NEW YORK — U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) officially launched her campaign for mayor of Houston on Friday, adding an influential progressive voice to the election that will decide who will lead the nation’s fourth-largest city.
“I want the approach to the city in the 21st century to be based on hope and possible solutions,” Jackson Lee told HuffPost on Thursday after speaking at the National Action Network conference in Manhattan. “You can take a city and listen to different neighborhoods and get real practical solutions.”
Jackson Lee, the top Democrat in the House, plans to use his familiarity with the federal government to ensure Houston receives its fair share of federal resources. And he hopes to promote the “people” of Houston’s diversity, citing them as a national model of coexistence. (The city is home to people who talk 145 languages.)
“If there is harmony in America, I want people to see it,” he told HuffPost.
Jackson Lee first announced his plans to enter the nonpartisan Houston mayoral race during an appearance in a church in Houston at the end of March. Voting to succeed Mayor Sylvester Turner, a pro-business Democrat, ends Nov. 7. If no candidate gets an outright majority, there will be a runoff in December between the top two vote-getters.
Jackson Lee joins an already crowded field that includes Texas state Sen. John Whitmire (D), Houston City Councilman Robert Gallegos (D), former Houston Area Transit Chairman Gilbert Garcia, attorneys Amanda Edwards and Lee Kaplan and former police attorney Missouri State Robin Williams. Jackson Lee and Williams are the only black candidates still in the race.
Jackson Lee, an attorney who has represented Houston in Congress since 1995, did not share any details about his campaign platform with HuffPost.
However, his remarks in his brief interview with HuffPost and his speech at the Rev. Al Sharpton for National Action suggests he will be one of the most progressive candidates in the field.
Jackson Lee has vowed to fight Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) effort. detect Houston Public School System. He noted in his remarks at the National Action Network conference that Houston school superintendent, The Millard Housethis is also black Board of Education school district governance is racially diverse.
“We may not all agree, but we know those administrators care about our kids,” she said.
Jackson Lee also promised to take steps to limit the eviction of tenants who fall behind on rent.
“Are we in a community, in a nation, where people are leaving their sickbeds to go home to pack for evacuation?” he told HuffPost. “We can be better than this.”
Jackson Lee, who sits on the House Judiciary Committee, is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. He led efforts to promote civil rights for black Americans by introducing The home version of the bill which made Juneteenth a national holiday in 2021. It is currently the primary sponsor of a utility bill that he would create a commission to study reparations for black Americans e a utility bill which would criminalize certain forms of hate speech.
Although Jackson Lee is a mainstream progressive rather than a southpaw of the sort embodied by “The Team” in the US House, her candidacy is the latest evidence of a big city’s appetite for police reform amid a wave of crimes on which have them, sometimes helped the moderate Democrats.
Speaking to HuffPost, Jackson Lee praised the city’s use of American Rescue Plan funds for the One Safe Houston initiative and promised to implement a “complicated” public safety plan in the near future. (The initiative combines traditional law enforcement tactics with outreach to troubled youth and other preventative measures.)
“I think ‘hope’ gives people the understanding that I’m not ignoring their pain in addressing the crime problem,” he said.
Jackson Lee joined Sharpton in campaigning for Chicago Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson, who is further to the left than the Houston congressman, in late March. And Jackson Lee’s son, Jason Lee, a financier turned progressive campaign consultant, was a senior campaign adviser to Johnson.
Asked if Johnson’s victory offered any lessons for his bid, Jackson Lee said: “It was a popular race. And I hope to make it a race of people.”
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