Bexar County is about to elect a new District Attorney for the first time in eight years, but the next leader may come in with less authority than previous administrations.
The county’s proposed budget for the 2027 fiscal year calls for the creation of a new “office of civil legal affairs” that reports directly to the Commissioners Court, staffed by roughly two dozen positions currently working in the DA’s office.
The idea comes as District Attorney Joe Gonzales is retiring at the end of the year, and the future looks uncertain for some of his top lieutenants.
So far it’s drawn quick condemnation from DA candidates, who say the move threatens a longstanding division of power between two separately elected offices.
“It doesn’t provide for checks and balances,” said Luz Elena Chapa, Democrats’ nominee to succeed Gonzales in this November’s midterm election.
“We don’t want a county run by a county judge and commissioners court that have carte blanche, unchecked power to write and award contracts with no independent oversight or review,” Chapa said.
Likewise, Republican candidate Ashley Foster said the court had no legal authority to strip power from another elected office.
“The statute says those are the duties of the elected district attorney — they can’t just change it,” Foster said. “… I would hope that this isn’t for any sort of additional grab for power from the Commissioners Court.”
The civil division of the District Attorney’s office is currently overseen by Larry Roberson, who was first hired by former District Attorney Susan Reed, then left to work in the private sector, and later returned to serve under Gonzales.
His role involves working closely with county commissioners, some of whom say he could do even more if he worked for them directly.
“We have so much interaction with Larry and the civil side, whether it’s general counsel stuff related to Commissioners Court, or employment issues, or litigation updates,” said Bexar County Commissioner Justin Rodriguez (Pct. 2). “For me, it just made sense to streamline it and have a group of lawyers that reported directly to the court.”
But moving staff under an unelected leader — just months out from the arrival of a new District Attorney — has posed many legal questions.
Commissioner Grant Moody (Pct. 3) said at the Aug. 25 meeting that his attorney friends tell him such a move would require buy-in from the District Attorney.
“He fully supports it,” Roberson said of Gonzales.
But the next DA might not feel the same way.
A bitter Democratic primary race pitted Chapa against many prosecutors and a division chief currently working for Gonzales. She ran as an outsider with scathing assessments of their work, and is now favored to carry the blue county in November.
“We’ll have a new DA on January 1,” Moody said at the county budget presentation. “How do we think about that, in terms of making a structural change that has to continue to be approved by new DAs?”
Roberson replied that the court didn’t need permission for what Bexar County is trying to do.
The elected DA would retain all of their statutorily assigned responsibilities, he said, while passing off those that the Attorney General has already said can be handled by an attorney for the county.
“The DA will retain DA functional civil legal matters, protective orders, asset forfeitures, all of the civil matters that deal with the criminal side and DA functions specifically,” Roberson said. “This is really about the civil matters that are specifically for the Commissioners Court.”
As of this week, however, Rodriguez said it’s an evolving situation.
After complaints from the candidates, he said the new office would absorb fewer than the 26 positions that were presented to Commissioners Court — more likely eight to 10.
They’re also workshopping the name, said Rodriguez, who rejected the Aug. 25 presentation’s implication that the entire civil section of the DA’s office would be moving.
“I had kind of envisioned it as more of a ‘general counsel’ office,” Rodriguez said. “The new DA will still have a functioning civil office … We’re not touching any of those things.”
The biggest change, however, could be a division chief whose employment is set by the commissioners court — instead of the new DA.
Rodriguez said the court is trying to modernize county government, including speeding up its famously slow-moving contracting process, and could save some money if it doesn’t have to hire outside counsel.
Commissioners will ultimately have to vote on a candidate to oversee it all, Rodriguez said, but the obvious choice would be Roberson, who already attends Commissioners’ Court meetings, and advises on county legal matters.
“Larry’s familiar with the infrastructure, he’s familiar with the court, and I’ve been pleased with his performance and [him] trying to be a problem solver,” Rodriguez said. “That’s a big part of the job — certainly protecting the county — but if there are opportunities to accomplish things, get things done, to move things forward, let’s problem-solve, as opposed to saying, ‘We just can’t do that.'”
