90°
Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo has purportedly refused to apologize for her behavior during the Harris County Commissioners Court meeting on Tuesday.
Hidalgo, a Democrat, lost her composure twice during the meeting, having a tense exchange with Harris County Precinct 2 Commissioner and fellow Democrat Adrian Garcia and uttering an expletive when talking about Harris County District Attorney (DA) Kim Ogg.
Per a report from Houston NBC affiliate KPRC, Harris County Precinct 1 Commissioner Tom Ramsey, the lone Republican on the five-member governmental body, demanded the 32-year-old county judge issue an apology on Wednesday.
Hidalgo apparently chastised Garcia, a former law enforcement veteran at the city and county levels, when he interrupted her during a discussion about the newly approved Uplift Harris program.
"Excuse me, but you take a liking to interrupting the women, so let me finish,” she was reported to have told Garcia.
When the court discussed pairing at-risk youth with mentors as a crime-fighting measure, Hidalgo took verbal digs at Ogg, who’s also a Democrat.
“Some of us are wrapped around the little finger of a woman who, I don’t know what the f--- she’s threatening you with,” Hidalgo said.
Ramsey asserted that the DA was the focus of Hidalgo’s outbursts.
“Her outburst seemed to be centered on the DA,” he said, KPRC reported. “She had many disparaging things to say about the DA.”
The station reported that after Hidalgo cursed, Ramsey immediately called her out.
“Judge Hidalgo, I’m going to start with ‘You owe commissioner Garcia an apology, and you owe the rest of us an apology,’” KPRC reported Ramsey as saying.
She, in turn, claimed a double standard exists between men and women public officials, with her office saying in a statement obtained by the station she’s a “passionate defender” of what she believes in.
“Women, and women in positions of power in particular, constantly navigate a world that expects them to be both strong and vulnerable, assertive but not aggressive,” the statement read. “Judge Hidalgo is not interested in dwelling on a passing remark that no man would be asked to justify.”