The Democratic candidate to replace Letitia Plummer as Harris County Judge could be in some hot water when it comes to her campaign finances. Just a few months after beating former Houston mayor Annise Parker for the nomination, she’s now facing ethics complaints.
According to reporting from The Texas Scorecard, on top of filing late reports during the primary election, Plummer is alleged to have paid out thousands of dollars from the campaign account incorrectly and even accepted illegal corporate donations.
Former Harris County Republican Party Chair and attorney Jared Woodfill, who also serves as the president of Conservative Republicans of Texas, pointed specifically to an alleged $10,000 payment Plummer’s campaign made to her own dental practice, saying: “That particular item needed to be itemized if it was a loan; and then it should have been itemized in terms of how it was paid back and what it was for.”
He also called out a payment of $5,000 that was made to a member of Plummer’s family, who isn’t named in the report, as another example of something that should have been well documented and itemized, but according to the complaint, wasn’t.
Woodfill also believes this casts doubt on Plummer’s ability to effectively run Harris County if she wins her November race against the county’s former treasurer, GOP nominee Orlando Sanchez. “If she can’t get her campaign finance reports correct, I’m very concerned about how she would deal with a budget in the hundreds of millions of dollars,” he said.
Plummer has committed to reviewing her finance reports and amending them if necessary in order to ensure compliance with state law.