From the Houston Press: Gonzalez Unseats Hickman to Become Harris County Sheriff

State and national races aside, Democrats did well in Harrow County

- Click here for the article.

Democratic challenger Ed Gonzalez defeated incumbent Harris County Sheriff Ron Hickman by nearly 64,000 votes Tuesday. Hickman conceded to Gonzalez shortly after 10 p.m., with roughly 81 percent of the votes counted.

Since Hickman's appointment by the Harris County Commissioners Court in May 2015, his administration had been plagued by continuing problems at the Harris County Jail — poor conditions that Hickman blamed largely on his predecessor, Adrian Garcia. (Garcia stepped down to run for mayor).

In a September interview with Houston Public Media, Gonzalez, a former Houston Police Department homicide detective and three-time city councilman, called Hickman's administration "stagnant" and "almost going backwards."

Gonzalez told the radio station “There’s three things that we’re addressing in law enforcement that do not have a law enforcement response, and that’s mental illness, poverty, and addiction. We’ve got to find community-based solutions to that."

Hickman's campaign had centered largely on the fact that Gonzalez was no longer a licensed peace officer, while stressing the incumbent's law enforcement bona fides. This earned him endorsements by the Houston Police Officers Union, the Harris County Deputies Organization and the Mexican-American Sheriffs Organization. (Perhaps even more importantly, he had the blessing of Gallery Furniture founder Jim "Mattress Mac" McIngvale).

But Gonzalez was endorsed by the Houston Chronicle, saying that the former homicide detective and three-term city councilman "built a record as a policymaker dedicated to diverting people from our jail — one of the major challenges facing the sheriff's office."

For background on problems with the Harris County jail:

- Jailhouse jeopardy: Guards often brutalize and neglect inmates in Harris County Jail, records show.

From the Texas Tribune: Austin Poised to Become First "Sanctuary City" In Texas

A look at an issue likely to dominate the next session of the Texas Legislature.

It also allows a look at the complications that result from our federal system, including conflicts involving the fact that county sheriffs are elected, and implement the law in accordance with the desires of the local community. If the community if Austin, then those decisions can put you in the cross hairs of the much more conservative state legislature.

- Click here for the article.

Conservatives already love to bash Austin — that bag-ban loving, Uber-hating, Democrat-electing enclave in the center of the most Republican mega state in the country.

Now the Texas capital city is poised to get the biggest target yet on its back: it is likely to become the first true “sanctuary city” in GOP-ruled Texas.

In a move that would defy not just Republican orthodoxy but also the Obama administration’s policy on deporting criminal immigrants, the county where Austin sits is on the verge of ending cooperation with the federal government on immigration matters.

That’s because the Democratic candidate for Travis County sheriff, Constable Sally Hernandez, has promised to get U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, out of the county jail. More specifically, she says she won’t hold inmates for ICE when the federal agency seeks to remove them from the country.

“I just don’t think you solve the criminal justice process by deporting them,” Hernandez told The Texas Tribune during a sit-down interview in her office this week. “We talk about being progressive. I believe we need to lead the way.”

Hernandez has a GOP opponent, Joe Martinez, who favors cooperating with ICE by holding immigrants the agency wants, as does the current sheriff of Travis County, Democrat Greg Hamilton. But with Donald Trump at the top of the Republican ballot and local politics being what they are — i.e., heavily stacked against anyone with an R next to their name — Hernandez is all but a shoo-in.

For his part, Martinez said if elected he would tweak current rules at the jail and only hand over the worst offenders to ICE, so changes are coming no matter which one of them is elected.

Groups mentioned in this article

- Travis County Sheriffs Department
- U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
- Sheriffs Association of Texas
- Texas Legislature
- Austin City Council
- Travis County Commissioners Court

From the Houston Press; What has Sheriff Hickman changed since taking office?

For our look at county office holders.

- Click here for the article.

Here's a summary of the findings:

The Good:

- Improving Jailer Training Requirements
- Overhauling The Booking Process

The Bad:

- Cutting jail inspectors
- Cuts to LGBTI programs

Toss-Up:

- Hickman's New Budget

From Grits for Breakfast: Primary races to watch

A good look at how locally elected positions can impact how state laws are implemented.

- Click here for the post.

Criminal-justice related political races are odd birds because the issues do not fall along obviously partisan lines, even if candidates are elected on those terms. Thus, Grits doesn't follow these elections through a partisan lens, particularly, but rather based on which candidate is best for promoting criminal-justice reform. Every cycle there seem to be a few local races which have statewide implications, so it's worth mentioning a few of them ahead of the March 1 primary.

The Sheriff's race in Fort Bend County features a reformer incumbent, Troy Nells, vs. a revanchist candidate backed by disgruntled ex-deputies complaining they lack free speech on the job. (Think: How much free speech do you get to exercise at your job when you disagree with your boss?) One of the challenger's big issues is to repeal an officer-safety based policy that reduced deputies' opportunities to initiate high-speed chases. Fort Bend County is growing fast and in many ways this is less a Tea Party vs. the Establishment race than a generational dispute between a young suburban professional class and old-school sheriff's deputies who liked the autonomy they enjoyed back when Fort Bend was more of a rural outpost. A Nells victory would signal that county voters have matured enough to accept the responsibilities of what increasingly has become a large suburban county.

From the Texas Tribune: Texas Sheriffs, Jails on Immigration Front Line

A good example of federalism - unintended perhaps. The national government has authority over immigration policy, but the practical reality is that local governments have to deal with immigrants more often than state or national officers.

- Clck here for the article.

The success of federal deportation policy in Texas and nationwide depends for the most part on a heads up from county sheriffs. They run the jails where people are taken when arrested and where the culling of criminal immigrants begins.

Being at the bottom of the enforcement pyramid places tremendous pressure on them — political, legal and otherwise — sheriffs say, and with federal policy increasingly targeting serious, repeat criminal offenders, their role in the process has grown.

“When some of these sheriffs talk about bringing in an undocumented, it may be one a month,” said Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez. “With us, it’s several a day.”
The legal tool federal authorities use to take custody of immigrants they want is the detainer. Around in some form or fashion since the 1950s, detainers are notices sent to jails asking them to hold on to an immigrant once local authorities are done with them so federal agents can come by and get them.

In its latest incarnation, the detainer is reserved for the most serious convicted immigrant criminals. This new, narrower restriction, imposed in November 2014, has caused the number of detainers to drop. As of October 2015, the latest monthly figure available, 7,117 detainers were issued. That's down from an all-time monthly high of 27,755 in August 2011, according to voluminous Freedom of Information Act requests made by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.

Texas is central to the federal agency’s deportation efforts. Nationwide, only eight jails received more than 1,000 detainer requests in the last year, according to clearinghouse data. Four were in Texas — Harris, Travis, Dallas and Hidalgo counties.

Printz v United States

The story in the previous post mentioned this Supreme Court case and suggested it provided precedence for state officials to not have to follow federal laws. The case involved the 

Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, also known as the Brady Bill that mandated background checks on gun purchases, along with a five day waiting period. It was to be implemented by local officials, which is what led to the conflict. Does the national government have jurisdiction over local officials? The Supreme Court said no.

For detail:

- Wikipedia: Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act.
- Wikipedia: Printz v United States.
- Oyez: Printz v United States.

Here's detail from Oyez:

Facts of the case

The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (Brady Bill) required "local chief law enforcement officers" (CLEOs) to perform background-checks on prospective handgun purchasers, until such time as the Attorney General establishes a federal system for this purpose. County sheriffs Jay Printz and Richard Mack, separately challenged the constitutionality of this interim provision of the Brady Bill on behalf of CLEOs in Montana and Arizona respectively. In both cases District Courts found the background-checks unconstitutional, but ruled that since this requirement was severable from the rest of the Brady Bill a voluntary background-check system could remain. On appeal from the Ninth Circuit's ruling that the interim background-check provisions were constitutional, the Supreme Court granted certiorari and consolidated the two cases deciding this one along with Mack v. United States.

Question

Using the Necessary and Proper Clause of Article I as justification, can Congress temporarily require state CLEOs to regulate handgun purchases by performing those duties called for by the Brady Bill's handgun applicant background-checks?

Conclusion

No. The Court constructed its opinion on the old principle that state legislatures are not subject to federal direction. The Court explained that while Congress may require the federal government to regulate commerce directly, in this case by performing background-checks on applicants for handgun ownership, the Necessary and Proper Clause does not empower it to compel state CLEOs to fulfill its federal tasks for it - even temporarily. The Court added that the Brady Bill could not require CLEOs to perform the related tasks of disposing of handgun-application forms or notifying certain applicants of the reasons for their refusal in writing, since the Brady Bill reserved such duties only for those CLEO's who voluntarily accepted them.

For some real fancy readin': Can Congress Regulate Firearms?: Printz v. UnitedStates and the Intersection of the CommerceClause, the Tenth Amendment, and the SecondAmendment.

From the Houston Chornicle:State: Harris County has not done enough to cut jail population

For 2306 when we start looking at criminal justice. This also fits with county government and state - local conflict.

- Click here for the article.

State officials have rejected a request from Sheriff Adrian Garcia to increase the capacity of the Harris County Jail and said local leaders have not done enough in recent years to reduce the inmate population.

The inmate population at the state's largest lockup has fallen in recent months after exceeding building capacity for the first time in two years last September, but the Sheriff's Office says it is too close for comfort. The population is known to swell in the summer months by as much as 1,000 inmates, said spokesman Alan Bernstein, noting that Garcia's request was intended to create some "flexibility" as county leaders work to reduce the jail population.
The building capacity of the county jail system is 9,434; the population on Monday was 8,814.

Garcia last week asked the Texas Commission on Jail Standards for permission to increase the number of supplemental beds used when the population swells, replacing 680 hard plastic cots with 1,064 metal bunk beds. He also asked that the jail still be able to use up to 100 mobile cots known as "boats" or "low-riders."

The Texas Commission on Jail Standards agreed only to let Garcia replace the 680 cots with bunk beds to save 5,000 square feet of floor space, keeping the inmate capacity the same.

Commission Executive Director Brandon Wood said Harris County has "made some great strides in regard to being able to reduce their inmate population." Asked if the county has done enough, though, he said the commission was "not provided definite, specific programs" by the county that "they've actually had up and running for any period of time."