Harris County Commissioner Tom Ramsey Interview on Lina Hidalgo

A county judge gets removed from the Houston Rodeo, then doubles down with public allegations and a letter that sparks a new political firestorm. We sit down with Harris County Commissioner Tom Ramsey to unpack what happened, why it matters, and how a moment of public behavior turns into a serious question of local leadership and public trust.

We talk about the Houston Rodeo as a pillar of the region, from its volunteer culture to its major economic impact, and why Ramsey believes Harris County owes the organization more than polite praise. He explains his push for a formal apology and a resolution calling for resignation, then walks through what actually happened inside Commissioners Court when the language got tabled, debated, and amended. Along the way, we dig into how quickly accountability debates get diverted into partisan talking points, and why Ramsey argues this is bigger than party labels.

Finally, we zoom out to the leadership standards behind the headlines: showing up for meetings, owning mistakes, and having the temperament to lead when the next emergency hits. If you care about Harris County politics, Houston Rodeo news, local government accountability, and what integrity should look like in public office, this conversation will give you context and clarity.

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Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. I'm your host, Michael Wilson, and you're listening to the Lone Star Conservative brought to you by Textellant AC service on the line, on the air. We have with us Tom Ramsey from Harris County Commission Church Court. Welcome to the show, Tom.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

Great, good to be here. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Absolutely. And we have Tom on this morning because we have some pretty wild developments coming out really over the last couple of weeks. Of course, it's all kicked off with Lena Hidalgo's I mean, I I hate to call it a temperate tantrum breakdown at the rodeo when for the first time ever someone tried to tell her, hey, that just doesn't work this evening. Um, of course, she was escorted from the premises, uh her her uh directorship was revoked, her ex officio director status was revoked by the rodeo. And so I think it was fair uh when people came out and said, hey, maybe there should be some sort of consequence for this. Maybe there should be some sort of formal apology, especially in the wake when she put out this massive letter uh where there were these crazy allegations of racism and sexism and possibly illegal manhandling uh that she talked about. So I think it was fair when you came out a couple weeks ago and you said, Hey, I think we need to bare minimum put a resolution forth to not only thank the the Houston Rodeo, but to say, hey, we're sorry, and we're calling for her resignation. And so that was uh I believe that was tabled during the last meeting.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

Yeah, they were they chose not to deal with it at that point. That would have been a perfect time to deal with it because the rodeo was still going on. Everybody was still focused on what's going on out there. They had they'd more recently heard the outlandish remarks made by uh made by uh Judge Hildago. So it would have been better if it would have been two weeks ago where we could stand up in a bold and courageous manner, I would say, and say, you know, that's not right. You know the sad thing is everybody on commissioner's court has experienced her bad behavior. They've seen her, for whatever reason, get triggered and then go off into some really wild, outlandish accusations. So you know that this is the only individual that's ever had their credentials revoked. Now, the the rodeo is just the greatest PR program we have in the entire region. They're the most respected organization anywhere. And when they're board of directors, directors, their bipartisan board of directors, the leaders in this community get in a room and say, you know what, we're gonna revoke her credentials because we're an at l outlandish uh accusation, then at that point, we as the county, that's our facility, we owe them an apology for what she said, what she accused of folks up. So their unfounded accusations and and her entire sense of entitlement that she gets to go to the rodeo, she gets to sit wherever she wants to sit. No, when you go to the rodeo, all of us were guests of the rodeo. She doesn't she doesn't look at it that way. So, you know, I find it ironic they talk about King. Well, they ought to be talking about Queen. This would be Queen Lena, thinking that she's entitled to go anywhere, anytime, behave any way she wants to, and no one is gonna say anything about it. And that's just that's just not right. It's absolutely embarrassing.

Commissioners Court Avoids Accountability

SPEAKER_00 3:27

Right, and it would have been bad enough had it all ended with what literally happened, right? If it had all ended the night of the rodeo, that already would have been a massive embarrassment for the county. Uh already that your county judge is having to be thrown out. I think that already was was uh too many steps too far. That alone. You throw in that we all know Lena's history, right? We all know how she's left for concerts, how she's just not shown up to meetings, the temper tantrums. I mean, I'm sure you remember bringing in the kids to try to bully Commissioner's court into passing her early child care program. This is a pattern of behavior. It's not one mistake. And then in the wake of that mistake, there might have even been a little respect gained. Had she come out the next morning and said, I'm so sorry. Uh I behaved awfully last night. I even said on my show, I said, you know, we probably would have all said, wow, what a what a mature response if she changed. But of course we didn't get that. We got then on top of that those allegations of racism and sexism and manhandling and just berating the rodeo and the rodeo leadership. And so they tabled that and said at the next meeting we'll address it. And the last meeting I understand was yesterday. Can you kind of give us some breakdown as to what happened yesterday?

SPEAKER_01 4:38

So we started with, again, I wanted to honor the rodeo. I think that's that's a reasonable thing to do. They just completed their most successful uh rodeo on record. You know, the total of economic impact of the rodeo in this region, 326 million. There's 5,694 jobs supported by it. When you look at the number of volunteers that goes out there, it's a it's tens of thousands of people. And these are these are everybody from uh uh uh uh folks in the in the in the uh uh back room to the folks in the head office, these these are everybody, this is everybody's rodeo. This is this is our celebration of of Houston. And to go to that program and and not so we yesterday we celebrated. We went through the the data, we went through the details, and they acknowledged, yes, the rodeo is wonderful. I said, but you can't celebrate the rodeo on one hand and not apologize for the damage that Judge Hildago did insulting the rodeo the way the way that she did. But I did not get folks agreeing with me. I find it interesting. The argument was, well, you know, we should let the voters decide. We should we don't have the legal authority to take her out of office. We don't. All we can do is ask her to do the right thing, and that's all we were doing. We were asking Judge Hildago to show a little integrity. We're gonna, I'm going to resign, I apologize, I've embarrassed people, we're gonna move on. We've got many things to deal with over the next eight months that she's in office, but they chose to make it political. I mean, even one of the commissioners brought up Donald Trump and said, well, maybe he needs to resign. I didn't know what Donald Trump had to do with rodeo, and this is a classic example. They start talking about other things. I knew when they brought up Donald Trump that, okay, they're making this political. I'm not making it political. I'm making it all about the rodeo. I'm making it all about doing the right thing. Show a little integrity. Why don't you resign? Because there are some critical things that's going to be happening over the next eight months, and she is not in any position to deal with any of them. She hadn't been to the last three meetings. She wasn't there yesterday. I was hoping she would be there. And maybe, to your point earlier, maybe she could have said then, I apologize. I'm sorry. You know, that wouldn't be that wouldn't re rebuild everything, but it would have been something. She's not owned up to any of her remarks.

The Heated Seat Dispute Details

SPEAKER_00 7:31

Right. And that's kind of the thing is maybe even if she had bare minimum, if she had shown up, and this is crazy to me, because of course, you know, regardless of the power or authority of the commissioner's court, for you guys to come out and there be the option, because going into this, everyone thought that maybe it would get passed. For there to be a resolution calling for her resignation and for everyone to be aware of it and her not show up knowing that could happen is already insanity. But if she had shown up and said, hey, I'm not going to resign, the people duly elected me, but what I will do is say I was wrong, and I apologize. Even even weeks later, uh, where we say you should have done this sooner, even then there would have been a level of cordial response among among commissioners to say, Well, thank you for that. Like bare minimum, thank you. But none of that. She didn't even show up.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

You know, you know, she went uh three nights in a row to the rodeo as the rodeo's guest. And she expected to have the best seat in the house. It's called, it's kind of on the dirt. It's down there by the stage where the concert's going on. And those are pretty high-priced tickets. She's been down there, she had six tickets three nights in a row down there. And the fourth night, when she asked to go down there, they said, Sorry, Judge, it's sold out. You can't tonight. Into yes, a cussing argument. You would not want to listen to the take of cussing that she did to the leadership there at the rodeo. She even said, she even said this. She said, Well, you know, if I was Ed Emmett, you would let me in. I thought the rodeo's response to that was if you were Ed Emmett, you wouldn't be acting.

SPEAKER_00 9:15

Yeah, and that's kind of the same thing with Donald Trump. They want to bring Donald Trump into it. You could just easily say, Yeah, you know what? If Donald Trump was the Harris County judge, I don't think we'd have this problem. Exactly. Exactly. And so now, of course, you have this this this sort of, they turned it into this sort of partisan battle of Republicans versus Democrats. And of course they did that. That's not really a surprise to many of us. But the result of that now is the the Democrats are acting like, you know, uh Rodney Elsevier, we're successful. We thanked James Rodeo, we did our job, we passed our resolution. It's like, no, you passed an amended resolution that on uh it's both sides of your mouth. On the one hand, you're saying, yeah, we're we're thankful, we thank you for everything you do. Uh but all the disrespect and disparagement that you suffered as a result of our leadership that we're largely responsible for, that's our county. We're not going to say anything about it at all. Nothing to nothing to say about it. Um and again, it's this sort of pattern of behavior.

Why Decorum Matters In Public Office

SPEAKER_01 10:12

It's insulting to the rodeo to not even address it, to not even say, they don't even say. They they didn't even say, they said, yeah, we celebrate the rodeo. Well, what about what about Judge O'Doggle's behavior? Wouldn't you call him out on it? Why wouldn't you call him out on it? But the fact that they wouldn't is their politics. That is their politics. That is clashless, that is no integrity. So I I have a real problem with not calling people to account for what they say and how they say it. In commissioner's court, she let loose with the worst language you can imagine in front of a 13-year-old girl, right in front of her. Now we we passed a resolution then. We we we challenged her on that one. We said you lack decorum. So if we would do it there, why wouldn't we do it for the rodeo? I it's just it's just mind-numbing.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

Yeah, it's it's it is baffling. And I think it again speaks leaps and bounds about our leadership in general and how much of a change that we really need in a lot of these positions. Because on top of obviously all the bad policies and taxpayer concerns, you just throw in the blatant lack of decorum and lack of respect uh that that our politics used to be known for, right? There's a reason that we're like we wear suits to rise things, we dress nice, right? There's a level of class that you're supposed to have in certain places, in certain positions, and on top of all the policies, to throw in the very obvious distaste, uh, just the disrespect, and then to refuse to say anything about it at all is is baffling to me. I think it's baffling to it should be to everybody. On again, you mentioned not being political. It should be baffling to everyone of of every belief and every ideology. It should be baffling. And I think it needs to go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

Mark my words. Uh the problem isn't going to be handled. It's if you ignore a problem, it's not going to go away. We will be we will be sitting here in in a few short weeks, and she said something else. But worse than that, she could be involved in some leadership role in a disaster that could end up being a disaster because of her lack of judgment, her lack of discernment, her lack of ability to even show up. So uh I'll I'll not be quiet. I I I have a responsibility. It's not comfortable. You know, people will accuse me of being partisan and and trying to pick on uh the judge, or I'm not picking on anybody, I just expect everybody to behave in a certain manner, and she is not behaving to anybody's standard at this point.

Closing Thanks And Final Warning

SPEAKER_00 12:55

Right. And to be honest, if you because all of us here in Houston, all the listeners to this show, we know what's kind of going on here with Judge Adalga, we know who she is, and we know the pattern of abuse that we've gone through. But if you were to take somebody from outside, uh even from another country, and and just bare minimum show them, hey, this is what happened the night of the rodeo. This was her letter formal response with these allegations. Here's all of the evidence. Do you trust that person to run one of the largest counties in the country, uh known for having possible weather disasters? Is that a good idea? I don't know that I've ever met a living soul who'd say yes.

SPEAKER_01 13:35

All right, well, here we go. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Thank you, Tom, for coming on. Thanks for being a part of the show and for keeping us updated. And thank you, furthermore. Uh I know often when you read, you know, the articles and the headlines, you hear the lone Republican on Twitch course. That gets uttered all the time because you often find yourself alone on one side of the aisle trying to fight for what's right. And so I appreciate uh in the midst of all that, you you displaying that courage and that willingness to continue to speak the truth.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

Okay, thank you very much.