Please Welcome Mayor-Elect Sylvester Turner!

By a fairly close vote, about 51%-49%, Sylvester Turner is the newly elected mayor of the City of Houston!

There are many things to be thankful for in Sylvester Turner. Some of them are listed in the endorsement vote below. Beyond his many manifest virtues as a consensus-builder (look at his legislative record as a State Rep.), there is the non-negligible fact that Sylvester Turner, now age 61, was once a child of Acres Homes in northwest Houston, one of Houston's most impoverished neighborhoods, and knows firsthand how essential it is to assist hardworking people near the bottom of the economic ladder to climb to middle-class status. Not everyone climbs as high as Turner has... a JD from Harvard, an active attorney and a legislator widely respected in both major political parties... but everyone deserves a chance to rise as high economically as their skills will take them, and Turner not only understands that, he acts on that understanding in his capacity as an elected official.

A word about Bill King, to his supporters and detractors alike: Bill King is not a nut-job! GOPers nationwide, please take note... by running as a genuine conservative, not a radical, they came very close to winning, and in Houston at least, they would not have come so close had King run as a Tea Party radical. That became apparent to me in the candidate debates: he is a mainstream Republican, but his key issues are exactly that, mainstream Republican issues. Regular readers know how much I despise much of the nut-jobbery of the Republican Party today, the Tea Party, the extremists among fundamentalist evangelicals (that's not all of them, but the worst of them are bad enough), etc. Bill King is pretty obviously not an outright right-wing extremist. Perhaps Mr. Turner really can call on him for advice on matters that fall astride the left-right divide.

My congratulations to Mr. Turner. I look forward to his term(s)!

Please Vote For Sylvester Turner For Mayor: Prof. Bob Stein Doesn't Quite Say ‘Ku Klux To Call’ In Turner-King Mayoral Runoff, But Admits Race Is A Factor

Those not blinded by the race difference in this race will agree that State Rep. Sylvester Turner is, on paper and in fact, more experienced in the craft of governance than his opponent, businessman Bill King, notwithstanding the cliffhanger discussed yesterday in 88.7 FM commentator Jose Jimeniz's interview of political scientist Dr. Bob Stein.

King is running ostensibly on his skills as a businessman; unfortunately for him, Turner manifestly has those skills, too, having run his own businesses successfully, and claiming in the first debate (probably factually; I am certain a panelist would have called him on it if it weren't true) to have met every employee payroll. In past years I have heard Turner speak in person: he is a dynamic, driven, passionate person, and his constituency is one of the things he is most passionate about.

Although Houston city offices are elected on a nonpartisan basis (by law), this blog is, at least in principle, a Democratic site; Democratic voters will be happy to note that Mr. Turner is solid on many basic Democratic issues, including LGBT rights, public education, affordable health care, equal justice under law (Turner is an attorney who graduated JD, Harvard Law School), and others too numerous to list, a product of his 26 years as a state legislator.

If you haven't already voted, please come out tomorrow (Sat. 12/12) to vote for Sylvester Turner.

(If Bill King's list of failures were not long enough already, his web site... search for it yourself... has serious mechanical flaws in its home page when viewed with a fully updated Google Chrome browser. Prepare to shade your eyes if you visit!)

Houston Election Yields A Fallen HERO

The Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO), approved by City Council and Mayor Parker, failed in its judicially mandated vote by the people of Houston. It wasn't even close: when I went to bed, it was losing about 39% — 61%. I suppose the leaders of the opposition and the fear-filled citizens they misled at every turn (and "misled" is putting it politely) simply cannot abide being protected by a HERO. Well, damn them to HELL (Houston Equality Losing... Lost). Considering how many of the people engaged in the assassination campaign likely consider themselves Christian, the whole sordid business gives me one more reason not to be one.

Sylvester Turner and Bill King will be in a runoff for mayor of Houston. I like Turner well enough and have voted for him in a couple of his many past runs for mayor, more with a shrug than a happy dance, but he seems the best available this time as he was back then. The other guy, a colorless (pun intended) businessman with apparently sterling if not golden conservative credentials, leaves me wondering: which citizens is he Bill‑King?

In Houston, not all precincts have been counted, either citywide At-Large districts (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) or regional City Council districts (A, B, C... etc.), so I'll defer addressing those races. And in the districts without incumbents, I don't really know much about a lot of the candidates The only observation I'll offer now is this:

• Incumbency is an almost overwhelming advantage, but many races have no incumbent running this year.

I'll try to write more later. Today I have to grocery‑shop before another possible bayou‑filling event Thu/Fri/Sat...

Election Day!

It's time, my fellow Texans and Harris County residents and Houstonians. This is your last opportunity to vote for local offices! See harrisvotes.org for the info you need if you want to vote. I confess to some relief that we shall see no more "bathroom invasion" ads about the HERO on TV; I was beginning to have trouble restraining my murderous impulses toward the people who framed that ad and anyone else who agreed with them... seriously, it's much better to vote on the matter than to threaten someone over it; go vote while you still can!