Mayor John Whitmire
Recall Houston, a group working to recall Houston Mayor John Whitmire, is gaining steam and reading for a push to get the effort on the ballot in 2025.
The organization has been working for almost a year, but organizers say the timing is now coming together to get the effort off the ground.
Recalling a mayor in Houston requires 25% of the votes in the last general election. For Houston, that’s about 63,000 signatures – all of which must be gathered and submitted within 30 days. That’s more than 2,000 signatures per day- all of whom must be registered voters in the city of Houston.
The group began accepting donations this week to assist with the effort and launched a new website at the beginning of the year.
“Whitmire’s administration is incompetent and dangerous for Houston. Throughout the past year, we’ve seen Whitmire damage our city and risk our future,” the group’s site reads.
A spokesperson for Whitmire told ABC13 that the efforts are not new and that many mayors have faced recall initiatives.
You know I’m not a big fan of Mayor Whitmire. I’ve heard talk from various folks about a recall effort for some time now, so the existence of this campaign, if it is in that stage yet, isn’t a surprise to me. Certainly, some of the items on their webpage resonate with me – I’m extremely unhappy about the large scale undoing of the 2019 Metro NEXT referendum, for one. But let’s review a few facts here.
– 63K signatures is a lot to collect, though it is doable. 63K signatures in a month, and the clock starts as soon as you get the first one, is a massive and expensive effort that would be an underdog under the best of circumstances. Right now, I don’t see any evidence that such an effort is close to being rolled out.
– Part of the reason for that is that there are no names associated with Recall Houston. Look at their About page, which begins with the sentence “Recall for Houston is a group of Houstonians who want to recall Mayor Whitmire.” Glad we cleared that up. Most people would like to know who’s associated with a group before they throw in with it, even if they align with its goals. If you come for the king, you best know that you’ve got a realistic shot at not missing.
– It’s my understanding that the recall process here is not one in which you decide whether or not to oust the Mayor, and then if the answer to that is Yes you run an election to replace him. It’s one in which voters are first asked if they want to oust the Mayor, and then right there on the same ballot, next question, who they’d like to replace him with. In other word, the recall campaign is also the Mayoral campaign for some number of wannabe Mayors, much like the 2003 California gubernatorial recall was also a vote for the next Governor. You may remember what a, um, colorful collection of candidates there were for that. I can only imagine what we’d get in this scenario. Would, say, Chris Hollins throw in his hat? I have my doubts. If there isn’t a serious opponent in this race, one who’d have a decent chance at beating Whitmire in 2027, then what’s the point?
– I may be wrong about that – it’s my understanding from talking with other people who are Also Not Fans of Mayor Whitmire. It seems to me that one of the core missions of a recall effort would be to explain to the voters, who have never experienced such an election at least in the 37 years that I’ve lived in Houston, how this works.
– Anyway, my point is that a serious effort would already have big names and some kind of fundraising structure associated with it. They started accepting donations on March 26. Which, good for them, but there’s a very long way to go from there. I’ll be very interested to see what they show in their July finance report.
– Finally, is there any evidence to suggest that Mayor Whitmire has lost some critical amount of support, enough to perhaps put him in danger of a recall effort? We don’t have that kind of polling operation for Houston, so it’s impossible to say for sure. No doubt, there will be some Whitmire voters from 2023 who don’t like some of the things he has done. Every elected official goes through that. That’s a long step away from “and so let’s fire him and replace him with someone else, TBD who”. Maybe commission a poll, and see what you get.
Anyway, you can follow Recall Houston on BlueSky, whose feed goes back four months, and Twitter, whose feed is much busier and I barely got to the beginning of March before I stopped trying to get to the bottom of it. My best guess from looking at the feeds is that this is coming from the pro-biking, anti-watered-down-Montrose-Blvd-project community. I stand with them on these things, but they largely were anti-Whitmire to begin with, and I don’t know how much that coalition has expanded. This would be one way to find out, if they can get it off the ground. The Chron, which notes a Reddit post by Recall Houston from last June, has more.
This is interesting. Whitmire seems popular among the police officers I’ve talked to, he also has worked on several problems that have been neglected by several prior mayors. On the other hand, he is opposed to any bicycle or pedestrian projects, although he doesn’t get out on his bike to see what it’s like. I also think he’s kind of a showboat, like his “Let’s not give prisons air conditioning” initiative. Sure, prison ain’t supposed to be a picnic, but let’s think about the people who work there; not only are they sweltering, but they’ve also got to deal with a population who hates them. Also, it might save the state some money in electric bills but maybe ends up costing more in medical care for inmates who have heat related problems. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Sorry, but “popular among police officers” hasn’t been a recommendation since Sheriff Andy Taylor left the scene.
Most police officers don’t live in Houston, so they don’t get to vote if it makes it on the ballot. They are also expecting a large pay raise, and negotiations for the next three years are presently being discussed.