Warren Howell notices disorder quickly. It catches his eye in the way money moves, in how long things sit unresolved and in systems that reward the wrong behavior and quietly punish the right one. The Stetson-hat-wearing, lifelong Texan talks about Harris County with the keen attention of someone who has spent a lifetime watching processes succeed or fail based on whether officeholders were willing to take responsibility for them.

When Howell explains why he entered the race for Harris County judge, he frames it as a decision of timing, motivated by decades of experience, rather than political ambition.

“I call [this journey] the completion of my dash,” Howell said. “That space between the date you’re born and the date you die.”

For Howell, the decision came after decades of work outside government. He is a lifelong Harris County resident and an Air Force veteran whose career unfolded in construction, manufacturing, and insurance. 

He partnered in Beckner-Howell Building Corp., later ran a roofing manufacturing company with more than 100 employees, and today serves as president and owner of Employers Risk Insurance. He has lived in Spring Branch for more than forty years and currently serves as president of the Shadow Oaks Civic Association, where he has focused on restoring structure and financial stability.

Those experiences shape how Howell looks at government. He thinks in systems, incentives and consequences. He pays attention to where responsibility is assigned and where it is fulfilled, or unfulfilled. Over the last several years, as Howell followed county government more closely, he observed troublesome patterns repeating at a scale large enough to concern him.

“The entire system itself has to change,” Howell said in a recent interview with Katy Christian Magazine. “If someone like myself doesn’t get in [office], this is not going to happen.”

Howell describes himself as a conservative, and he approaches policy through the lens of order, execution, and consequence. Laws, in his view, exist to create stability, and that stability depends on whether systems are built to function under real-world pressure.

He evaluates systems by their outcomes. When a policy produces durable control and predictability, it is working. When it disrupts the institutions responsible for carrying it out, Howell sees that as a signal that the structure itself needs to be examined.

That same cause-and-effect thinking runs through Howell’s campaign. He talks less about ideology and more about mechanics. Budgets. Contracts. Timelines. Accountability.

Howell returns often to contracting, an area he knows well. In his businesses, projects moved forward only after financial boundaries were clear. Contractors knew the scope of work and the schedule for payment before anything began.

“The money should be sitting in the bank before the project starts,” Howell said.

In Harris County, Howell says, that sequence often unravels. Permits take far longer than expected. Projects begin before timelines stabilize. Invoices are submitted and sit unpaid. Contractors carry the cost while waiting.

“If contractors don’t get paid on time, you don’t get good contractors,” Howell said.

He says some firms stop bidding on county work altogether. Others raise prices to absorb the risk. Competition narrows. Costs climb. The problem, as Howell sees it, grows from how responsibility diffuses across departments and how timelines stretch without consequence.

Budgeting follows a similar pattern. Departments submit annual spending plans and measure success by full expenditure. Savings disappear into year-end activity. Efficiency carries little weight. To shift this problematic pattern, Howell points to an urgent need for discipline in Harris County.

Howell said restoring discipline to county budgeting would require changing how success is measured. Departments, he said, should be rewarded for efficiency rather than full expenditure. 

“At the end of the year,” he said, “I want to hear how much you were able to save and put back into the general fund. We don’t have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem.”

Howell believes this focus on structure places him apart from other candidates in the race. He said his opponents frequently speak about experience and relationships. However, voters hear fewer specifics about their actual plans to redesign how county government operates.

“I’m the only one talking about redoing the system,” Howell said.

Likewise, a shift toward transparency would play a central role in how Howell handles governance. He treats visibility as a practical constraint on unruly behaviors like overspending or corruption.

“Transparency is a deterrent to fraud,” Howell said.

He argues that when spending, contracts, and decisions are visible to the public, behavior changes, explanations are communicated, spending discretion narrows and accountability shifts outward.

“When everyone can see every move you make,” Howell said, “it changes behavior.”

The changes Howell proposes would reach into every layer of county government. Departments would operate under new expectations. Contractors would encounter different payment structures. Longstanding, harmful practices would end.

“You can’t go in and tweak this system,” Howell said. “You have to rebuild it.”

Before entering the race, Howell says he spent months confirming that he could serve a full term without interruption. He describes the campaign as a final professional undertaking rather than a beginning of a political career. 

He and his wife, Dr. Paula Howell, have built their life in Harris County, and he frames his candidacy as an effort to apply accumulated experience where he believes it matters most.

The choice Howell presents to voters is straightforward. Harris County can continue operating through systems that reward spending and absorb inefficiency, or it can reorganize around clearer accountability and visible decision-making. 

Howell is asking whether residents are willing to accept the disruption that kind of restructuring would bring in exchange for order he believes has been missing.

Early voting for the Republican and Democratic primary elections in Harris County runs from Feb. 17 through Feb. 27, with voters able to cast ballots at any county vote center. Primary Election Day is March 3. Voters must be registered and have updated their registration by Feb. 20 to participate. A primary runoff, if necessary, will take place later in the spring.