The Chron endorses Erica Lee Carter in the special election for CD18.
Erica Lee Carter
Erica Lee Carter isn’t her mother.
“I can never be that iconic,” she told the editorial board.
When her mother, the late U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee passed away this summer due to complications from pancreatic cancer, her death was marked by a series of services and memorials across the city, attended by presidents, adoring community members and even Stevie Wonder.
Between the waves of emotion and activity, Lee Carter, 44, said she couldn’t even consider what it might mean to fill her mother’s shoes — or at least she wasn’t answering the many calls asking her whether she’d put her name forward to fill the now empty seat representing a historic district.
From electing the South’s first Black congresswoman, Barbara Jordan, to Mickey Leland and Jackson Lee’s years in office, the solidly blue Congressional District 18 is special. Especially so this election when voters there will get to cast their ballot twice: once for a candidate to fill the remaining few months of Jackson Lee’s term and again for the new representative who will take the oath of office in January 2025.
Eventually, Carter Lee answered the call. She should be the one to finish out her mother’s final term.
Carter Lee is the only Democrat running in that race and the only candidate with elected experience, having served on the Harris County Board of Education. She said she will honor her mother’s role as a progressive politician and community leader.
“You’re getting someone with less direct experience in Congress and direct experience in life,” Lee Carter told us, “but you are getting someone as committed to the democratic process, to making sure the 18th Congressional District gets great constituent services, which my mother worked on vigorously, on immigration matters, our veterans,” and someone who believes, “it’s important to support President Biden, which my mother did to the end.”
With Lee Carter, we think the voters are getting the best candidate.
This was not a close call, as the other two candidates are more or less non-entities. She’s the only Democrat in this three-candidate race; no other Dems jumped in because she made the most sense. You can listen to my interview with her to see what she has in mind for this short-term gig. The Chron previously endorsed former Mayor Sylvester Turner in the general election for CD18.