Two hopefuls, both with ties to the late Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, have entered the race to represent the 18th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, anticipating a May election.
Christian Menefee, who until Monday served as the Harris County attorney, and Isaiah Martin, a former senior adviser to the late Jackson Lee, have filed paperwork for the office vacated earlier this month when former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner died suddenly in Washington, D.C. The 18th Congressional District seat was previously held for 29 years by Jackson Lee, who died in 2024.
Speculation swirled that candidates would enter the race after Turner’s funeral and that’s exactly what they did. The former mayor was laid to rest in Houston on Saturday. Menefee filed paperwork hours after the funeral, triggering his resignation from the county attorney’s office. Martin announced his campaign on Monday. Former Houston City Council member Amanda Edwards is expected to file on Wednesday.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has not yet called a special election but if ballots are to be cast on the next scheduled election day of May 3, that decision must be made soon to meet a 36-day advance deadline, said University of Houston political science professor Brandon Rottinghaus.
Menefee said he doesn’t have any insight into whether the election will occur in May but he hopes the governor doesn’t play politics.
“We have seen the governor call multiple special elections and it is my hope that he understands the importance of not allowing a set of communities to languish without representation in Congress, something to which they are constitutionally entitled,” he said.
Residents in the 18th Congressional District could be experiencing voter fatigue due to the passings of Jackson Lee and Turner, who were both in their 70s at the time of their deaths and had battled cancer, political experts said earlier this month. That fatigue could prompt a younger generation of candidates in the 2025 special election, Rottinghaus predicted shortly after Turner’s death.
“We’re going to see a group of younger people running and more than likely one of them is going to win,” he said.
Menefee is 37 years old, and Martin is 26. Both men are Democrats and the 18th Congressional District has steadfastly remained a Democratic seat, unlikely to be upset by a Republican challenger. To date, no Republican candidate has surfaced in the race.
Menefee said District 18 voters don’t necessarily want youth; they want the will to fight.
“I think what we’re seeing across America is communities crying out for change,” he said. “They don’t like bullies, and Donald Trump has been a bully since he’s been in office. He’s enlisted the help of social media influencers, of billionaires, all for the purpose of beating the American public into submission of his will. I think the people of the 18th Congressional District want to see someone who’s going to go up there with vigor, with passion, with determination and with discipline, and fight back against Donald Trump and deliver results to the district.”
Christian Menefee
Menefee was elected Harris County attorney in 2020, and at the time was declared the youngest person and first African American to serve as chief civil lawyer for the largest county in Texas.
In his bid for U.S.Congress, Menefee is touting his “proven record of standing up to Republican overreach and delivering results for working families in Washington.” He raised about $200,000 within six hours of launching his campaign and has already emerged as a frontrunner in the race, appearing in interviews with national media.
“Working families need a fighter, someone who is going to defend voting rights, reproductive rights, lower costs for everyday people and take the Texas fight to D.C.,” he said. “We have a president who is ignoring separation of powers, a president who is laying off thousands and thousands of federal workers, cutting off critical funding to communities and overall doing a horrible job leading this country. I want to be part of that fight and help rein him in.”
As county attorney, Menefee scored multimillion-dollar settlements with Volkswagen for emissions deception and JUUL e-cigarette company for deceptive marketing to children.
“What we’ve seen from Americans is they don’t want someone who is going to fight in cosmetic ways and for cosmetic reasons,” he said. “They want an effective fighter who’s going to deliver real results and that’s what I’ve done as county attorney. When Waste Management was trying to expand a landfill more deeply into the Carverdale neighborhood, a historically African American neighborhood, I filed a lawsuit against them and they backed off. They dropped their permit application.
“When [Texas Attorney General] Ken Paxton sued Harris County after the 2022 election, seeking to throw out more than 2,000 legally-cast ballots in the general election, the Texas Supreme Court allowed Harris County to keep those ballots in our count. We beat him in the Texas Supreme Court.”
Menefee’s campaign chair is Erica Lee Carter, the daughter of Jackson Lee. Carter temporarily held the seat after her mother’s death in 2024, prior to Turner’s election.
Carter has seen firsthand service to the 18th Congressional District for most of her life, Menefee said.
“Her mom stepped into that role and the 18th Congressional District became synonymous with [Jackson Lee],” he said. “She was an advocate, a friend, a neighbor, and so many things to the people of this district. To have former Congresswoman Erica Lee’s endorsement and support absolutely means the world to me because I know she knows the work that goes into this. Since she was a child, she’s seen it firsthand.”
Isaiah Martin
Martin served as Jackson Lee’s senior adviser for four years (he says he started out carrying her purse and worked his way up) after getting into political advocacy as a student at the University of Houston. He currently works in procurement on aerospace projects.
The Houston native said he believes the country is at a crossroads and “the people want a Democratic Party that fights back.” The candidate raised about $185,000 in just one day of fundraising.
A continuing resolution vote last week in the U.S. Senate thwarted a government shutdown and sealed Martin’s decision to run for Congress, he said. Republicans and Democrats have been at odds over cost-cutting measures led by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
“I’ve been paying attention to the issues of the district for a very long time,” Martin said. “We have so many veterans that live in this district. That [continuing resolution] is really going to hurt the veteran population and the air traffic controllers that stand to lose their jobs at Bush Airport. That’s right here in the district … The massive DOGE cuts are eventually going to cut funding for our federal workforce and infrastructure projects. We know that Social Security is at risk, Medicare is at risk and Medicaid is at risk.”
Martin said it’s unacceptable that President Donald Trump closed the Environmental Justice Office responsible for collecting data that allows the government to “go after” companies that are polluting air and water.
“We must do everything we can to get somebody in that seat that fights as hard for this city and this district as Congresswoman Jackson Lee did when she was a member of Congress,” Martin said. “We don’t need weak leadership. We don’t need a gala congressperson. I’m going to be somebody that’s going to fight for them tooth and nail to deliver for them with strength and audacity.”
Politicians don’t do enough listening, Martin added, saying he wants to meet and spend time with voters, The 18th Congressional District has about 800,000 constituents and includes downtown, part of the Heights, Acres Homes, Third Ward, northeast Houston and the area surrounding George Bush Intercontinental Airport and Humble.
While in college, Martin founded #ForTheStudents to increase campus voting access, address food insecurity and provide sexual assault support through free rape kits and resources for students attending several Houston-area universities.
He hosts a nightly “TikTok live” that averages thousands of viewers who tune in to watch him debate Trump supporters, “using that as a platform to educate people on what’s going on in America.”
“People wanted to see me going up against Trump supporters in the way that we did,” he said. “The message that sends is that we are here to build a Democratic Party that is not afraid, because we need one that has a spine.”
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This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.
