Hidalgo says she passed Ramsey a note to try to stop the tax vote. Now she says she will not vote for Briones.

Lina Hidalgo told ABC13 on Monday that during the Sept. 17 tax vote she passed Tom Ramsey a note, hoping he would help deny the court a quorum. He stayed, the rate passed, and she now says she will not vote for fellow Democrat Lesley Briones in November.

Why it matters

The rate Hidalgo tried to block is the one on your October tax statement. County budget officials put the increase at about $190 a year for the average homeowner, according to ABC13.

The county judge presides over Commissioners Court. Her own account shows she tried to stop a vote she could not win by making it impossible to hold, and then walked away from it.

By the numbers

3 to 1. Adrian Garcia, Rodney Ellis and Lesley Briones voted for the rate. Ramsey, the lone Republican, voted no. Hidalgo walked away during the vote, ABC13 reports.
4 of 5 members must be present to levy a county tax under Texas Local Government Code 81.006(b). With Hidalgo gone, Ramsey was the fourth.
67.147 cents per $100 of taxable value, up from 62.413 cents, a 7.6 percent increase, per the county budget office rate table.
$3.1 billion budget, per ABC13.
2022, the year Ramsey and a former Republican commissioner did not show up for the tax rate vote, per ABC13. That is the move Hidalgo hoped he would repeat.
3 months left in Hidalgo’s term. She is not seeking re-election.

What the coverage buried

ABC13 got the story, including the text of the note, and asked both Ramsey and Briones for comment. What it did not print is what a quorum break would have produced. Its piece says Hidalgo wanted to make “a vote on the tax rate impossible” and stops there.

Texas Tax Code 26.05(c) finishes the sentence. If a county does not adopt a rate by its deadline, its rate for the year becomes the lower of the no-new-revenue rate or last year’s rate. A walkout that held past the deadline would not have bought more debate. It would have set a lower rate by law.

The other side

Hidalgo’s case is that the county is on “a problematic financial path.” She blames rising appraisals, inflation and the deputy pay raises the court approved, and says she wanted more time on the budget. On this spending question the objection is not coming from one party. The Republican on the court voted no, and the Democrat who presides over it is now campaigning against a Democratic colleague.

The case for the majority is also real. A recorded vote can be looked up. An empty chair cannot, and a court that two members can shut down by staying home can be shut down by any two. That argument applied to the 2022 walkout, and it applies the same way now. Hidalgo also chose to leave rather than vote no, though staying would not have changed the result, since three of five was enough to pass it.

Briones’s campaign did not respond to ABC13. Neither did Ramsey’s office, on the note or on whether he considered breaking quorum.

What to watch

Whether Ramsey confirms Hidalgo’s account of the note, or says what he answered.
Whether Briones responds to the specific reasons Hidalgo gave: the childcare ballot proposal and her spending record.
Oct. 1, when the county fiscal year begins, and October, when tax statements go out.
Nov. 3, the general election for Precinct 4 commissioner and for county judge. Hidalgo told ABC13 she supports Democratic nominee Letitia Plummer for county judge.

Bottom line

The county judge sided with the Republican on the court on spending, and she is saying so in an election year. That is worth knowing. So is the part her account leaves out: the tactic she reached for would have handed the rate decision to state law, not to more debate.

Sources

Editorial