The Texan Podcast - Interview: Sen. Paul Bettencourt Talks About Crime and Elections in Harris County

Episode Date: September 20, 2022

Want to support reporting on Texas politics that doesn’t include the spin? Subscribe at https://thetexan.news/subscribe/ This week, Holly Hansen interviewed Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston). They discussed the big elections in Harris County, the ongoing fight over taxes at the commissioners court, how rising crime might affect the outcomes of races, and a glimpse at the upcoming legislative session.Enjoy this content? Be sure to subscribe for similar interviews and The Texan’s Weekly Roundup — a podcast released every Friday that brings you the latest news in Texas politics.

Hello everyone, Holly Hanson here with the Texan News. Today I had the opportunity to visit with State Senator Paul Betancourt, who since 2015 has represented portions of northwest Harris County, and including portions of Houston, Cypress, and Tomball, Texas. Senator Betancourt sits on nine committees in the State Senate, and today we had a chance to talk about elections upcoming here in harris county talked about property tax relief measures crime in harris county and the current fracas going on between the democrats and republicans on harris county

commissioner's court over raising taxes he also gave us a little glimpse of what to expect in next year's 2023 legislative session. Thanks so much for listening. Hello everyone, Holly Hanson here with State Senator Paul Betancourt, who has represented the northwestern portion of Harris County, including Houston, Cypress, and Tomball, since 2015. Senator Betancourt sits on several committees, including higher education, education, and finance, and also chairs the committee on local government. But before going into the Senate, Senator Betancourt served as the tax assessor, collector, and voter registrar for Harris County. And so he brings to us quite a lot of knowledge about taxes and about elections. Senator, thank you so much for

joining us today. Holly, thanks for having me. Well, great. We'd like to ask you a couple of questions about elections to start with. Now, you are in the enviable position of not having an opponent in this election, and so we don't have a whole lot to talk about. Definitely. That's right. Just declared the unopposed people elected. So we're, I think we're at the end of the ballot on a little page at the end. But so it's after seven major elections in my lifetime, this is the first time I get a pass until election day. I'm already elected before election day. There you go. Although in Harris County, we do have a lot of contested elections. Opponents are saying that Harris County is definitely purple, if not hopelessly blue. But from your vantage point, what races do you see

in Harris County in which you think Republicans have a chance to regain some of the ground that Democrats have taken since the 2018 and 2020 elections? Well, there's really the big flashpoint is Harris County Commissioner's Court and the criminal judges in Harris County. And it's all wrapped around crime. The two obvious issues are the fact that crime's off the charts. You've got a story out today about homicides skyrocketing in Harris County, and that's how people feel. They feel unsafe. And when the public feels unsafe, they're going to turn their direction to making themselves safe again. And that may be a big change in Harris County Commissioner's Court and some of the judicial positions in Harris County. Very good. Do you

think that those criminal court races are getting enough attention? Do you think voters know enough about what's going on in the county to really make an impact there? Well, I think the flashpoint right now is the Alex Mueller-L Lena Hildago race, and then the commissioner race is right below that. Specifically, crime and corruption issues have bubbled up to the surface. And in fact, the debate would be hot and heavy, except for the fact that Lena Hildago refuses to debate or challenge her. So so the debate now is then out in the public square. It's out in the field. And and everywhere I go at an event I was at last night, et cetera. It's it's crime, crime, crime. And then the other issues fall right underneath it. Sure. Well, as the former tax

assessor, collector, and voter registrar in Harris County, you do have a lot of knowledge about what the county does to maintain voter rolls. Last week in the public sphere, Lena Hidalgo took her opponent to task, Alexandra Del Moral-Mealer, and accused her of being extreme for suggesting that the county needed to do more to purge those voter registration rolls. She even compared that to being an election denier. What do you have to say to that? And do you think that Harris County is doing enough to maintain those voter rolls properly? Okay, well, the answer to the last question is no, they're not doing enough to maintain the voter rolls. And that's why I had to pass legislation like Senate Bill 1111 that says you can't register at a two by three inch P.O. box. Now, it's just flat laughable that Judge Hildago claims what she did about Alex Mueller. Well, because the last time she claimed that John Whitmire is a MAGA supporter.

Now, let's think about this. John Whitmire is the dean of the Senate and just got reelected in Democrat primary, but yet she's claiming nearly the same thing about John Whitmire as she just did about Alex Mueller. It's laughable. If it wasn't a serious race, the line I used in a hearing, because we were talking about crime and its impact on property taxes, is I think Judge Hildago has just lost reality with the comparison of John Whitmer to a MAGA support, much less were there a comparison of Alex Mueller. You know what? She needs to get out of calling people names, yelling that people are lying at press conferences

and debate Alex Mueller, go back to the facts and let the public make a decision on who should be county judge in Harris County. I think if she debates, I'm pretty sure that Alex Mueller, go back to the facts and let the public make a decision on who should be county judge in Harris County. I think if she debates, I'm pretty sure that Alex Mueller will win it. But we'll see whether or not she has a chance to do it. Very good. Now, although you are not on the Criminal Justice Committee in the Senate, you are on the Finance Committee. And over the summer, you heard some- Oh, no, no. I am on the Criminal Justice Committee. Oh, you are. Excuse me. I'm actually on nine now. Nine committees. I missed that in Ohio. Oh, my goodness.

State Affairs, Education, Local Government Chair, several special commissions in the Committee for Public Safety in Texas. But go ahead. Well, I wanted to jump back to a hearing that you held in the Finance Committee earlier this summer. I think it was the Finance Committee. Maybe it was criminal justice. But you heard from District Attorney of Harris County, Kim Ogg, a Democrat.

And she came and talked to you about the Damon Allen Act and some of the reforms to bail policy that we've had in the state. Was there anything in Aug's testimony that surprised you about what's going on in Harris County? Well, there's Kim Aug, another person that Judge Lena Odago attacks because she's talking about what's really happening with crime in Harris County. Now, what happened in that particular committee hearing is I got interested in this when I heard about a case by the name, it's a really sad case, of Caitlin Rose Enfinger. She was murdered by her husband who got out on bond twice on public PR bonds, personal reconnaissance bonds, by the same judge,

even though the last time the judge saw that alleged defendant, he had in between murdered her cat and then chloroformed it and then beat Rose Caitlin in finger up. So he gets out again and 48 hours later, she's dead. Now, that bill I filed and then the Damien Allen Act came along, of which I was a co-sponsor of. And basically, we're doing everything we can to try to put guidelines in to keep judges from just getting out over their skis to the point where they're making the community unsafe. And they're doing it by releasing people on personal reconnaissance and PR bonds like popcorn. And when people do, that means they get out and maybe

they've had multiple bonds working, sometimes it's six, seven or eight bonds that they've been released on. And they go from assault, assault with a deadly weapon to murder. So that hearing was the first assistant attorney, Mitchum, and the DA standing up saying, here are the stats. The evidence is unbelievably clear. And we need to pass more legislation on bond reform to make sure that judges can't do what they've been doing in Harris County, which at the end of the day, by Crimestoppers statistics, is over 180 people murdered by people let out from jail on a bond, and sometimes on six, seven, or eight bonds. It's a deplorable, sickening situation. And look, the DA had a lot of guts to stand up, because as soon as she did, she got attacked. And that should tell you where the debate is,

because the debate's really between leftist progressive socialism on one side and law and order democrats and republicans at all on the other because this doesn't play well with the public. The public doesn't like it

because they know when people or catalytic mufflers are stolen and deputy sheriffs are getting shot and people are being killed and homicides are all time record setting thread high, that it's got to stop. All right. Let's shift a little bit to one of your favorite topics, I believe, which is property taxes. You carried a lot of legislation in the last session championing some property tax relief. What can you tell us about those measures that were passed last year? And in what ways are they helping property owners this

year save on their tax bills? Well, the good news is that a lot of property tax relief was passed and it just in time to get fully engaged before people would jump off an appraisal cliff because if we didn't have these relief measures, they would be jumping off an appraisal cliff at this point. Now, what these measures do is as values go up, tax rates come down. And two bills, SB2, House Bill 3, one for cities and counties, other for schools, is basically forcing down tax rates. Now, that's been very strong relief statewide on school district maintenance and operation taxes. We do have a problem with school districts clawing back debt rates and in some cases actually going to the voters to try to wipe out all of the M&O relief that the state provides. But in cities and counties, we've seen surprising positive results.

City of Austin's cut their tax rate by nine pennies. Washington County cut it by 12 pennies. There's a big fight that broke out in Harris County Commissioner's Court. And when it did, the commissioners walked out like they did in Brazos County, and they're going to force the tax rate back down to the no new revenue rate, which means another five penny reduction. And that's a great news to Harris County taxpayers because they get a quarter billion dollars that they don't have to spend now. They get to keep it in their pocketbooks. So lots of positive results with as values go up, rates come down. And especially if you're in Homestead and the hearings we had last week in Austin,

in Travis County, if you're Homestead, you're actually, your tax bill is going to be down compared to what it was last year. We had to tar on many other statewide organizations testify to that. So we'll see how far that trend goes out from the state's capital. And would you explain, and it is very confusing, what we call the no new revenue rate. Does that mean that, for example, Harris County won't have any additional revenue at that rate? What does that mean? No, and that's part of the debate right now. And now the no new revenue rate, these are devices designed to constrict the amount of money taxing units can raise their property tax levy.

How much are you going to raise taxes on everybody? So when we bring it down to no new revenue rate, it basically means for what's the tax rate to make the same amount of revenue off of last year's tax roll. So they do get a new growth component. And so in fact, in Harris County, the savings are $245 million, but the county will actually get $72 million more, and that includes the county itself, the hospital district, and the flood control district. The only entity that gets less is the port, but they're retiring old debt bonds because they should be using revenue bonds from now into the future. They don't need any more public voted debt is basically the answer to that. Now, I'm sure you saw some of the press conference the other day with County Judge Lena Hidalgo and Commissioner Rodney Ellis. And Commissioner Rodney Ellis said actually that

people will die if they do not raise the tax rate or raise taxes in Harris County and pass this proposed 2023 budget. What do you say to that? Well, I have to refer back to Commissioner Ellis's comments about SB1, the voter integrity bill. He assured everyone there was a poll tax in the bill. There was no poll tax in that bill. The people are not going to die because there is a change in the tax rate. In fact, the county and the hospital district have reserves of, oh, at least a billion dollars each or more and $500 million in specific funds. So they're going to get more tax revenue. They have a whopping set of reserves. So there is just nothing but hyperbole out there about having to cut budgets to the point where somehow people's lives are at risk. is that we're in such a frothy political environment, the truth rarely comes through. Now, when you take the time to interview and ask detailed questions, you get really good answers.

But what we see in a lot of media outlets is whatever headline comes across, oh, Adrian Garcia says the state capitulates on falsified data on defunding the police, okay? It turned out to be preposterously untrue, but a lot of media outlets pick it up and run it. And here's a case where somebody is absolutely letting out a bold face lie, but people pick it up and run with it because they don't understand that because of the federal cares act and all the, there's so much money in the hospital districts across the state, school districts, county cities, even the state itself. People that are claiming they don't have reserve accounts are just preposterously blowing it, their credibility to the public. It's a lot of money floating around out there.

I mean, it's billions and billions. I mean, it's Carl Sagan. Yes, billions and billions matter out there because that's how much local government has right now. So the sky is falling. It's not true. And the federal government has turned on that printing press and all that money is here in local government and state governments from coast to coast. All right. So shifting to post-election, as you go into this next legislative session, what do you expect to be the first order of business when you gavel in in January? Well, the first order of business is always and must pass a budget. So the question is, you know, is what type of surplus are we going to have at that point?

Latest projection is $27 billion, except that just this week, we have seen recession warnings from China, massive increase in inflation, even with energy costs coming down, basic core foodstuffs is on its way up. So we're going to have a surplus to start with, and then a lot of demands on it. And that's really going to be the big issue of the beginning of the session. Because fortunately, for every

Texan, we have a balanced budget amendment. And because of that, we actually do have to balance the budget in Texas. And that's the number one thing, because I practice what I preach, which is, you know, I don't like big tax and spend local governments. And I certainly don't like that at the state level. And we should be returning portion of that money back to taxpayers, because it's their money in the first place. Now, all that's going to be debated and discussed at length, and it should, because that's our number one reason for being in the state with one bill we must pass as a budget. Very good. And do you anticipate seeing any further property tax relief for homeowners in the state of Texas this year? Well, there's been a lot of plans that have been announced. Lieutenant Governor's talking about, you know, a plan raising homestead exemptions, looking at the Senate passed, which was having a portion of the excess general revenue

spent on property tax relief. So we're going to have lots of things to discuss. And really, the one thing I enjoy about this job is that because we do have a balanced budget amendment, it will make sense at the end. What's happening now with the federal government is it never makes sense because at this point in time, a president can snap his fingers and spend a trillion dollars by Wharton School of Business estimation on an executive order on debt relief for student loans. But that can't happen in Texas because you can't do that without an appropriation. And really, even the federal government

shouldn't be doing that without a law that was passed, like the CARES Act was passed by a Democrat House and a Republican Senate. Very good. Well, thanks so much for your time. We appreciate you and look forward to seeing what will happen next year and in this upcoming election. Well, stay tuned because the Texan has lots of good stories.

I know because I read it regularly. Thanks so much.