I confess to being a little confused at first when I read this. A half-dozen Harris County departments will spend the rest of the year scrambling to fulfill a Texas Supreme Court mandate that all civil courts accept only electronic filings, starting next January. In a ruling issued last December, the high court said large [...]
Posts Tagged ‘District Clerk’
On encouraging jury service
District Clerk Chris Daniel notes that many people do not get paid when they take off work to serve on jury duty, and that therefore they generally choose to ignore their summonses. During the upcoming session, the state Legislature can address this issue and ensure that jury pools include a true cross-section of county residents [...]
January finance reports for Harris County offices
For the most part, it’s way too early to start thinking about the 2014 Harris County elections – we have a legislative session and a city election cycle to get through first – but since January 15 is a reporting deadline for county officeholders, I figure I may as well have a peek at who [...]
You can donate your jury duty pay to charity
As you probably know if you have been called to jury service in Harris County, jurors get paid $6 for showing up, and $28 per day after the first day if they are selected to serve on a jury. What you may not know is that you can donate that pay to charity if you [...]
The demographics of jury service
Why is it that juries in Harris County tend to not reflect the demography of the county as a whole? District Clerk Chris Daniel explains why in a recent Chron op-ed. If you’re familiar with the concept of “citizen voting age population” (CVAP), you will likely nod your head as you read it. This isn’t [...]
Bailing out the bail bondsmen
It’s not often that the District Clerk makes front page headlines, but ours did late last week. Harris County District Clerk Chris Daniel has not collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in court costs since taking office in January because, critics say, it would hurt business for bail bondsmen who contributed to his campaign. “He’s [...]
Loren Jackson signs on with Sheriff’s office
Great news. District Clerk Loren Jackson, who was defeated by Republican Chris Daniel last month, will likely stay in county government when his term expires on Dec. 31. Sheriff Adrian Garcia proposes hiring him as his chief of information technology. Jackson is not named on the Commissioners Court agenda, but he is “the special assistant” [...]
Endorsement watch: The remaining countywides
After making a normal and expected endorsement of County Judge Ed Emmett and an abnormal and unexpected endorsement of Orlando Sanchez, the Chron goes Democratic for the remaining three countywide offices. District Clerk: The duties of this office include summoning jurors for the district and county criminal courts, maintaining court records, preparing daily court dockets [...]
The Chron on the District Clerk race
You really should read the Chron story on the District Clerk race, since it sums up pretty nicely why Loren Jackson has done such a great job. It starts with an anecdote you’d have read on Mark Bennett’s blog and goes from there. In the 22 months since [November 2008], Jackson has vastly increased the [...]
Interview with Loren Jackson
Next up is Loren Jackson, who is finishing up the unexpired term of Harris County District Clerk that he won in 2008 after incumbent District Clerk Charles Bacarisse resigned to run in the GOP primary for County Judge. Jackson has been a whirlwind of activity in the HCDC’s office, swiftly implementing major upgrades to the [...]
Fundraising: Harris County
The top story for the Harris County money race is that County Judge Ed Emmett has a big lead in financial resources over challenger Gordon Quan. Gordon Quan said he knew from the start that challenging County Judge Ed Emmett would be a David and Goliath race. Their bank accounts now confirm this: Quan has [...]
Ballot position and the Republican races
Inspired by a comment JJMB left on the previous post about the effect of ballot position on the judicial races, I went and looked at the Republican results to see what I could see. Here’s what I found. – Though there were the same number of races on each ballot, the Republicans had far fewer [...]
Election results: Harris County
It was a bad day to be the establishment candidate for Harris County Clerk, let me tell you. Ann Harris Bennett crushed Sue Schechter for the Democratic nomination, winning with 63% of the vote. On the Republican side, wingnut Stan Stanart, who lost a 2008 race for the HCDE Board of Trustees after taking out [...]
District Clerk primary overview
There’s one race on the ballot that features an incumbent countywide Democrat in a non-judicial office, and that’s Harris County District Clerk, where Loren Jackson is running for a four-year term after being elected to complete Charles Bacarisse’ unexpired term. This Chron story is about the two Republicans who are vying to replace him. Frankly, [...]
HBA 2010 Judicial Candidate Qualification Questionnaire
Via Hair Balls, we find the 2010 version of the Houston Bar Association Judicial Candidate Qualification Questionnaire, in which the HBA’s membership rates judicial candidates, plus candidates for County Judge and District Clerk, as “Not Qualified”, “Qualified”, or “Well Qualified” for that position. I’ve heard some folks, like Tom Kirkendall, refer to the HBA poll [...]
Loren Jackson files for re-election
Most of the focus for the Harris County Democratic Party in 2010 will be finishing the job from 2008, which is to say winning more judicial races and the executive offices that will be up for election. There are a couple of seats to defend at the countywide level, however – Judges Dion Ramos, Robert [...]
Harris County Jury Assembly Room now has WiFi
Jury service in Harris County just got a little more pleasant. The following is a press release from District Clerk Loren Jackson: Today’s universal tech boom has given way to ‘digital dependence.’ Harris County citizens are no different when it comes to relying on digital connection. In a move bridging a major digital divide and [...]
Bacarisse, too
Rick Casey jumps on the Ed Johnson bandwagon, and he starts off with the information that former District Clerk Charles Bacarisse was doing the same kind of moonlighting as Johnson was. Bacarisse hired out as a $4,500-a-month consultant to a courier service and a company that served court papers on parents who failed to make [...]
District Clerk update
Nice article in Texas Lawyer about what’s been going on in the Harris County District Clerk’s office under Loren Jackson. Lawyers handling civil suits in Harris County district courts will soon have fewer excuses for missing a court hearing. On Jan. 17, the Harris County District Clerk’s Office began testing an automated docketing feature that [...]