Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) on Tuesday set the date for a Nov. 4 special election to fill the late Rep. Sylvester Turner’s (D-Texas) House seat, which has been vacant since early March.
A statement from the governor stressed a need to give “sufficient time” for Harris County’s election office to prepare, though the office has pushed back against Abbott’s claims and Democrats have accused him of slow-walking the process to protect Republicans’ slim House majority.
“No county in Texas does a worse job of conducting elections than Harris County,” Abbott said on Monday. “Forcing Harris County to rush this special election on weeks’ notice would harm the interests of voters. The appropriate time to hold this election is November, which will give Harris County sufficient time to prepare for such an important election.”
After Abbott made similar claims last week, Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth responded that her office “remain[s] fully prepared to conduct the Congressional District 18 election as soon as the Governor issues the order.”
In a press conference ahead of Abbott’s Monday announcement, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) accused Abbot of “intentionally disenfranchising hundreds of thousands of people in Houston by not calling a special election because he is conspiring to rig the system with House Republican leaders and Donald Trump.”
Jeffries reportedly said it was “very likely” Democrats would pursue legal action.
“The entire country can see what Greg Abbott is up to right now — GOP power in the U.S. House hangs by a thread, and he’s unjustly denying nearly 800,000 Texans representation," Texas Democratic Party Chair Kendall Scudder said in a statement ahead of Abbott's announcement, warning the governor to "call an emergency election or lawyer up."
The Houston-area seat is a safe Democratic district, and having a blue House seat open could help Republicans with their tight 220-213 majority in the lower chamber, experts said.
Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee, one of the candidates running for the seat, knocked the "more than a month of silence" from Abbott before setting a date, and stressed that the timeline will leave the 18th Congressional District without a representative for more than half a year.
“That’s 250 days our community will go without a voice in Congress,” said Menefee, suggesting that the delay was an effort to help President Trump and GOP numbers in Congress. “Nearly 800,000 people live in this district. We deserve urgency. We deserve representation now!”
Abbott last year announced a special election roughly two weeks after the mid-July passing of Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), who previously represented Turner’s seat. That contest was set for Nov. 5 of last year, the same day as the general ...
