Houston's New Mayor John Whitmire Gonna Be So Tough On Crime He's Probably Already Kissed A Cop, Arrested You

Yes, he's a Democrat.

Texas state Senator John Whitmire, who is definitely a Democrat, defeated US House Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee in Saturday's Houston mayoral runoff. The Houston Chronicle describes it as a “landslide victory,” and math agrees: Whitmire prevailed with an estimated 65 percent of the vote to Jackson Lee’s 35 percent.

“Great cities solve their problems. Together, we can solve our problems,” Whitmire declared at his victory party at the George R. Brown Convention Center in downtown Houston. “The first way you solve your problem is admit you have one. And I don't mind telling folks what a great city we have, but we’ve got great challenges. It’ll be an opportunity to show the nation what the city of Houston can do. We will not kick our can down the road any longer.”

He’s talking about crime. Whitmire ran on an openly “tough-on-crime” platform, which probably explains why people (like your Wonkette editrix, who is sorry she just did no basic factchecking at all) assumed he was a Republican. Of course, Democrats, especially from the South, have been aggressively “tough on crime” since at least the 1990s, but they’ve had to rebuild that reputation after expressing some slight remorse over police violence back in 2020. Those were dark days for the party.

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Whitmire had positioned himself as a “reformer who’s tough on crime.” That might sound like meaningless double talk but it’s kind of true: He helped ease prison overcrowding (that’s good!) but he also helped ratchet up sentencing for violent crime (that’s less good). He presented himself as a “voice of reason” who got things done.

“There’s some activists, young activists, that think maybe I don’t make enough noise while I’m being effective,” Whitmire said during the campaign. “Sheila will make noise. So, if you want a noisemaker, she’s probably your candidate. I’m a doer.”

You can apparently say that about women in Texas, especially if they’re Black.

Whitmire centered his campaign on improving public safety. He promised he’d bring 200 state troopers to Houston while the city hired and trained hundreds more police officers. During his victory speech, he also tied fighting crime with “supporting the officers we have.” Most Houston police officers are in the 75th percentile of the city’s wage earners. Police Chief Troy Finner is the city’s second-highest-paid city employee, while outgoing Mayor Sylvester Turner is the 10th highest. Of course, when discussing public school teachers, “support” usually means “pay them enough so they aren’t living on cat food.” With the police, this is often code for “don’t give them such a hard time about occasionally killing civilians.”

NPR notes that “while Jackson Lee also talked about the importance of public safety, she took a more nuanced approach, emphasizing the importance of creating jobs, and violence intervention to get at some of the root causes of crime.” Ah, but no one’s got time to look for root causes! Jackson Lee obviously wanted Houstonians murdered in their beds while she went radish hunting.

Houston’s violent crime has trended downward in 2023, with an 18 percent decrease in reported homicides. Nonetheless, 35 percent of likely voters polled said crime was the most important issue in the election. That’s almost double the 18 percent of voters who prioritized the economy. (Voters do not always respond based on what’s logical and true, and that’s important to remember in the coming election year.)

This was not much of a horse race, as Whitmire consistently led the polls since he first declared his intentions to run for mayor more than two years ago. The general election in November was more competitive, with Whitmire besting Jackson Lee 42 percent to her 35 percent. No one cleared the 50 percent threshold, which triggered a runoff.

However, a major poll conducted shortly afterward underscored the trends working against Jackson Lee. Older white voters and conservatives adored Whitmire, and they are more likely to turn out for runoff elections. I could just be dense but I don’t recall much energy for Jackson Lee’s campaign. That might explain why Black voters, her core constituency, didn’t turn out in the same numbers as they had for Turner.

Whitmire also benefited from a plurality of support among Latino voters. And while Whitmire led among men in Houston Public Media's poll, he also tied among women, cutting into another critical Jackson Lee support group.

Political journalist Ed Krassenstein wrote on the generic social media site, “I believe Whitmire won the race because he stressed bipartisanship. He stressed working together with Republican state officials. I hope Americans are tired of the division. Let’s move in this direction!”

I don’t mind working with people. Some of my friends are people, but Texas Republicans are terrible. They’ve passed horrific voter suppression bills, draconian abortion bans, and protected the corrupt Attorney General Ken Paxton, who tried to illegally overturn the 2020 presidential election. We don’t really need a Democratic mayor who can cuddle with those assholes, but I guess Houston is getting one. Maybe now everyone will notice the lowering crime rate.

[NPR]

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