So will we have a Mayor’s race or not?

We’re now more than a month into the city election fundraising season, and as of this week the only person to file a declaration of Treasurer for the office of Mayor is the incumbent, Annise Parker. As of this time two years ago, all four major candidates had not only filed Treasurer’s reports but had already made formal announcements of their candidacies. Anyone who may be interested in challenging Mayor Parker now has one less month in which to raise money for their campaign.

At this point, I can’t even say there’s much happening in the rumor mill. I’d heard some chatter about two weeks ago that Council Member C.O. Bradford was going to be meeting with “advisors” about a possible entry into the race, but nothing since then. I’ve not heard a peep about Paul Bettencourt since his profile in the Chron was published nearly two months ago. Bradford as we know is not exactly flush with cash, and isn’t known as a prodigious fundraiser. Bettencourt, who likely can raise some bucks but would be starting out at zero, has never run in a non-partisan city election before, and has never really run in a race where his party wasn’t expected to make up a majority of the voters. The clock is ticking, for them and for anyone else out there who might be thinking about it.

It’s still early, and Mayor Parker is neither as popular as Bill White was six years ago nor in as favorable a climate, so it’s still the case that anything can happen. But the longer we go without anyone taking a concrete step towards a candidacy, the less likely it is that anything of consequence will happen.

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10 Responses to So will we have a Mayor’s race or not?

  1. Katy Anders says:

    Wow! That would be something.

    How long has it been since a Houston mayor has not served their three consecutive terms? Come to think of it, I don’t know when the term limits thing started, so they might have always won their three terms.

    I know White, Brown, and Lanier did.

    I rather like Parker, so I would not applaud her political demise. But a good race is a good race…

  2. Katy,

    Lanier was Mayor when the term limits referendum passed, in 1993 IIRC. I suspect the answer to your question is since the 1970s, but I’d have to research it.

  3. JPH says:

    Fred Hofheinz (1974-1977) and Jim McConn (1978-1981) are the last Mayors to not serve at least six years. Kathy Whitmire followed McConn and was in for a decade, then came term limits.

  4. Gwen Addler says:

    I heard that there is a 17 year old boy running for mayor this year but I’m not entirely sure if it’s true. Oh boy (literally), I wonder how far he would go!

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