{"id":230577,"date":"2026-04-01T18:40:23","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T18:40:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/230577\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T18:40:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T18:40:23","slug":"commissioners-leave-out-language-condemning-judge-lina-hidalgo-over-march-10-rodeo-incident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/230577\/","title":{"rendered":"Commissioners leave out language condemning Judge Lina Hidalgo over March 10 rodeo incident"},"content":{"rendered":"

HARRIS COUNTY, Texas (KTRK) — Harris County Commissioners passed a resolution honoring Rodeo Houston, but left out the portion calling for Judge Lina Hidalgo to resign or apologize over a concert incident.<\/p>\n

Commissioners arrived at court on Tuesday, when an agenda item called for celebrating the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. <\/a><\/p>\n

It wasn’t just about what happened earlier this month regarding visitors and money raised for scholarships. Commissioner Tom Ramsey had a portion of the item condemning Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo following an incident on March 10, when she alleged she had been manhandled by rodeo security.<\/p>\n

The video above is from a previous report. <\/a><\/p>\n

Rocky rodeo incident leads to call for resignation<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Hidalgo was asked to leave the rodeo after officials said she tried to access dirt seats during a concert. Officials said Hidalgo was told in advance that no seats were available and that she had access to a suite. Rodeo officials said Hidalgo was given dirt tickets to earlier shows.<\/p>\n

REPORT: The facts behind Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo’s allegations against the Houston Rodeo<\/a><\/p>\n

Hidalgo said she was grabbed, shoved, and threatened while she was denied access. In a statement, she said, “Some people, mostly white men, have felt emboldened to treat others, particularly Hispanics, with physical force.”<\/p>\n

“Her unfounded comments about those who devote their lives to making the world’s largest rodeo an annual success should be grounds for resignation, and a bipartisan call for apology,” Ramsey said.<\/p>\n

While the item called for her resignation, Hidalgo wasn’t there to address the matter. On Tuesday morning, Hidalgo’s staff messaged ABC13 reporter Nick Natario to say Tuesday’s meeting would be short.<\/p>\n

However, when ABC13 asked where Hidalgo was or had any reaction to Ramsey’s item, her staff didn’t respond.<\/p>\n

Hidalgo shared media files from the night, but nothing showed that she was shoved by staff. She later went to the NRG grounds looking for video, but said nothing was captured on camera.<\/p>\n

Days after the incident and Hidalgo’s statements, the rodeo stripped her of her ex officio director status. It is an honorary role granted to those who hold an office title.<\/p>\n

During the meeting, Commissioner Lesley Briones said she couldn’t support Ramsey’s item if it included language to call for Hidalgo’s resignation.<\/p>\n

“Representative elections have consequences,” Briones explained. “It’s up to the people to vote people in or to go through a process to take them out.”<\/p>\n

Briones did give thoughts on what happened.<\/p>\n

“The way I was raised, respect is non-negotiable,” Briones said. “Manners matter. The way I expect myself and my children to behave, everyone should behave, especially elected officials.”<\/p>\n

SEE ALSO: Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo votes to revoke Harris County judge’s ex officio title<\/a><\/p>\n

Rice University political science professor Mark Jones told ABC13 there’s little commissioners can do to remove a judge. They can call for a resignation, but it holds no weight.<\/p>\n

Commissioner Rodney Ellis also said he couldn’t support calling for her resignation. “When I really wanted someone to do it, I’d do it privately, as opposed to publicly, just based on my experience,” Ellis said.<\/p>\n

Ramsey believed they should at least call for Hidalgo to apologize.<\/p>\n

“The rodeo was insulted,” Ramsey said. “The rodeo was disparaged. For us not to acknowledge that the rodeo was disparaged, and we need to set the record straight. I don’t agree with what she said.”<\/p>\n

Briones and Ellis voted to pass the resolution without language calling for Hidalgo’s resignation or apology.<\/p>\n

13 Investigates obtains texts that led up to the incident<\/p>\n

ABC13 obtained text messages between Hidalgo and Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo Chairman Pat Mann Phillips the week of the rodeo incident.<\/p>\n

On March 8, Hidalgo told Phillips how great a job she was doing and hoped she was cherishing the time, ending with a smiling cowboy-hat emoji.<\/p>\n

The next text in the thread was on March 11, when Hidalgo requested a meeting with Phillips the day after she tried to get onto the chute seats on the dirt the night of the Megan Moroney concert.<\/p>\n

The rodeo said Hidalgo and her guests had not been granted access.<\/p>\n

In the text messages to Phillips, Hidalgo said she wanted a meeting so the people she was with could explain “how yesterday made us feel.”<\/p>\n

In a follow-up text, Judge Hidalgo says she “urgently” needed all angles of the recordings from the chute, ending the message with, “I was manhandled and believe that is a crime.”<\/p>\n

Chairman Phillips didn’t text back until the next day, saying they were sending the video to her via courier and that the executive committee had voted to revoke her “ex officio director status and its privileges.”<\/p>\n

Through an open records request, information we received from the Harris County Sports & Convention Corporation shows that Hidalgo is listed as having admission to the county’s suite for the first 10 rodeo shows. In total, she received access for 54 guests.<\/p>\n

ABC13 has not been able to get clarity from the rodeo on whether Hidalgo herself attended each of those shows.<\/p>\n

The suite is separate from the chute seats the judge was trying to access that night.<\/p>\n

The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo said Judge Hidalgo was given 21 chute seats, totaling almost 9-thousand dollars in value.<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 KTRK-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HARRIS COUNTY, Texas (KTRK) — Harris County Commissioners passed a resolution honoring Rodeo Houston, but left out the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":230578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[89149,56,58,57],"class_list":{"0":"post-230577","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-89149","9":"tag-houston","10":"tag-houston-headlines","11":"tag-houston-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230577","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=230577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}