Lucio Vasquez/Houston Public Media
FILE – Houston Mayor John Whitmire at City Hall on May 8, 2024.
Houston Mayor John Whitmire’s political party of more than five decades admonished him on Sunday — barring the lifelong Democrat from receiving its endorsement in the future, according to multiple local precinct chairs who attended the meeting where a vote was held.
A progressive group within the Harris County Democratic Party pushed through the measure nearly eight months after Whitmire, who was a longtime state lawmaker before being elected mayor, attended a fundraiser for U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a Houston Republican.
“Actions have ramifications,” said Cameron “Coach Cam” Campbell, one of the precinct chairs who championed the measure. “You boast on being a 50-year elected Democrat, and you wait until you’re finally in a nonpartisan seat to show your tail. Pack light.”
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The move was largely symbolic. The party did not make an endorsement in the 2023 mayoral race because there were multiple Democratic candidates running for the nonpartisan position. If the same pattern holds true in 2027, which is expected, the party would not make an endorsement regardless of the measure approved Sunday.
Still, the result marked a stinging political defeat for a relatively popular mayor as 186 precinct chairs voted in favor of the reprimand, with 80 voting against. Whitmire did not immediately respond to a request for comment made through his campaign.
“This definitely kind of opens the door to a more progressive challenger to the mayor (in 2027),” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor with the University of Houston. “That’ll shake out in ways we’re not sure — depends on the money, depends on the atmosphere, depends on the candidates — so just lots of unknowns. But I think this does probably make it clear that the mayor will have a strong progressive challenge.”
In the runup to Sunday’s vote, Whitmire — who earlier this year enjoyed a 59% approval rating among registered voters — fought back against the resolution. His campaign on Friday afternoon released a list of nearly 50 supporters from within the Democratic party, including local elected officials and precinct chairs, leaders of labor unions and civil rights groups, and a church pastor. He also appealed for additional signatures in a social media post on Saturday.
A news release from the campaign that accompanied the list, which included U.S. Rep. Lizzie Fletcher and state Sen. Carol Alvarado, said the Whitmire supporters expressed “strong opposition” to an admonishment “they believe is divisive and counterproductive.”
Fred Woods, a Harris County Democratic Party precinct chair and community activist in Northeast Houston, signed onto the list along with more than two dozen other precinct chairs.
He told Houston Public Media he opposed the “silly” resolution because “we’ve already seen some fractures” in the party — pointing specifically to the defection of former Democratic state representative Shawn Thierry to the Republican party. She fell short in a Democratic primary following her votes in 2023 to ban gender-affirming care for minors, to bar certain books from school libraries and to prohibit college athletes from competing on teams that do not align with their sex at birth.
“When we do things like this, it makes people feel like they are not a part of the party,” Woods said. “We want a strong party. We want a united front, and we want to work together for the benefit of all of the citizens of Texas, Harris County and the city of Houston, and so I just can’t see how this makes us any stronger. Resolutions like this do not make us a strong party.”
On the other side, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo advocated for the resolution in a social media post on Saturday. She shared a link to the “Lone Star Left” Substack blog on her Facebook page, quoting a section that argued Whitmire was “governing Houston like Greg Abbott,” a reference to Texas’ Republican governor.
Over the past two years, Whitmire and Hidalgo sparred over the mayor’s comments about her then-fiancé, his prognostication about her political aspirations, and even the speaking order at a press conference following the derecho wind event in 2024.
Members of the party’s progressive caucus were not immediately available for interviews.
This is a developing story and will be updated.