The Harris County judge race has found a new battleground: X.
“Just two years ago, Letitia Plummer publicly called for a tax increase, calling it ‘the most responsible way forward’ for Houston,” Sanchez wrote on X. “Houston families are already stretched thin. We don’t need higher taxes.”
Plummer pushed back, saying the proposal was tied to disaster cleanup and never took effect.
“The ‘tax increase’ Orlando is attacking me for was an emergency proposal to cover Hurricane Beryl & Derecho cleanup,” Plummer wrote. “It was never implemented. A man who hasn’t led anyone through a natural disaster has no business lecturing me on disaster preparedness. I’ve been through 6.”
In a statement to Chron, Sanchez’s campaign said Plummer was “once again attempting to rewrite history and mislead Harris County voters.”
“Two years ago, as a Houston City Council member, she publicly supported and joined colleagues in proposing a property tax rate increase, calling higher taxes ‘the most responsible way forward’ to cover costs tied to the May 2024 derecho and Hurricane Beryl,” Sanchez’s campaign said. “That proposal was real. The record is clear. It was only withdrawn after state assistance arrived.”
Gabrielle Harris, digital director for Plummer’s campaign, pushed back in a statement to Chron.
“The vote Orlando keeps screenshotting was an emergency measure to clean up after Hurricane Beryl and the derecho, when Houston families had trees through their roofs and debris blocking their streets,” Harris said. “Orlando calls that a tax hike. Everyone who lived through it calls it recovery.”
The 2024 tax proposal in question did not move forward. Chron reported at the time that Plummer and three other Houston City Council members proposed increasing the city’s property tax rate by 5 percent in October 2024, but withdrew the proposal after Gov. Greg Abbott announced $50 million in state disaster-relief funding for Southeast Texas communities affected by the derecho and Beryl.
The back-and-forth escalated when Sanchez replied with a clip from a different debate last Saturday and asked, “You mean the $50 million you called a lie?”
Plummer then accused Sanchez’s campaign of using a misleading edit and posted what she called the full unedited clip.
“It looks like Orlando’s team had some fun with editing this morning!” Plummer wrote. “Here’s the full unedited clip. My opponent continues to mislead Harris County voters with partial information as a deceptive tactic to win. Context matters. Don’t fall for it.”
Sanchez’s campaign denied that the exchange was an “attack.”
“Voters deserve honesty, not spin,” Sanchez’s campaign told Chron. “Supporting higher taxes on Houston families already stretched thin is a matter of public record, not an ‘attack.'”
Harris also pointed to Sanchez’s own political history.
“We’d hate to throw cold water on Orlando. Somebody already did that in 2018, when he was out selling the lie that a hostile state takeover would fix our public schools,” she said. “Orlando has a long history of getting soaked. This time it’s by the facts.”