This article starts off with a look back at the career of former State Rep and Mayor, now US Rep-elect Sylvester Turner and his relationship with the late Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, and then gets into what he will face and what he will try to do after he is sworn in to succeed her.
Mayor Sylvester Turner
Now, as the congressman-elect, Turner knows it’s impossible to replace Jackson Lee. But he wants Houstonians to know his focus is getting things done.
“I’m looking for win-wins,” Turner said. “I’m not looking for win-losses.”
As a freshman Democratic member of Congress, Turner will not only walk into an administration that is once again led by president-elect Donald Trump after his victory over Vice President Kamala Harris, but a Congress as a whole that has also flipped red.
On top of this, Turner’s party has found itself regrouping, said Renée Cross, senior executive director of the University of Houston’s Hobby School of Public Affairs.
Turner also enters an entirely different political realm where he doesn’t have the same seniority he had in the legislature. He won’t be one of 150 elected officials like he was in the statehouse, or the sole guy in charge like he was as Houston mayor. Instead, he’ll be a new kid in a sea of 435, Cross said.
But Cross doesn’t think it’s all “gloom and doom,” nor that it will sway the seasoned lawmaker. She predicts Turner will be able to successfully tap into his record of working across the aisle.
“One of his strengths is his interpersonal skills, and I think that he will be able to use those to help create a bridge,” Cross said, referring to moderate Republicans and Democrats, particularly those who also represent Texas.
Turner, while he hoped the environment he’s walking into would be different, said he’s dealt with a red wave before, such as the 2003 flip in the Texas statehouse and the start of his first term as mayor when Trump first took office.
“You just have to work with the hand that you’ve been dealt and find a way to get from point A to point B to meet the needs of the people that you represent,” Turner said.
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Turner’s Congressional priorities are healthcare access, affordable housing and disaster preparedness as he heads into Congress.
The incoming congressman said he’s had access to some of the best healthcare in the world as he’s dealt with his own cancer diagnosis. He realizes others, though, aren’t as lucky. One of his priorities will be making sure the Affordable Care Act isn’t terminated or pared down as the Trump administration calls for its axing. He’d also like to make it more accessible.
Turner said he wants to ensure Houstonians in the 18th have more economic opportunities, and he couldn’t ignore the communities he represents are in “a constant state of need and recovery,” especially in storms.
Where the congresswoman did a little bit of everything, Turner wants to establish areas of expertise and key issues.
“I think the difference, maybe the focus for me is not trying to do everything that’s on the screen. I do want to kind of concentrate on certain areas to really make a substantive, or a transformative difference,” he said, adding that he’ll discuss more with his team come January.
I feel reasonably confident that Rep.-elect Turner will find his footing quickly. I don’t think he’ll find many opportunities to get things done because that isn’t the Congress he’s been elected to. I think he will mostly be on the defensive, and the more he can do to oppose whatever it is this shambolic Congress with a razor-thin Republican majority tries to do, the better. As things stand right now, with three vacancies thanks to Trump appointments, Republicans start with a 217-215 edge, which will likely become 220-215 by March. That’s smaller than the majority they have in the current Congress, and we all saw what a shitshow that was. Don’t help them with anything that isn’t an unqualified good thing, let them flail and fail, and take every opportunity to say loudly and clearly that it doesn’t have to be like this, there is a better way. Do that and it will be as successful a term as it can be.