The 507th Family Court is one of the two new courts in operation in Harris County, and thus one of the two spots on the ballot for which Democrats had to choose nominees this summer. In keeping with its Civil Court endorsements, the Chron recommends the incumbent for a full term.
Alyssa Lemkuil
Alyssa Lemkuil is the right person for the 507th Family District Court. The University of Houston Law Center graduate was appointed in January by Gov. Greg Abbott to serve as the first judge for this bench. So far she is doing an excellent job and deserves to stay in office.
Lemkuil, 54, has a warm demeanor and extensive experience in family law. Before serving as judge, she spent three years as the associate judge of the 308th Family District Court. She also has worked in the Harris County Domestic Relations Office as a child support prosecutor, and as an attorney and mediator in private practice.
During her time on the bench, Lemkuil has worked to improve processes by allowing and encouraging more communication via email to ensure that everyone has the litany of necessary papers ready before setting foot in the courtroom. The Democratic challenger, Julia Maldonado, is board certified in family law and is fluent in Spanish. She would bring some much-needed diversity to Harris County’s strikingly homogenous family courts – a problem that both candidates discussed during their meeting with the Houston Chronicle editorial board. Maldonado is qualified for the position, but Lemkuil is the superior candidate and has earned a full term on this bench.
As we have discussed before, the winner of this race and of the Harris County Criminal Court at Law #16 will have to run again in 2018, so they may as well keep campaigning once this election is over. To go off on a bit of a tangent here, I’ve been observing the proliferation of yard signs in my neighborhood lately. I live in a mostly Democratic area – the two precincts that cover my part of the Heights voted a bit more than 58% for President Obama in 2012 – but there are always a certain number of yard signs for Republican candidates. There were several I observed for various GOP Presidential hopefuls during the primary campaign. Since then, I’ve seen nada, though there are a couple of houses that now sport Gary Johnson signs. What I do see is a couple of houses that have signs for Republican judicial candidates, of whom Alyssa Lemkuil is one. There seem to be fewer of these than I’m used to seeing as well – I don’t have any objective measure of this, just my own observation – so make of that what you will. For what it’s worth, there’s at least one visible supporter of Judge Lemkuil in my neck of the woods.