HOUSTON \u2013 Harris County Commissioners unanimously voted to appoint Jonathan Fombonne as interim county attorney on Thursday, following Christian Menefee\u2019s advancement to a runoff in the special election for Texas\u2019s 18th Congressional District.<\/p>\n
The vote came at the start of the Commissioners Court. <\/p>\n
Fombonne officially replaces Menefee, who resigned from the position due to his congressional run but remained in the role until a successor was selected.<\/p>\n
\u201cThank you for the trust that you\u2019ve placed in me. I appreciate the vote of confidence and the chance to serve as Harris County Attorney. I am grateful for it, and I take this job seriously,\u201d Fombonne said.<\/p>\n
He previously served as deputy county attorney and first assistant county attorney. In that role, he directly advised Menefee and oversaw all litigation and enforcement efforts within the Harris County Attorney\u2019s Office, including the Affirmative Litigation, Compliance, Environmental, and Real Estate divisions. He also managed election-related matters and major public law issues and served as trial and appellate counsel on several of the office\u2019s highest-profile cases.<\/p>\n
Before joining the county, Fombonne was a partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP in Houston, where his practice focused on securities, bankruptcy, and complex commercial litigation. His legal career also includes work at national law firms in Texas and New York, as well as a federal clerkship for Judge Solomon Oliver Jr., former chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio.<\/p>\n
Fombonne is a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School and Swarthmore College. He lives in Houston with his wife and three children.<\/p>\n
The appointment comes as Menefee and former Houston City Councilmember Amanda Edwards advance to a runoff election for the 18th Congressional District. Both Democrats were the top two finishers in the Nov. 4 special election but fell short of the 50% threshold needed to avoid a runoff in the 16-candidate field.<\/p>\n
Menefee finished first with 28.9% of the vote, followed closely by Edwards at 25.6%.<\/p>\n
The winner of the January runoff will head to Washington to serve out the remainder of former Democratic U.S. Rep. Sylvester Turner\u2019s term.<\/p>\n
During Thursday\u2019s meeting, Commissioners Court also passed a resolution recognizing Menefee for his tenure as Harris County attorney.<\/p>\n
Voters will select a permanent county attorney in the March primary, with the general election scheduled for November.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON \u2013 Harris County Commissioners unanimously voted to appoint Jonathan Fombonne as interim county attorney on Thursday, following…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116615,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[4952,288,56,58,57,50942,66,287],"class_list":{"0":"post-116614","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-christian-menefee","9":"tag-elections","10":"tag-houston","11":"tag-houston-headlines","12":"tag-houston-news","13":"tag-jonathan-fombonne","14":"tag-local","15":"tag-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116614","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=116614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}