"Get Busy” — High Emotions at the Dais
This week, Houston’s city council is facing national attention as Governor Abbott says he has frozen $110M in public safety funds after the council voted to clarify the scope of HPD’s responsibility to federal immigration policy. The vote, which came last Tuesday, fell largely along political lines, and the aftermath has been loud, passionate, and in certain cases, ugly.
Take the exchange this week between HPOU union president Doug Griffith and Council Member for District D Carolyn Evans-Shabazz. His high emotions seem to have got the best of him, as he took the “what if an illegal immigrant rapes or murders someone because of your policy” path. CM Shabazz was having none of it, and dressed him down in short order.
“Your behavior has been really inappropriate and I hope that the other officers don’t speak and act like you do, because that may be why we have a problem here.”
The police union has had no problem picking fights, making fun, and frankly, bullying political opponents over social media. Watching these tactics play out in the council chambers, though, it’s clear that dog won’t hunt when you’re face to face with those tasked with administering the policy that guides your operations. They have a well-known disrespect for County Judge Lina Hidalgo, as evidenced in my first blog post.
Councilmember Edward Pollard also spoke about the rhetorical flair chosen by Griffith. He reminded the group that “There has to be a level of respect for the council, that’s an elected body of elected members who are voted upon to be in these seats to represent their constituents.” He went onto say, and this is the reason for my blog post here, that “the manner in which we communicate is extremely important, because we are all in leadership positions. The entire city is looking at us as leaders.”
CM Pollard nails it. To put it really simply — read the room. There’s a place, I suppose, for the bullying, negging, and childish taunting that the union so often deploys on social media. Frankly, their posts do better because of that, even if I don’t like it. It may feed the algorithm, but it doesn’t play well around the horseshoe.
As I went looking through their recent social media interactions looking for the links for this post, I was surprised to see they seem to have toned it down since the public session. Instead of incensed rhetoric and mudslinging, they are simply amplifying other posts about the topic, with little or no commentary. Even this morning, they posted a seemingly random message that “Today is going to be a good day.” Are they changing their ways because they see the bad optics they create for themselves, or are they laying low until this blows over and council either votes to repeal the ordinance or it is deliberated in court? I know my opinion— what’s yours?
