Shortly after the news broke Wednesday morning of former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner’s death, speculation began about a special election for his U.S. Congressional seat — a post he’d held for just two months.
Political experts say an election is likely to happen in May and could represent a generational change.
“We’re going to see a group of younger people running and more than likely one of them is going to win,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a University of Houston political science professor.
Turner replaced 74-year-old Sheila Jackson Lee, who died in July 2024 shortly after announcing a pancreatic cancer diagnosis. Turner, 70, had been quietly battling bone cancer but announced in 2022 he was cancer-free.
Rottinghaus said several of his students worked for Turner over his decades of public service. The professor said he ran into Turner occasionally over the years and they would chat about Cougar football. Born and raised in Houston, Turner earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from UH in 1977 and after graduating from Harvard Law School, Turner returned to Houston and occasionally lectured for the UH Law Center’s continuing legal education programs.
“He was Houston homegrown,” Rottinghaus said. “His whole life, his whole career, was all about the H. That’s a real testament to his determination to represent where he was from.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott will call a special election to fill Turner’s congressional seat but the law doesn’t specify a deadline. Once he does call an election, it has to be held within about two months of the announcement, Rottinghaus said. The seat will remain vacant until the special election is held.
“The law also suggests that it should line up with the next uniform election, so that probably puts it in May,” he said. “This is a seat that has been contested very recently so there are several people who are primed and are likely thinking about running again. I suspect that’ll heat up after the funeral.”
Funeral arrangements had not been announced at press time.
Turner defeated Republican Lana Centonze with 69 percent of the vote in November. Rottinghaus said Gov. Abbott, a Republican, could “play a game” with the timing of the election but he doesn’t think it’s likely.
“I don’t think the governor would do that,” he said. “He’s generally been pretty consistent about calling these elections in a pretty straightforward way. I don’t think there’s going to be any shenanigans. The other thing is this is a very Democratic district. There’s a very low likelihood this would be an opportunity for Republicans to pick up the seat even with unusual voting circumstances.”
When Lee announced that she was running for mayor of Houston, several people announced their candidacies for her congressional seat.
“They ultimately got out of the race once she got back in,” Rottinghaus said, explaining that Lee was defeated in a mayoral runoff by John Whitmire in 2023 and returned to Congress before her death. “There are candidates who have toyed with the idea of running for the seat and have even gone so far as to formally announce and raise money for it. There is a cadre of people in that position.”
Former Houston City Councilwoman and Senate hopeful Amanda Edwards and City Controller Chris Hollins may be among those possible candidates, Rottinghaus said.
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.
“For the longest time, this was Sheila Jackson Lee’s seat,” Rottinghaus said. “She set the standard for what people assumed a member from this district would do and how they would act. I think Turner did more or less what she would have done, being a bold and dogged fighter for the constituents.
“I think he basically kind of carried that torch in a way she would have liked,” he added. “That’s the ethos of this district. The voters want to see someone who is willing to fight for them. Turner was a great choice because he had done that his whole career, from representing Acres Homes to representing the city. He was very dogged in his determination to represent people. Whoever comes next is going to want to find that in their own representative style.”
