It's absolutely outrageous that Arizona Rep. Adelita Grijalva had to wait 50 days before MAGA Speaker Mike Johnson finally swear her into Congress. She immediately became the 218th signatory to the discharge petition to force a House vote on releasing the Epstein files.
Actually, Grijalva should have been the 219th signatory.
Her father, Rep. Raul Grijalva, 77, died on March 13 of complications from cancer. The very next day, Arizona's Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs scheduled a primary election for July 15 and the general election to fill the vacancy in Arizona's Tucson-area CD7 for Sept. 23. Grijalva won a landslide victory with 69% of the vote.
On March 5, Rep. Sylvester Turner, the former Houston mayor, died after a medical emergency just two months into his first-term. He was filling the minority majority seat in the Houston-area CD18 that opened when Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a leading civil rights advocate, died of pancreatic cancer on July 19, 2024. Her daughter, Erica Lee Carter, won a special election on Nov. 5, 2024, to serve out the last two months of her mother's term before Turner took office in January 2025..
But Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has pulled out all the stops to make sure that the historically Black CD18 will go without representation in Congress for nearly a year. Surprisingly, this story has garnered little national attention.
This year there were six vacancies in the House due to resignations or deaths. Two special elections were held in Florida on April 1, within three months of the resignations of Matt Gaetz (CD1) and Michael Waltz (CD6).
On June 3, Virginia Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin scheduled a special election for Sept. 9 to fill the seat of Rep. Gerald Connolly, who died of cancer on May 21. Democrat James Walkinshaw, a former Connolly staffer, won with 75% of the vote and was sworn into the House two days later.
The last special election for a vacant House seat will be held on Dec. 2 in Tennessee's CD7 to replace Rep. Mark Green, who announced his retirement on July 4. Democrat Aftyn Behn and Republican Matt Van Epps are facing off after winning in the Oct. 7 primary election. Recent internal polling from Democrats shows Behn within 8 to 10 points of Van Epps, in the deep red district that Green won by a 22-point margin in November 2024.
But Abbott has messed with the residents of Texas CD18 to deny them representation in Congress. It was a calculated effort to prevent Democrats from cutting into the GOP's razor-thin House majority.
This Houston-area district holds a special significance for the civil rights movement. Texas CD18 was created in 1972 as a result of the Voting Rights Act and the 1970 Census as the first Black congressional district in Houston.
The first election in the newly drawn district was won by civil rights icon Barbara Jordan, who became the first Black woman elected to Congress from the South. Later another Black woman, Sheila Jackson Lee, held the seat from 1995 to 2024.
So let's recap what happened because this outrageous story for some reason has not generated much national attention.
Abbott waited until April 7 – more than a month after Turner's death – to announce a date for the special election for CD18. Under Texas law, a special election must be held on a uniform election date at least 46 days after Abbott's call.
That meant that the late March deadline was missed to hold the special election on May 3 when local elections were held across the state. Instead, Abbott scheduled the special election in CD18 for the next available date – Nov. 4.
Abbott tried to justify the delay by referencing past Republican complaints about the administration of elections in Harris County.
“No county in Texas does a worse job of conducting elections than Harris County,” Abbott wrote in a statement. “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.”
Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee, who later announced his candidacy for the seat, dismissed Abbott's argument as "nonsense."
Houston Landing, a non-profit newsroom that has now closed, quoted from a statement released by Menefee responding to Abbott's proclamation:
“It is unconscionable to leave nearly 800,000 people in this district without representation in Congress for most of the year. We’ll go through hurricane season, budget battles, and attacks on Social Security and Medicaid with no one at the table fighting for us. Governor Abbott knows how to move quickly – he’s done it for other districts. He just chose not to for us.”
Unlike other states, Texas did not hold a primary election for the seat. That meant that there were 16 candidates on the Nov. 4 ballot, including Democrats, Republicans and independents.
The result could be expected. No candidate received more than 50 percent of the vote, which was required to avoid a runoff election. Democrats took the top three spots with nearly 75% of the vote. A Republican finished in fourth place with only 7%
The two top finishers – Menefee, 37, and former Houston City Council member Amanda Edwards, 43 – advanced to a runoff.
As of Friday, Abbott still had not announced a date for the runoff. Under Texas law, the runoff could be delayed until the end of January.
But there's another complication. Candidates have until Dec. 8 to file for the March 3 primary election to get on the 2026 midterm ballot. And early voting for the primary begins on Feb. 17.
And the winner of the runoff might end up serving less than a year in Congress. That's because the racist gerrymander implemented by Texas Republicans at President Donald Trump's request to potentially give the GOP five more House seats wipes out one of the two historically Black seats in the Houston area.
State lawmakers redrew CD9 from solidly Democratic territory in south and southwest Houston to Republican-leaning territory in eastern Harris County and Liberty County, Houston Public Media reported.
The gerrymander moved a large chunk of CD7, including the home of Rep. Al Green, into CD18. The GOP specifically targeted Green, who was ordered removed from the House chamber last March for interrupting Trump's address to Congress.
Black and Latino civil rights groups as well as individuals have filed lawsuits challenging the redistricting map. But if the gerrymander is allowed to stand, Green has already announced that he will run in CD18.
"We refuse to allow President Donald Trump to decide for us who is going to represent us in the Congress of the United States of America," the 78-year-old Green said at his campaign kickoff event last week.
And Abbott had the audacity to launch his gubernatorial re-election campaign last Sunday at a golf and entertainment venue in the heart of CD18.
On Wednesday, dozens of community leaders and residents filled a church in the district to urge Abbott to set a date for the special election runoff.
The Houston Chronicle quoted one of the event's organizers as saying:
"Governor Abbott, you have intentionally denied this community its congressional representative for nearly a year," said Fred Woods, co-founder and lead organizer of District B United, the coalition that convened the event. "You deny us fairness, justice and even respect for our constitutional and human rights. Then you come to this very district, the one you ignore and oppress, to launch your campaign."
Menefee attended the meeting but did not speak from the podium. The Chronicle reported that Menefee referenced the 2021 special election in North Texas' 6th Congressional District in which Abbott scheduled a vote within two months of the Republican incumbent's death, citing hurricane season and the need for federal representation during potential disasters.
"You can't treat us this way and then come here and launch your campaign from the very community you've disenfranchised," Menefee said. "A Republican district gets an election in months, but a Black and brown district gets silence. This delay was intentional."
Comments
We want Uncharted Blue to be a welcoming and progressive space.
Before commenting, make sure you've read our Community Guidelines.