Abbie Kamin gives a speech after taking the oath of office as Harris County Attorney during an investiture ceremony in Houston, Monday, June 15, 2026.
Brett Coomer/Houston Chronicle
In normal times, the job of Harris County attorney isn’t a sexy one.
But these aren’t normal times.
County Attorney: Abbie Kamin
Abbie Kamin ★★★1/2 — As appointed county attorney, this former City Council member, a Democrat, has combined administrative efficiency with successfully fighting federal overreach.
Jacqueline Smith ★★1/2 — Though qualified on paper, this Republican former judge’s refusal to stand up to federal interference makes her the wrong choice for turbulent times.
On paper, both candidates running for county attorney are qualified to handle the basics: Managing vendor contracts, some 300 employees and civil litigation. Harris County residents need a leader who handles these ho-hum responsibilities efficiently while meeting the extraordinary challenges of 2026.
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Abbie Kamin, 39, is uniquely suited to meet this moment. A civil rights attorney, she proved she could deliver as a City Council member under Houston’s strong-mayor system.
The Republican challenger, Jacqueline Smith, 62, is similarly accomplished, with experience both as a county civil court at law judge and assistant county attorney.
Our meeting with the two candidates could have been an even-keeled exchange between two qualified opponents. Instead, in the spirit of these times, we heard a fiery exchange about President Donald Trump and his attempts to run roughshod over every constitutional check and balance.
Trump has done more than just demand that Texas Republicans redraw congressional districts to elect more members of his party — never mind what’s fair or good for democracy. The White House also recently threatened to withhold millions of dollars in counterterrorism funds. That is, unless counties complied with onerous, last-minute voting restrictions — things like swapping modern bar-code voting machines for ones that only take old-school paper ballots, and running voter registrations through a federal immigration-status verification system that has repeatedly misidentified qualified U.S. voters as noncitizens. The changes risked violating state law.
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So the critical question is: Who will stand up for Harris County when bad-faith fiats threaten our interests?
Kamin has an arguably unfair leg up on answering. After former County Attorney Christian Menefee stepped down to run for Congress, the Democratic majority on Commissioners Court appointed Kamin to the job in April.
She doesn’t have to tell us what she would do, because she’s already done it: Her office joined El Paso, Dallas and Travis counties in a successful multistate lawsuit against the federal government. It saved the Houston-Woodlands-Sugar Land area from losing $23.3 million in critical national security funds while also protecting our elections from federal overreach.
Smith told us she wouldn’t have sued.
While agreeing that elections should be controlled locally, she signaled that she would not have stood up for voters. Instead, she said, she would have worked closely with the county and the Texas secretary of state to ensure every ballot is “traceable to an actual voter.”
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Spare us. How many lawsuits, audits and investigations does it take to prove voter fraud is exceedingly rare? We’re all for improving election security in sensible ways, and to do so methodically over a reasonable timeline. Rushed changes that disenfranchise thousands of legitimate voters? No thanks.
Kamin poked and prodded at Smith. For a lawyer with limited trial experience, the Democrat certainly has a knack for goading an opponent into losing their composure.
As assistant county attorney, she noted, Smith advised Paul Bettencourt, who as tax assessor-collector managed the voter roll. He resigned after rejecting and failing to process thousands of registrations ahead of the 2008 election. But as a red-faced Smith rightly pointed out, she left the office in 2006 — two whole years before that election. (To Bettencourt’s credit, as a Republican state senator, he has been among the loudest critics of state officials whose fumble this year led to a backlog of over 170,000 voter registrations.)
But Kamin wasn’t done turning the screws. Brandishing a printout of an online post from a couple of years ago, Kamin read Smith’s words aloud to the room. In it, Smith had breathlessly described Trump’s near-assassination as “divine intervention” and a sign of “God’s hand in our beautiful democracy,” writing: “we must accept that Trump is not the enemy — he is the chosen one to lead us back to our founding principles. This is how we know God blessed America.”
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“Do I agree with everything Trump’s done?” she said, “No, but I do think that he is the only one that was going to light the world on fire up there and make both parties be held accountable.”
We agree on this much. Trump is lighting the world on fire. That’s exactly why we need a clear-eyed champion in the county attorney’s office. Kamin is that person. She is fighting for fair elections, and more.
Already, she has made the most of her first 100 days. Kamin successfully challenged the Environmental Protection Agency’s termination of a nationwide clean-energy grant, clawing back $54 million for Harris County solar initiatives.
She has followed through on her primary campaign promise to go after exploitative landlords, and she has aggressively targeted deed fraud. Her office also teamed up with the district attorney to expand free protective-order services for domestic violence survivors, many of whom have become too terrified of indiscriminate immigration enforcement to ask for help. And she launched an in-house Family Division to better protect domestic violence survivors, kids, seniors and people with disabilities.
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Smith’s prickly disposition didn’t persuade us she’d calmly counsel commissioners who may disagree with her politically. We worry about the opposite for Kamin: She can err on the side of sycophancy. At least she has proven she can work across the aisle — partnering with conservative Commissioner Tom Ramsey on environmental violations at a Crosby wastewater treatment plant and the Hawthorn and Carverdale landfill.
Our county needs someone as capable of meeting the challenges of our new normal as they are competent at the mundane work that shapes everyday life. Kamin has proven that voters are in good hands with her at the helm. They should allow her to finish the strong work she has begun.
Who are you voting for in this race?
Did the editorial board get it right? Let us know.
Most RecentTop Responses
Allie L
Houston, TX
10/09/26
JORDAN
Larry B
Spring, TX
10/09/26
Patrick was a lying crook, is a lying crook, and will continue to be a lying crook only he needs to be doing it within his own home and not to the people and state of Texas nor to the USA from now on.