Harris County Commissioners Court passed a modified resolution Tuesday recognizing the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo after a contentious debate over whether to include language calling for County Judge Lina Hidalgo’s resignation.
Precinct 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey brought the resolution following a March 10 incident at NRG Stadium in which Hidalgo was removed from a sold-out Megan Moroney concert.
Hidalgo and her guests attempted to enter the chute area, a premium floor section requiring a $425 ticket, without valid passes. Rodeo officials asked the group multiple times to return to the county suite before escorting her out of the stadium entirely. Hidalgo claimed she was physically shoved and threatened with arrest, attributing the incident to sexism and possible racial bias.
HLSR Board Chair Pat Mann Phillips rejected those characterizations outright. Following the incident, the HLSR board voted to strip Hidalgo of her ex-officio director status, a role she had cited as justification for accessing areas beyond her ticketed section.
Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis, who presided over Tuesday’s meeting in Hidalgo’s absence, moved to pass only the first four “whereas” clauses of Ramsey’s resolution, removing the fifth paragraph that called for the county judge to resign and apologize to the rodeo. Precinct 4 Commissioner Lesley Briones seconded the motion. It passed two to one.
Ramsey pushed back on the modification, arguing the resolution needed to directly address how the rodeo had been treated.
“The issue is the rodeo. And the rodeo was insulted. The rodeo was disparaged,” Ramsey said. “I don’t agree with what Judge Hidalgo said. Can we at least say, ‘We don’t agree with what she said about the rodeo’?”
He also confirmed he reached out to rodeo leadership personally after the controversy.
“I spoke with rodeo officials to apologize for the judge’s behavior,” Ramsey said, calling the revocation of Hidalgo’s credentials unprecedented.
Before bringing his narrower motion, Ellis told colleagues he had initially considered adding language calling for President Donald Trump’s resignation as well, citing what he called a “well-documented pattern of conduct,” before deciding to pull it. He said he wanted to keep the focus on the rodeo, then spent several minutes listing grievances against the president regardless.
“You can bring up other politicians and other things. That’s a nice method, I guess,” Ramsey said. “But really, the issue is the rodeo.”
In a statement provided to Texas Scorecard, Ramsey did not mince words about the outcome.
“This is a radical move from other commissioners to think you shouldn’t ask someone to apologize for unfounded accusations to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. Conservatives should stand up for what’s right, even when the radical left wants to make it something else. Bad people who do bad things should be held accountable for it and they shouldn’t be excused for it.”
Tuesday marked Hidalgo’s third consecutive missed commissioners court meeting. She also missed the March 20 session where the resolution was first tabled after no commissioner seconded a motion to temporarily suspend a procedural rule that would have allowed it to be heard. Precinct 2 Commissioner Adrian Garcia was also not present during yesterday’s meeting.
The resolution passed, dropped all accountability language, and focused solely on recognizing the rodeo and its contributions to the Houston area.
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