![\"Harris](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/HarrisCountyAdministrationBuildingHoustonTX-1-1000x667.jpg\")
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Wikimedia Commons<\/p>\n
Harris County Administration Building in downtown Houston.<\/p>\n
Harris County commissioners on Thursday selected Deputy County Attorney Jonathan Fombonne to serve as the county\u2019s interim chief legal advisor, after delaying an appointment for months.<\/p>\n
The appointment was prompted by County Attorney Christian Menefee\u2019s run for Houston\u2019s 18th Congressional District. He has been serving as acting county attorney since announcing his candidacy for Congress<\/a> last March. <\/p>\n Before his appointment Thursday, Fombonne served as Menefee\u2019s direct advisor and oversaw the county\u2019s litigation efforts. <\/p>\n Sign up for the Hello, Houston!<\/a> daily newsletter to get local reports like this delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n \u201cThe most rewarding part of this job has been partnering with each of you to help move this county forward,\u201d Fombonne told commissioners Thursday, \u201cwhether it\u2019s taking delinquent property tax in-house, negotiating closing the purchase of land to expand the Armand Bayou nature preserve, providing legal support during disasters.\u201d <\/p>\n Harris County<\/p>\n Interim Harris County Attorney Jonathan Fombonne<\/p>\n Menefee announced his resignation from the county attorney position last March, when he decided to run for the congressional seat vacated by late U.S. Rep. Sylvester Turner, who died earlier that month<\/a> at age 70. But Menefee continued serving in an acting capacity until Fombonne\u2019s appointment.<\/p>\n RELATED: While acting Harris County attorney seeks congressional seat, commissioners delay backfilling his position<\/a><\/p>\n Menefee is competing against former Houston City Council Amanda Edwards, a fellow Democrat, in a Jan. 31 special election runoff<\/a> to complete Turner\u2019s term. Though commissioners were charged with appointing Menefee\u2019s interim replacement, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said during a December press briefing that commissioners made a decision to wait until 2026 to make the appointment for logistical reasons. <\/p>\n Though Menefee provided legal counsel to the county government and acted as its representative in litigation, he’s repeatedly used his position to fight President Donald Trump’s administration<\/a> in federal court. It\u2019s not clear if Fombonne will take a similar approach to the position, which he will hold until the end of this year. <\/p>\n “I see the county attorney’s job as being a practical partner to this court,\u201d Fombonne told county commissioners. \u201cHelping you understand the legal landscape, finding solutions to legal problems, raising issues when we need to and staying out of the way when we don’t.”<\/p>\n In a Thursday statement following the new appointment, Menefee credited career attorneys who carried out his vision for the position. He said he was most proud to have proved that local government can be \u201cbold, smart and effective all at once.\u201d <\/p>\n “I didn’t run for County Attorney to hold a title, I ran to build an office that shows up for people, and that’s what we did,\u201d he said. \u201cWe took on hard cases, powerful interests, and delivered real results for working families.”<\/p>\n The county attorney position will be on Harris County election ballots<\/a> later this year. Three candidates filed to run for the position: Houston City Council member Abbie Kamin<\/a> and civil court Judge Audrie Lawton-Evans, who are both Democrats, and Republican Jacqueline Lucci Smith, a former civil court judge who once worked in the county attorney\u2019s office.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wikimedia Commons Harris County Administration Building in downtown Houston. Harris County commissioners on Thursday selected Deputy County Attorney…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":115846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[4952,11080,2441,405,39321,4164,36176,56,58,57,50942,66,223,287],"class_list":["post-115845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-christian-menefee","tag-county-attorney","tag-court","tag-harris-county","tag-harris-county-attorney","tag-harris-county-commissioners-court","tag-harris-county-judge-lina-hidalgo","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-jonathan-fombonne","tag-local","tag-news","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Jonathon](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/JonathanFombonneMug.jpg\")
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