First woman leader in largest Texas county describes challenges

Lina Hidalgo, the first woman elected chief executive of Harris County, Texas, told a National Press Club Newsmaker in-person and virtual audience Tuesday, Dec. 7, how change came to her state’s most populous community.

“We started with looking under the hood,” the young Democratic leader and first Latina in that position said about leading a county that has a population larger than that of 26 states and is home to Houston. Elected in an upset three years ago, the then-27-year-old Hidalgo's first challenge was preparing her county budget, she told the audience after Axios news desk editor and moderator Michele Salcedo gave introductory remarks.

County commissioners, and judges like her, don’t attend budget hearings, she learned. But that’s my job, she told her staff, half of whom she had retained from the previous administration. In Texas, a county chief executive is called a judge, a title Hidalgo quickly explained “is not by any means a judicial position. It’s an executive position.”

Until she changed its format, budget hearings lasted about 45 minutes. Each department (there are more than 20) would submit a single page asking for a 2 percent budget increase. “Show me why you need the money,” she asked, and was met with blank stares, she told the audience. But decisions with billion-dollar price tags can’t be made without time to discuss them, she said. Now hearings run eight hours every two weeks.

Pioneering policy and bringing “the force of county government to the most challenging issues in her community” prompted Hidalgo to be creative around issues, from reducing blight and increasing vaccinations, to focusing disaster recovery on helping “the worst first.”

The only Democrat to run for her post in 2018, she campaigned on a platform to get rid of the old boys' network that made decisions behind closed doors without transparency, she said.

More recently, Hidalgo battled a Republican legislature to preserve her county's voting reforms, including 24-hour voting and drive-through voting.

She clashed with Republican Gov. Greg Abbott on voter suppression, vaccine mandates, county revenue caps and her own authority as chief executive. “A lot of my authority has been stripped by the governor,” she said.

Salcedo, who edits Axios’ Latino newsletter, cited a 2020 study by Northern Illinois University that found Texas to be the most difficult state in which to vote in the country. “In recent years, the state has reduced its number of polling locations by 50 percent. It has adopted a strict photo ID law. And it has a 30-day deadline for in-person voter registration,” she said.

Last month the Department of Justice sued Texas over its voting restrictions. And Monday, Dec. 6, it filed another lawsuit over redistricting. 

Hidalgo is proud of successful voter registration drives for both parties, and last week filed for reelection. She pointed to $100 cash card incentives to spur vaccinations among hesitant populations that led to about 60,000 more people getting vaccinated. She cited a flood prevention project that spared an area that habitually floods. She created a county administrator position, which she considered a necessity for such a large county.

But challenges remain on many fronts: If the Republican legislature would expand Medicaid, she said, 10 percent of Harris County residents would have insurance coverage. Forcing energy companies to winterize instead of making toothless recommendations is another. So is creating a criminal justice system that distinguishes between imprisoning repeat and violent offenders and people who should not be incarcerated: “We’ve created a debtor’s prison,” Hidalgo said, for people who can’t make bail.

Beto O’Rourke, running for Texas governor in 2022, organized a massive voter turnout in Hidalgo’s 2018 race and wrote her profile for Time magazine’s 100 Next list that highlights 100 emerging leaders shaping the future.

Hidalgo credits her Houston public high school with changing her view that government is something to avoid. She saw how government could be a force for good, something she didn’t see in Bogota, Colombia, where she was born, and in Peru and Mexico before her family moved to Houston.

Hidalgo addressed journalists at the start of her talk: “I admire the work you do protecting democracy through independent reporting.” Her remaining remarks proved to be a civics lesson in how government works at the county level — a lesson from one of the nation’s youngest chief executives in the public sector.