The Harris County seal on the first floor of the county administration building.
Yi-Chin Lee/Staff photographer
Harris County Commissioner Tom Ramsey is seeking to suspend a program designed to distribute government contracts to businesses owned by minorities and women after a judge struck down a similar program run by the city of Houston.
Commissioners will consider Ramsey’s proposal Thursday, along with several other items related to the beleaguered program, which also faces a lawsuit brought by the same company that won the ruling against the city. Coupled with Texas’ recent move to dismantle a related statewide initiative, Harris County’s affirmative action program is facing an uncertain future.
A spokesperson for Ramsey, the lone Republican on Commissioners Court, said in a statement that his issue with the county program is that it was an inefficient program that fails to support the people it was designed to benefit.
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“Commissioner Ramsey has raised concerns previously that Harris County’s … program is overly complicated, expensive to administer and falls short of helping the small businesses it was intended to serve,” said Precinct 3 spokesperson Amery Reid.
Reid said Ramsey will ask the other court members to consider suspending the program while the county “develops a simpler and legally sound approach that better supports small businesses.”
MORE: Houston politicians react to minority business program being ruled unconstitutional by federal court
County Attorney Abbie Kamin indicated after the ruling against the city program, however, that she believes “there is a lawful and durable path forward that preserves meaningful opportunities for minority- and women-owned businesses while satisfying constitutional requirements.”
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Commissioner Rodney Ellis championed the county’s affirmative action program and created the Department of Economic Equity and Opportunity to oversee it, among other responsibilities.
He pledged to continue fighting for the program, calling actions against it “a cynical political maneuver designed to divide our community and deny opportunities to people across Harris County.”
“Instead of undercutting small businesses and their workforce during an ongoing affordability crisis,” he said in a statement, “we should be expanding opportunities so that everyone in our community can thrive.”
Ellis also added an item to Thursday’s agenda to discuss the lawsuit against the county in a closed-door executive session.
College admissions ruling sends ripples
Demonstrators react to the affirmative action opinion outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, June 29, 2023. The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the race-conscious admissions programs at Harvard and the University of North Carolina were unlawful, curtailing affirmative action at colleges and universities around the nation, a policy that has long been a pillar of higher education. (Kenny Holston/The New York Times)
KENNY HOLSTON/NYT
Harris County’s program and those like it mandate that larger firms and those owned by white men subcontract a portion of the business they receive to companies owned by minorities and women.
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Former county attorney Jonathan Fombonne previously said the programs relied on an interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment that allowed governments to take steps to remedy past harms, such as discriminatory business practices that resulted in companies owned by women and minorities receiving few government contracts.
But that legal foundation was undercut by the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision neutering affirmative action in college admissions.
Prior to that ruling, local governments needed only to prove that a disparity existed, typically by conducting a study examining the share of contracts that go to businesses owned by white men compared to those owned by women and minorities. A study published by Harris County in 2020 found firms owned by white men received more than 90% of the money the county paid businesses over a three-year period.
But now officials must show “specific, identified instances of past discrimination that violated the Constitution or a statute” in justifying contracting set-asides for minority-owned businesses.
Proponents say the programs are an equitable means of awarding government business to qualified companies and a chance for them to get experience by working with larger firms.
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EXPLAINED: Houston’s minority business program was ruled unconstitutional
But critics view these mandates as a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Jerry and Theresa Thompson, the plaintiffs in the lawsuits against the city and county, own a landscaping business that contracts with local governments. They allege the programs constitute discrimination and violate the Equal Protection Clause.
In the Thompsons’ case against Houston, U.S. District Judge David Hittner found that, although a city study identified a disparity between contracts awarded to white-male-owned firms and those owned by women and minorities, it did not find any examples of explicit discrimination.
Certification issues
While the ruling in the city case is a grim sign for the county’s program longterm, it will have an immediate effect on businesses’ ability to receive certification as being minority-owned.
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Businesses could previously be certified through the state or city, but both those avenues appear to be closed for now.
Former Comptroller Kelly Hancock announced in October that Texas would only certify firms owned by disabled veterans, not by women and minorities. He framed the move as an effort to comply with “recent court decisions” and an executive order issued by Gov. Greg Abbott calling for an end to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives.
It’s unclear if the city will continue to certify minority-owned businesses. The Office of Business Opportunity, which manages the program, did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for the mayor also did not respond to a request for comment.