The main idea behind the campaign of Harris County Judge Democratic candidate Lina Hidalgo is change, but she also has flood control, health care and the reform of the county's bail system in mind.
Born in Bogotá (Colombia), Hidalgo is 26 years- old and moved to the United States with her family when she was 13.
Hidalgo studied political science at Stanford University and has worked as a medical interpreter, but she is now fully focused on her campaign.
Hidalgo, who filed as a Democratic candidate on November 11th, distributed a news release that same day in which she presents herself to voters as an opportunity to shatter “the glass ceiling in Harris County by electing a woman Democrat.”
“We’re running a campaign that calls for change based on the idea that we ought to not forget people and I think for that we need change,” Hidalgo tells Houston Public Media.
Flood control is one of the elements of Hidalgo's platform and, after the devastation Hurricane Harvey caused, she assures that “we need to think ahead.”
“We need people that are gonna listen to the advice of the experts, that are gonna be looking out for the people as advocates before we have a crisis on the scale that we had it and not after we have it,” Hidalgo adds “and there’s no reason the people that brought us to this crisis should continue.”
The Democratic politician also supports reforming Harris County's bail system because she thinks it “violates the due process and the equal protection clause of the Constitution.”
“It’s fundamentally unfair to keep poor people arrested,” Hidalgo adds.
As for health care services in Harris County, she notes that her experience as a medical interpreter made her work “with people who were being made to choose between no mental health [care] or mental health [care] at the jail,” so she says she wants to avoid situations like those.