Runoff election scheduled for Houston mayoral race

The Nov. 3 election failed to secure a majority of votes to determine the next mayor for the city of Houston. Houstonians will take to the polls again in December to decide a clear victor.

Opponents Sylvester Turner and Bill King will face a runoff scheduled for Dec. 12. Turner finished with 32 percent of the vote with King battling second place at 25 percent in the Nov. 3 race.

Turner, state representative for the last 26 years, will continue to focus on the issues of building a safe city with strong schools and better economic opportunities.

King, who served on the Kemah City Council and was elected to two terms as the city’s mayor, will reiterate his message about balancing the budget, building better roads and reducing crime in the city of Houston.

The new mayor will replace Annise Parker who has held the position since 2009 and will retire this year having reached her term limit.

As a result of the Nov. 3 election those term limits have changed. Instead of three two-year terms, whoever is elected will face a term limit of two four-year terms because of the passage of Proposition 2.

Although the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO) was voted down, with 61 percent of voters rejecting the proposition, Parker said the issue is still ongoing.

The next mayor could put fourth a new ordinance at the start of the new year.

Parker plans to sit down with the city council members to introduce the ordinance in segments, as long as it protects all 15 categories that HERO would have, before her term is up. Also, depending on who wins the election, they may end up back to the drawing board.

The HERO ordinance was drafted to protect outlaw discrimination in these 15 categories: sex, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, familial status, marital status, military status, religion, disability, sexual orientation, genetic information, gender identity and pregnancy.

The controversy behind the HERO ordinance centered around its “public accommodations” policy that, if it were to pass, would allow men and women to use the public restroom for the gender with which they identify.

UHCL alumnus Zach Henry, who likes to blog about sports and politics, believes Houstonians had a valid point when they vetoed Proposition 1.

“I think voting to repeal the HERO law was the right action to take,” Henry said. “The majority of Houston voters recognized that the ordinance contained some questionable content. It goes far beyond discriminating against a person, or a group of persons, because of their race, sexual orientation or gender identity.”

Supporters of Proposition 1 believe that the HERO ordinance would have offered increased protections for gay and transgender people, as well as protections against, not only discrimination based on gender, but against discrimination on race, age and religion.

The argument heard most frequently from Proposition 1 dissenters is that, if passed, any sexual predator could use the new law as an excuse to target women in public restrooms; furthermore, some opponents argued that officials should not provide such considerations for these “confused” men and women because they go against the morality of God.

Leah Won, president of the Unity Club at UHCL explained how highly offended she is by such notions.

“These arguments are steeped in logical fallacies and, secondly, because they are promulgated by the same people who allow for unrealistic fear to dictate their own morality and political perspectives, which ultimately withholds inherent liberties from an existent population of humankind,” Won said. “That in and of itself is the meaning of discrimination.”

Won said she was pretty bummed out that ordinance didn’t pass.

“The outcome shows that although Houston strives to be the ‘city of the future,’ a large majority of the voting population is still engendered in fundamentalist conservative values,” Won said.

The city of Houston had the highest voter turnout it had seen in dozens of years.