Has Kim Ogg Re-Joined The Republican Party?
Guess which of the following five quotes blaming crime on bail reform are from Republican Governor Greg Abbott and which are from Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg, a Democrat:
“When you have murderers running around on multiple bonds, people who have killed other people, go back and kill the witnesses. It's a scary time and I'm here to warn people - we don't have to live like this.”
“Texas has a broken bail system that allows dangerous criminals to go free.”
“‘Bail reform,’ as presently practiced in some Harris County courts, will continue to be a driving factor in the crime crisis gripping our community.”
“Public safety is at risk because of our current bail system that recklessly allows dangerous criminals back onto our streets…”
“Those simple, common sense concepts are somehow being thrown out the window by special interests and a philosophy that says 'everyone should be able to do everything they want.' We can't have dangerous, violent predators set free on a community of innocents.”
The answers are at the end. We bet you didn’t get them all right.
That’s because Kim Ogg, a former Republican, has aligned herself with Greg Abbott and Republicans in the state legislature to launch unrelenting attacks on Harris County’s modest bail reform policies. She even testified in favor of Republican bail legislation during the last legislative session.
The targets of Kim Ogg’s attacks have included her fellow Democrats, County Judge Lina Hidalgo, County Commissioners Rodney Ellis and Adrian Garcia, and elected criminal court judges.
We can only speculate about Ogg’s motives.
It may be that the county commission denied her request to hire 102 new prosecutors, which would have allowed her to ramp up prosecutions of nonviolent misdemeanors and throw more people in jail for being poor, mentally ill or addicted to drugs rather than prioritizing violent crimes like rape and murder.
And it might be that she’s looking for scapegoats for rising crime in Harris County so that she can avoid scrutiny for her role in creating a massive court backlog that’s allowing violent criminals to commit more crimes while awaiting trial.
Whatever the reason, Harris County voters aren’t buying it according to new polling from Houston Watch, which found that Kim Ogg Is The LEAST popular Democrat in Harris County, especially among women, Black, and Latino/a voters.
Of note, in spite of her vicious attacks on her fellow Democrats, Ogg isn’t getting any traction with Republicans either, who overwhelmingly have an unfavorable view of her.
We reached out to Ogg for comment and haven’t heard back.
(The first, third and fifth quotes are from Ogg. The other two are from Greg Abbott.)