Dominant victory in Houston
It wasn't close.
State Sen. John Whitmire easily defeated fellow Democrat U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee in the battle for mayor in Houston over the weekend.
As reporter Dylan Dylan McGuinness noted, the 74-year-old Whitmire will oversee more than 20,000 city workers and a $6 billion budget, a sprawling bureaucracy that includes police officers, firefighters, engineers, health inspectors and garbage truck drivers. He will have 22 department directors reporting to him, and he has the discretion to remove or replace any of those directors on day one.
Expect him to use his dominating win — the largest margin of victory for a first-term mayor since 1977 — as a mandate to aggressively pursue the plans he described in varying levels of detail on the campaign trail. And the team he finalizes over the next month or so will confront a slew of challenges as he takes City Hall's reins.
His win will have implications in Austin and Washington, D.C. Whitmire leaves the Texas Legislature, where he is the chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, after 50 years of service there. That creates a rare open seat for the Texas Senate that has already drawn a crowded field that includes State Rep. Jarvis Johnson, attorney Todd Litton and emergency room nurse Molly Cook, among others.
Meanwhile, Jackson Lee has decided to return to Congress. On Sunday she filed papers to run for the 18th Congressional District again. She's represented that district since 1995.
Who's up, who's down
Up: John Whitmire.
The Houston Democrat cruised to victory in Saturday's runoff election and will become Houston's 63rd mayor.
Down: Tony Buzbee.
The Houston attorney who represented Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton during his impeachment trial lost his bid for a city council seat in Houston. Incumbent Mary Nan Huffman defeated Buzbee, who also lost a campaign for mayor in 2019.
What do you think? Hit reply and let me know.
What else is going on in Texas
 Photo by: Associated Press | | Cox is believed to be the first woman in the country to sue for permission to get an abortion since the fall of Roe v. Wade and Texas' implementation of a near-total abortion ban. | |
 Photo by: Brett Coomer, Staff Photographer | | The U.S. power grid is becoming increasingly prone to blackout amid rising electricity demand and power plant closures, a group of power officials and executives warned Monday. | |
 Photo by: Andrew Harnik, AP | | President Joe Biden goes into next year's election with a vexing challenge: Just as the U.S. economy is getting stronger, people are still feeling horrible about it. | |
 Photo by: Karen Warren/Staff Photographer | | "With the historic Abraham Accords, I even made peace in the Middle East, we're gonna have peace in the Middle East," Trump said at a Dec. 2 rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. | |
 Photo by: Raquel Natalicchio, Staff Photographer | | Hollins beat former Harris County Treasurer Orlando Sanchez in the runoff election to become Houston's next controller. | |
Pick of the day
The winning percentage of the vote for incoming mayor John Whitmire in Saturday's runoff election in Houston.
What else I'm reading
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is finally starting to throw some real punches at former President Donald Trump. DeSantis accused Trump of "cowardice" for ducking debates. But as the New York Times pointed out, it may be coming way too late to have much of an impact in the Iowa Caucuses that start in just 35 days.
No comments:
Post a Comment