Endorsement: Donegan brings pragmatic focus to sheriff's race

Retired Austin police Sgt. Liz Donegan has an impressive record: a reform-minded officer who worked to improve the response to sex crimes, missing children alerts and sex offender apprehensions, and now is a nationally recognized trainer on sexual assault investigations. Her expertise and pragmatism make Donegan our pick of the Democratic field for Travis County sheriff.

Sheriff Sally Hernandez, who is seeking her second term, has made some notable improvements to the sheriff's office, an agency with a $198 million budget and more than 1,700 employees who are responsible for the Travis County jail, courthouse security and crime investigations outside the city limits. Hernandez created a unit dedicated to solving sex crimes, and her jail, which books about 40,000 people a year, has taken meaningful steps to treat inmates more humanely.

Other aspects of Hernandez's record give us pause. Her high-profile 2017 showdown with federal immigration agents, while well intentioned, backfired badly. After Hernandez declined to hand over most jail inmates sought by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement -- adopting the most liberal policy in the state -- federal agents stepped up their sweeps of undocumented residents in the area, including many who had no criminal record at all. A few months later, the Legislature passed Senate Bill 4, which compels local law enforcement agencies to cooperate with ICE. Looking to make an example of the Travis sheriff, Gov. Greg Abbott temporarily cut off $1.5 million in state grants to the county's veterans court and domestic violence programs.

We recognize Hernandez's goal was to keep deputies focused on public safety -- including the safety of undocumented residents who won't call 911 if they're afraid deputies are working with ICE. We share her concern for those who are working hard and raising their families while living in fear over their immigration status. But the sheriff's defiant approach brought a predictably harsh response from state and federal officials. Now, authorities say, undocumented immigrants in Texas are even less likely to report crimes such as domestic abuse.

Donegan, by contrast, says she would have focused on community outreach to reassure undocumented residents that they have nothing to fear in reporting crimes. "Taking on a Republican governor, and a Republican Legislature, was not necessarily the best fight at that time, nor now," Donegan told our editorial board.

Another example of Donegan's pragmatic approach: She supports renovating existing buildings at the jail to accommodate more support services for women. Hernandez, on the other hand, has championed efforts to build a new $79 million women's facility, even though the current jail is far from full.

We are also disappointed that Hernandez withdrew last year from the Austin/Travis County Sexual Assault Response and Resource Team, known as SARRT, as victims' advocates criticized law enforcement's handling of these difficult cases. No doubt frustrations were simmering. But that group's mission is too important for the sheriff not to take part. Donegan, who serves on SARRT's executive board, would bring the sheriff's office back to the table.

In fairness, Donegan has also faced questions about her leadership skills. A 2011 memo by a supervisor at the Austin Police Department, relying largely on anonymous complaints, argued Donegan should be transferred out of the sex crimes unit because she wasn't providing enough training or feedback to her team. Unstated in that memo: Donegan had refused several supervisors' requests to classify certain rape cases as solved even though no arrest was made. A state audit later found that after Donegan was transferred, APD improperly closed scores of cases that way, inflating its statistics on solved rape cases. The whole scheme raises doubts about the agency's true reasons for transferring Donegan.

If Donegan prevails in her race for sheriff, she must embody the leadership philosophy she described to us: ensuring the rank-and-file feel valued and supported, as strong morale leads to better policing and a safer community.

The Democratic field contains a third candidate, former sheriff's Sgt. John Loughran, who lost his job in 2017 after struggling with the death of Deputy Jessica Hollis a few years earlier. The winner of the March 3 Democratic primary will face Republican Raul Vargas and independent Jason Ryan Salazar in November.

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