no cash. 

My nonverbal client, if relief had not been granted, was never going to be able to post a $10,000 bond. For him, the bond was not a condition he could satisfy, it was a sentence. It was a wall. And in a county with no order instructing it otherwise, the only thing that removed that wall was a brother who found my phone number. My client is fortunate to have such a brother. Most do not.

The post In a Cash Bail System, Justice Depends on Your Bank Account appeared first on The Texas Observer.