Lucio Vasquez/Houston Public Media
FILE – Houston Mayor John Whitmire at City Hall on May 8, 2024.
Candidates endorsed by the Harris County Democratic Party can continue to fundraise for Republicans without losing their endorsement, for now, after party leaders voted down a rule change on Sunday.
A group of precinct chairs within the Harris County Democratic Party sought the rule change in response to Houston Mayor John Whitmire’s appearance at a fundraiser for Republican Congressman Dan Crenshaw in April. Cameron “Coach Cam” Campbell was one of the precinct chairs behind the push.
“The reason it’s important is it essentially creates a really clear pathway for expectations of our partisan and nonpartisan Democratic elected officials,” Campbell said. “Our call in the rule is that our elected officials take the same pledge that we take as precinct chairs, which means that we committed to not support, endorse or fundraise for Republicans or other parties.”
The effort still isn’t dead, according to Campbell, who said the group plans to reintroduce the measure later this year.
The group of precinct chairs is also pushing for a resolution to admonish Whitmire over his appearance at the fundraiser. After being delayed in July, the admonishment will be presented to the party’s resolutions committee in October, Campbell said.
Harris County Democratic Party Chair Mike Doyle told the Houston Chronicle, which first reported on the failed rule change, that some of the 450 to 500 precinct chairs who attended the meeting on Sunday were concerned that the updated rule could represent an overreach impacting elected officials’ ability to attend nonpartisan events.
In an interview with Houston Public Media, Doyle added that the loud environment, coupled with the late-in-the-day vote, could have impacted the failure of the measure.
“There was an enormous amount of noise because you had a lot of people there,” Doyle said. “It’s a big room. There’s a lot of people. There’s always a problem with people talking off to the side, so it’s certainly possible.”
Based on “the sense of the room,” Doyle added, he expects “there will be some version of the rule that might be reconsidered.” The revised rule would need to first pass through the party’s rules and steering committees, which already approved the initial version, before the precinct chairs vote again in December.
Campbell said both measures have the support of more than 100 precinct chairs — out of nearly 600 in the Harris County Democratic Party. Political scientist Mark Jones with Rice University previously compared the effort to admonish Whitmire to “a snowball that’s rolling downhill in a desert.”
Campbell responded to Jones’ perspective by saying, “I’ll see him at the bottom of the hill, with a snow cone.”
Organizers with a separate grassroots effort to recall Whitmire from office criticized the party’s lack of movement on the rule change, accusing Whitmire of “betrayal.” The recall effort — which branded the longtime Democrat a “MAGA mayor” — also faces a steep uphill climb, requiring more than 60,000 signatures within 30 days.
Whitmire, who served in the Texas Senate as a Democrat for 50 years, enjoyed a 55% approval rating in the most recent survey released by the University of Houston’s Hobby School of Public Affairs in April. A spokesperson for Whitmire did not respond to a request for comment.