Kim Ogg is Dangerous
Why a Growing Block of Harris County Democratic Precinct Chairs are Admonishing a Reactionary DA in Their Own Party
A few weeks ago, I and more than sixty other precinct chairs officially submitted a resolution to the Harris County Democratic Party precinct chair committee calling for admonishment of DA Kim Ogg by the county executive committee, our deliberating body.
The resolution to admonish was officially launched after an in-depth investigation by the Houston Chronicle into the DA's behavior titled 'Don't cross her': How DA Kim Ogg has repeatedly aimed her power at Harris County officials." I strongly encourage you to read the entire article, as it outlines the ways in which the DA has abused the power of her office to openly attacked political opponents within our party. In addition, the District Attorney has undermined many of her initial campaign promises and reforms within the party, going so far as to use Republican talking points to attack Judge Hidalgo by claiming (falsely) that the county is “defunding the police.”
No Democrat has gone more out of their own way to undermine and hurt other Democrats in the county than the DA has.
The Resolution
Our resolution rests on two simple, provable premises:
The DA has used her office to go after people she disagrees with, often taking a pass on investigating those she agrees with politically;
The DA has broken her campaign promises and failed to uphold the values of the Democratic Party.
Either of these premises are worthy of admonishment. We are winning the factual discussion regarding both. Every word of our resolution is true and validated by third party sources. The DA’ s supposed “fact check” of every contention in direct response to our resolution has been at best irrelevant, and at worst an outright lie.
Even the Houston Chronicle directly fact checked the most important claims in our resolution last week in a piece titled “What we know about the petition to admonish Harris County DA Kim Ogg.” We have also written an in-depth fact check debunking the DA’s claims in their entirety.
Let’s look at some of the high level facts.
Lies from the DA’s Fact Check
The DA’s lies fall into several clear camps:
That her hands are tied by the law and force her to take certain legal actions;
That she has “investigated both sides” and been impartial (she hasn’t);
And that she has not done the things claimed in the resolution.
Claim 1: Her “hands are tied.”
In response to critique of some of her worst offenses, Ogg has claimed that the law required her to take certain actions. The DA claims that she “must investigate” certain crimes, but does not explain the fact that she goes far beyond the requirements of the law to investigate crimes in some instances.
The law requires DAs to investigate election results. However, the law does not require that any investigations go to the Grand Jury.
The DA did not have to drag Hervis Rogers, a 64 year old man, in front of the grand jury over alleged voter fraud referred by Attorney General Ken Paxton.
She did not have to drag out an investigation into the 2022 election supported by election deniers in the Republican Party who have failed miserably (so far) in attempting to overturn our election results.
In both of these instances of mythological election fraud claims, the DA took the cases further than the law required, placating some of the nastiest interests in our state.
You will find this to be the case throughout the fact check: excuses for taking certain actions, sometimes acting in accordance with laws that have not even gone into effect, and citing precedent on out of state laws our resolution does not even mention.
Claim 2: That she is simply “calling balls and strikes.”
The DA attempts to respond to our Resolution’s claim that she has weaponized her office to go after people who she disagrees with politically while providing a pass to those who agree with her rests on several premises.
First, she attempts to say that her job is to go after people of both parties, and that her investigations have been nonpartisan. Second, she claims that she has gone after Republicans for similar paper crimes, citing the case of Steve Hotze.
With a little digging, both of these claims fall flat.
In her investigations of County Judge Hidalgo, with whom the DA disagrees on funding and misdemeanor bail reform, the facts of the case are consistently leaked to the media, and the investigation has been dragged out for more than two years.
The case against Judge Hidalgo was made into a major discussion during her reelection campaign; now, the DA has seemingly gone quiet. But just last year, Ogg’s suit enabled the Republican party’s county judge opponent, Alex Mealer, to splash pictures of three civil servants across television during the World Series, all because they simply did their jobs. The Houston Chronicle, our paper of record, has again cast serious doubt on the DA’s allegations.
The Judge has done a great job standing up for all of us and making Harris County better. She has been fearless and steadfast in her leadership, and the DA’s investigation has been clearly political: as Judge Hidalgo put it, “A jury can indict a ham sandwich.” But the DA has tried her best to knock Judge Hidalgo out of office on behalf of Republicans using a politically charged case that looks more laughable and offensive by the day.
The DA’s investigation of Commissioner Rodney Ellis yields further proof of irregulat and biased prosecution.
In most instances after a grand jury has finished deliberating and finds nothing, a DA will release a short statement saying, “The grand jury did not find anything, so the ballgame is over. Thanks for attending.”
However, after the DA came after Commissioner Ellis and he was no billed by a grand jury in her investigation of his office, the DA wrote a two-page open letter to County Attorney Christian Menefee attacking the Commissioner using claims that there was grounds for a civil suit, a legal practice so irregular that the attorneys I have spoken to have never seen it from a DA. Her legal behavior was a clear political attack. Menefee didn’t even dignify it with a response.
Ogg claims that she “investigates Republicans as well,” and cites Steve Hotze as an example. But the example does not help her case.
Unlike Hidalgo, Ellis, and Harris County judges, Hotze is not a Republican elected official. He is a wild-eyed conspiracy theorist who has mostly been pushed to the fringe of his party (which is really saying something, considering that we are talking about the ever more extreme Republican Party).
Hotze is not under investigation for purely a paper crime, such as those alleged against Hidalgo or Ellis by the DA. He is under investigation for a voter fraud scheme that led to a former police officer acting in his capacity as a PI to pull a gun on a repairman. In other words, Hotze’s case is one of violent crime.
Many Republicans were in office during Ogg’s first two years in her position, and none of them were investigated. But the real question here is, has the DA has gone after other Democrats who are alleged to have committed similar or worse infractions, but with whom she politically agrees?
The answer: she has. Twice, allegations of potential corruption in the office of two separate constables have come to the attention of the public.
In one case, the constable in power directed his office workers to support his reelection, a clear violation of the law and abuse of resources.
In the other allegation, female deputies claimed they had been exploited in “bachelor party stings.” The women launched a civil suit and explicitly stated that they had given the evidence to the DA, who referred it back to the constable’s office instead of investigating it herself.
The details of these incidents somehow, miraculously, never leaked to the media.
The constables in question agreed with the DA on opposition to the O’Donnell settlement (misdemeanor bail reform).
If those same circumstances had been applied to her political opponents-if Commissioner Ellis, for example, were alleged to put women in his staff in compromising positions such as a bachelor party sting-the DA would have most certainly investigated. She never would have referred the case back to his office for internal investigation.
As one might expect, the Chief of Staff of that constable ended up running against Judge Hidalgo in the primary.
Talk about disunity!
Claim 3: Denial of the resolution.
As I mentioned before, the claims in our resolution are true. The Chronicle’s fact check and our blog thoroughly dismantle the lies and misdirection Ogg offers in her initial rebuttal. They outline a paper trail for each of her claims, demonstrating why and how her behavior has been out of step.
Some of her biggest fibs are the easiest to dismantle.
Kim Ogg has been on the wrong side of misdemeanor bail reform. Period. She has been open about it for years. I know because I challenged her staff directly on the issue years ago. Even if I had not, Ogg rallied police chiefs against the O’Donnell settlement. She has asked consistently for high bail from judges on misdemeanor cases, going so far as to side with Republicans in fighting misdemeanor bail reform in the court of public opinion. Ogg has been celebrated by the bail bondsmen community for her efforts.
The DA has consistently investigated far beyond the legal requirements of her position. On investigations of elections and alleged “voter fraud” pushed by right-wing extremists like Ken Paxton, Ogg has gone further than necessary, thereby entertaining the delusions of election deniers. Any claims that she might be removed from office for such behavior have been thoroughly rebuffed by our reports.
I encourage you to read them, because we have backed up
EverySingle
Word.
Where We Are Now
Since filing our resolution with the Harris County Democratic Party resolutions committee, we have continued to gain signatures.
And a series of strange events have unfolded.
The DA attended a “Blue Surge Rally” last week, an event put on by several local Democratic clubs. The DA spoke, as did her primary opponent Sean Teare. When he gave his speech, she sat in the front row… and recorded him.
PHOTO CREDIT: Neil Aquino of the Houston Democracy Project A group of Oak Forest Democrats hosted Sean Teare. When two precinct chairs attempted to defend Ogg, another member stood up and said that while she could not speak to the resolution itself, she could confirm that the DA had gone after Democratic judicial incumbents.
A handful of precinct chairs are now pitching a call for “unity” and “support” in response to our resolution, but I have to ask:
Who has actually been trying to break apart our unity?
It is not that any of us want to spend time holding a DA from our own party accountable for their behavior. We would rather be supporting Democrats against Republicans! Republicans debate each other because half of them are Nazis, or their leader in Congress is an extremist.
The DA from our party has worked hard to sow division and destroy us from within, in concert with Republicans. People are fed up with getting bullied and railroaded by a member who is ostensibly of their own party.
Ogg’s behavior is all but an open secret among those who have followed her over the years. It is not enough that we avoid the conversation; she has forced us to choose between discussing this, or enabling dangerous, divisive behavior from a public official with enormous power and a track record for lashing out.
These behaviors have very real repercussions for democracy. At a time when Trump is calling for takeover of our democracy, we have to be vocal about the need to protect it. Democracy is sacred. It is not to be abused with platitudes, or late rushes of defense for bad behavior, nor is it something that exists only on paper. IT tangibly impacts and affects people’s lives.
There is a reason that the DA is making rounds at Democratic clubs and calling people she hasn’t had sitdowns or conversations with in years right now, and there is a reason that she was not having these discussions before:
She’s a bully.
And there is only one way to stop a bully:
By standing up to them.
As uncomfortable as it may be, none of us are standing up to this DA alone.
We invite you to join us in support of the resolution, and would be honored to have your support for it at an upcoming CEC.
If you have any questions or wish to sign on, please email me at mrdancohen@gmail.com.
In solidarity and strength with the Democratic Party,
Daniel J. Cohen
Harris County Democratic Party Chair, Precinct 272