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From Harris County to NACo: Teneshia Hudspeth Helps Safeguard Democracy on the National Stage

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    July 21, 2026 (Houston Style Magazine) — Democracy is often discussed beneath bright lights and behind podiums, but its credibility is protected in quieter rooms where rules are followed, delegates are certified and every vote is counted correctly.

At the 2026 National Association of Counties Annual Conference in New Orleans, Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth stepped into one of those essential rooms—and carried Harris County’s reputation for public-service leadership with her. It was serious work, because even democracy occasionally needs someone checking the receipts.

Hudspeth was appointed Tally Clerk for NACo’s Credentials Committee, the body charged with safeguarding the accuracy and integrity of the association’s voting process. During NACo’s Annual Business Meeting, the committee certified eligible voting delegates, addressed credential questions and helped verify official results.

NACo explains that the tally clerk reviews recorded votes, confirms they match credentialed totals and validates the running count during roll-call voting. In other words, while thousands of county leaders were discussing democracy, Hudspeth was helping make sure the organization practiced it properly.

“It was an honor to serve on NACo’s Credentials Committee and contribute to a process that promotes trust, transparency, and fairness for counties across the nation,” Hudspeth said. “Counties play a vital role in serving our communities, and I am proud to support an organization committed to strengthening local government.”

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NACo’s Annual Business Meeting Credentials Committee at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans

The appointment was especially fitting for an official whose career has centered on elections, public records and public trust. Hudspeth is Harris County’s County Clerk and Chief Election Official, serving the largest county in Texas and the nation’s third-largest county, with more than 4.9 million residents.

She is also the first African American woman to hold the office. Since winning election in November 2020, Hudspeth has overseen dozens of elections while expanding online access, mod ernizing records and improving services residents depend upon—from marriage licenses and birth certificates to court and property records.

Hudspeth’s New Orleans assignment did not stop at counting votes. She also joined a leadership panel titled “Changes in County Elected Leadership over the Last Ten Years.”

Presented with research from Texas Woman’s University’s Jane Nelson Institute for Women’s Leadership, the session examined how the face of county government is changing and what those changes mean for the future of local leadership. NACo described the discussion as a review of more than a decade of local election data featuring tenured and newly elected officials.

For Hudspeth, a Texas Southern University communications alumna and longtime public servant, the panel offered another opportunity to place Houston’s experience inside a national conversation.

Her journey—from serving in several positions under four county clerks to becoming chief deputy and then the elected clerk—reflects the evolution the panel explored: broader representation, deeper professional experience and a growing expectation that government be accessible, transparent and technologically prepared.

The 91st NACo Annual Conference, held July 17–20 at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, brought more than 3,000 officials and partners to New Orleans. Representing 3,069 counties, parishes and boroughs, NACo members exchanged best practices, adopted policy priorities and elected new national leadership.

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Panel discussion on how county elected leadership has evolved in the last decade with Sante Fe County Clerk Katharine Clark

Hudspeth’s dual roles—guarding the vote and discussing the future of leadership—made a clear statement: Harris County is not merely attending the national conversation; it is helping conduct it.

Democracy may be a grand American promise, but it survives through careful procedures, credible institutions and public officials willing to handle the detailed work that rarely earns a spotlight.

In New Orleans, Clerk Hudspeth demonstrated that history is sometimes made with a microphone, sometimes with a ballot and, every so often, with a tally sheet held by someone determined to get the count exactly right.

More information, go to: naco.org/event/2026-naco-annual-conference-exposition
More information on Harris County Clerk, go to: cclerk.hctx.net

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

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Transcript: Former FDA commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb on ‘Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,’ July 26, 2026

▶ Watch Video: Former FDA head praises response to cyclospora outbreak, but says it's not "under control yet" The following is the transcript of an interview with U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz that aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on July 26, 2026.MARGARET BRENNAN: We turn now to former FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb. He sits on the boards of Pfizer and UnitedHealth. Dr. Gottlieb, it's good to have you back. We've got cyclospora outbreaks in nine states. It is now one of the nation's largest foodborne illness outbreaks. HHS Secretary Kennedy says it's under control. Do you think it is? DR. SCOTT GOTTLIEB: I don't think it's under control yet, per se. I think that they've done a good job, FDA has, isolating this to central Mexico and some specific farms as well. It appears that a lot of these cases are emanating from farms in central Mexico, and there was probably some kind of event there. Remember, this particular parasite-the only known reservoir for it is human fecal matter, so probably sewage got onto those growing fields in central Mexico and contaminated those crops. Nobody's sure how yet. And so by isolating it to that region, a lot of restaurants, a lot of wholesalers, retailers have been able to cut off supplies from central Mexico, and I think that mitigates the risk. I don't think this is fully under control yet because we don't know for sure that that's the only growing region where this is coming from. But it does seem to be the case at this point. Some of the cases that are being reported right now probably are cases happening from other parts of the- the world and other parts of the country that are normal background cases that you see. There's probably increased reporting, but clearly the bulk of these cases appear to be coming from that central Mexican region. It's worth noting that Mexican authorities, public health authorities, deny that they're responsible for this.MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, I saw you recommended people buy heads of lettuce, not pre-chopped bags, buy locally, not from the grocery store. Why aren't we hearing more from the current FDA commissioner on that kind of advice?DR. SCOTT GOTTLIEB: Yeah, look, I think that there is some challenges with communications from the FDA. I think FDA has done a good job isolating this, and they were fast to do this. This is a hard pathogen to detect. There's no really good test for it, so you can't test for it in food. But there hasn't been as much communication from the agency as you might expect. There are things that consumers can do. You can buy a whole head of lettuce, like you said, and chop it up rather than buying bag lettuce. There's higher risk with bag lettuce. You can source locally. There haven't been known outbreaks from locally sourced produce. Prior to 2016, 2017, we never saw this particular species in U.S. sourced produce. It started to appear in California produce, but certainly in lower levels than what you see in Mexico and South America. There is a weather component here.MARGARET BRENNAN: There is, though, as you know, a public- public confidence crisis here when it comes to our health agencies. Our polling showed 47% of Americans do not have much confidence in the FDA to deal with the outbreak. That must hit hard as the former FDA commissioner. But it's also in part in the public space. They're looking not just at the personnel cuts, but like the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Taylor Farms, one of the companies that is- has been identified as- as selling some of the lettuce, at least that is in question. They contacted the White House to request a delay in announcing a recall, and the White House had the FDA join that call. That is not standard operating procedure, is it?DR. SCOTT GOTTLIEB: No, it's not, and it wasn't standard operating procedure when I was at FDA. I dealt with outbreaks in romaine lettuce and spinach as well, E. coli in spinach and romaine lettuce. I never heard from the White House on those things, other than to have discussions to inform them of what we were doing, so that they were properly briefed and could respond to questions that they were getting. So it's unusual. I don't think it really led to a significant delay in the ability of FDA to communicate in this case, based on that reporting, probably days, certainly not weeks. I think the breakdown here really was with CDC in identifying that initial cluster. By and large, we were dependent upon public health officials in Michigan to isolate that cluster. CDC really didn't seem to be as involved as the agency normally would be. Michigan public health officials led that response. Once they- once they isolated the cluster, however, the traceback to the farm and to the particular food source happened relatively fast. We had an outbreak of E. coli in romaine lettuce back in 2018. It took us many weeks to isolate that to a specific growing region. They were able to do that in a matter of, maybe days here, certainly weeks. So I think FDA worked pretty quickly to do it. MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to ask you about the CDC announcement that there are now more measles infections in 2026 than in the past 35 years. The American Academy of Pediatrics warns it's America's children that are going to pay the price for this. Ninety-three percent of this year's cases are among the unvaccinated, or the vaccination status is unknown. Should we, at any point, expect the Trump administration to lead a national campaign to get your kid vaccinated against measles, or did that die with MAHA? DR. SCOTT GOTTLIEB: Yeah, look, I think we need to accept that measles elimination is no longer the policy of this administration or certainly Secretary Kennedy, and I wouldn't expect any kind of concerted effort so long as he is in that position. This is his stated policy to, in some cases, discourage vaccination, but certainly not encourage it. And the children who aren't getting vaccinated right now are babies. Once they age into settings where they can contract that disease – kindergarten, preschool, daycare – you're going to see cases continue to rise in this country. It's not going to go down; it's going to continue to go up. Look at flu, for example. We had a record number of pediatric flu deaths last year, 298 pediatric flu deaths. We have almost 200 this year, and the secretary has said children don't need to get vaccinated for flu. So this is across the board; it's not just measles. These infections are very serious. There's a lot of long-term sequelae, even if you survive the infection.MARGARET BRENNAN: Let me quickly ask you. Supplement makers don't have to do what pharmaceutical companies do in terms of proving through clinical trials that products are safe. There's this push for this advisory board at the FDA to make, I guess, six peptides be added to a list of substances pharmacies can compound and produce. Is that wider access a good thing or a bad thing?DR. SCOTT GOTTLIEB: Well, I think it's a bad thing from the standpoint that there's not any proven benefits from these compounds that are in question. These are compounds being formulated by pharmacies. They're compounded products. They're peptides that people inject. There's risks associated with that, and there aren't any proven benefits. The most popular of these is the substance called PBC-157,* which people have ascribed a whole range of health benefits to. The only clinical study that the FDA was able to review was a 30-patient clinical study in a setting of ulcerative colitis, where they found no benefit. So there isn't clinical data associated with these, so I think there's risk with no- no demonstrated benefit that people are going to derive.MARGARET BRENNAN: Dr. Gottlieb, I've got to leave it there. Always good to talk to you. We'll be right back.EDITOR'S NOTE: This was in reference to the peptide BPC-157, not PBC-157.
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