HOUSTON – Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg has filed for reelection for a third term as the county’s district attorney. She filed for the Democratic Party ballot on Wednesday.
Ogg is a Houston native. She has served as a Harris County Assistant District Attorney, then as the first director of Houston’s Anti-Gang Task Force and later as executive director of Crime Stoppers of Houston.
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In 2016, Ogg defeated incumbent Devon Anderson, a Republican, and took office January 1, 2017, as Harris County’s first Democratic District Attorney since 1980. She was re-elected in 2020 by more than 120,000 votes.
“Ogg has used her time in office to prioritize prosecution of violent criminals, creating a Homicide Division in 2022 to focus exclusively on resolving a backlog of more than 1,800 pending Capital Murder and Murder cases. She sought legislation to prioritize such cases for trial, and in 2023, the Texas Legislature changed Texas law to do just that,” a news release said.
Ogg has credited her prosecutors and support staff with an overtime effort on nights and weekends with their successes in obtaining convictions.
The news release also stated that Ogg has exonerated seven wrongly-convicted individuals, making them eligible for legal relief and, in some cases, compensation from the State of Texas.
“Ogg’s intentional diversion of thousands of non-violent offenders around jail and back into the workforce has reduced the Harris County jail population of non-violent misdemeanor offenders to less than 3% of its 10,000 plus population. Ogg has supported non-cash bonds for that population, while opposing the release of repeat violent offenders on bail. Ogg attributes her own mother’s kidnapping by a serial rapist in 1962 for her emphasis on a victim-centric approach to prosecution,” the release said.
The Democratic Primary election will be held on Tuesday, March 5, 2024.