Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee
Per an email that I got yesterday from the HCDP, the Executive Committee meeting of CD18 precinct chairs to fill the vacancy on the November ballot will be next Tuesday, August 13, at Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church, with the meeting beginning at 6 PM. I’ll get back to this in a minute.
There will be a candidate forum for CD18 on Saturday, August 10, which will be broadcast on Fox 26. I don’t have the details on that. Before that, on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of this week, there will be precinct chair interviews with candidates, which you can see on Zoom. Here are the Zoom links:
The calls are scheduled from 6 to 8 PM. I don’t know at this time who will be interviewing whom on any of those dates.
And finally, we have a candidate update now that the funeral for Rep. Jackson Lee has taken place.
Former Mayor Sylvester Turner was the first candidate to publicly declare his interest, and he made his campaign official on Friday morning. Former Council Member Amanda Edwards, who challenged Jackson Lee in a March primary, and Council Member Letitia Plummer also announced Friday. State Rep. Jarvis Johnson and former City Council Member Dwight Boykins already had declared their interest.
The full list of candidates, updated from the previous one, is as follows:
IN:
Sylvester Turner
Amanda Edwards
Dwight Boykins
Rep. Jarvis Johnson
CM Letitia Plummer
Rep. Christina Morales
Corisha Rogers
Robert Slater
Most of these were known as of my previous update. Rep. Morales is the elected official that I had spoken to who was thinking about running but had not come to a decision at that time. Rogers is the leadership engagement and support manager at the Harris County Democratic Party, and is on leave pending the outcome of this election. Slater was the third candidate on the March primary ballot; he had said he was dropping out but it was past the deadline to do so and so still appeared on the ballot, getting a bit less than 3% of the vote.
NOT ANNOUNCED YET:
Bishop James Dixon
Rep. Jolanda Jones
Dixon is quoted in this Chron story saying he’s still thinking about it. Rep. Jones was mentioned in the earlier story as a potential candidate but was not named in this one. I don’t have any further information about her status.
DEFINITELY NOT RUNNING:
Controller Chris Hollins
Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee
Rep. Jolanda Jones
Hollins posted on Twitter that he was not running. The earlier story mentioned that Menefee had taken himself out of the running.
UPDATE: Rep. Jones is on the long list of Sylvester Turner endorsers, so I think it’s safe to say she’s not running.
And that’s what I know at this time. Let me just add this bit of news from the announcement I received as a precinct chair about how the election on August 13 will be conducted:
The vote will be conducted by roll call given the anticipated high number of candidates. Each Precinct Chair’s name will be read and the Precinct Chair will announce the name of the person they are voting for. Rules of the Texas Democratic Party prohibit secret ballots and provide that the chair of the meeting, not the members, chooses the method of voting. Pursuant to TDP Rules, there may be no proxy voting at this meeting; all precinct chairs must vote for themselves and in person.
[…]
If no candidate receives a majority of the votes, a runoff will be held immediately in accordance with Texas law (between the candidates with the two highest numbers of votes).
The runoff will be done by “division of the room”, which is to say all those voting for candidate A will move to one side of the room, and all those voting for candidate B will move to the other, and whoever has the most people on their side of the room wins.
For better or worse, everyone will know how I and all of my fellow Chairs vote in this election. This is a very tough choice, I mostly know and respect these people, and all but one of them is going to see me pick someone else. It is what it is. All I can say is that I will be taking this very seriously, I trust we will elect a qualified and deserving candidate, and I wish everyone the best. See you on the 13th.
UPDATE: The candidate forum will be at 1 PM on the 10th at the Young Women’s College Preparatory Academy, 1906 Cleburne St, Houston TX 77004
Jones is listed as an endorser of Turner on the latter’s website. I don’t think she is running.
Noah – Saw that after I published. It’s fixed now. Thanks!
Boykins just sent a message to his followers saying that SJL’s family is backing Turner and asked him to drop out.
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