\u2018This is a fiasco’: Fort Bend residents voice opposition to interim county judge appointment<\/a><\/p>\n Scott Spiegel, a spokesperson for Garcia\u2019s office, called the latest legal filing a last-ditch effort and a waste of taxpayer money.<\/p>\n
“It should be noted that two courts have already dismissed these baseless and ludicrous claims,\u201d Spiegel said Tuesday. \u201cThe relief the plaintiff seeks is not allowable under the Texas Constitution. We will be having no further comment at this time.”<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the county attorney\u2019s office said there is no provision in state law for filling a commissioners court seat by special election.<\/p>\n
The county clerk\u2019s office, which manages elections, deferred questions to the county attorney\u2019s office. <\/p>\n
In a press release Monday, Vega said a ruling by the Texas Supreme Court could allow voters to elect a commissioner before the end of the current term if a special election were to be called.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis case is about the rule of law and the voice of the people,\u201d Vega said. \u201cIf a vacancy occurred, then the residents of Precinct 2 have been denied their constitutional right to elect their representative.\u201d <\/p>\n
Vega\u2019s lawyers argue that Garcia should have vacated his position in 2021 when he was appointed to serve on the Gulf Coast Protection District, a local government entity established by the Texas Legislature to address the Gulf Coast\u2019s flooding risks. Legal filings assert that Garcia\u2019s move to assume a second office conflicted with his loyalty to the commissioners court. The Texas Constitution generally restricts an elected officer from holding more than one public office at a time \u2014 accepting a second office can act as an immediate resignation of the first office. <\/p>\n
However, acting Harris County Attorney Jonathan Fombonne argued in court in April that since Garcia\u2019s appointment to the protection district was not legal to begin with, his appointment to the board was technically void. The appeals court in an April ruling agreed with that notion. <\/p>\n
Fombonne said if there were any illegal expenditures through Garcia\u2019s votes on the protection district\u2019s board, those could be addressed by the commissioners court. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou could ratify all those past votes to make sure there are no quote unquote illegal expenditures,\u201d Fombonne said. \u201cEven assuming they had identified illegal expenditures, we can take action through commissioners court to ratify them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Garcia accepted a four-year term on the protection district\u2019s board in 2021, according to the lawsuit. He served simultaneously as a board member and county commissioner for one year before the lawsuit was first filed against Garcia in 2024. <\/p>\n
The Texas Supreme Court has given Harris County until June 15 to respond to the latest filing. Vega is seeking a ruling from the office by July 6. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lucio Vasquez \/ Houston Public Media Pictured is Harris County Precinct 2 Commissioner Adrian Garcia. A Harris County…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":319967,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[19470,405,100486,4164,56,58,57,66,223,3298],"class_list":["post-319966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-commissioners-court","tag-harris-county","tag-harris-county-commissioner-adrian-garcia","tag-harris-county-commissioners-court","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-local","tag-news","tag-texas-supreme-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319966","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=319966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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