Sylvester Turner

Sylvester Turner (September 27, 1954 – March 5, 2025) was an American attorney and politician who served as the U.S. representative for from January 2025 until his death in March 2025. A member of the Democratic Party, Turner served as the 62nd mayor of Houston from 2016 to 2024 and as a member of the Texas House of Representatives from 1989 to 2016.

Born and raised in Houston, Turner graduated from the University of Houston with a bachelor's degree in political science and from Harvard Law School with a Juris Doctor. He was first elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 1988 and continued to serve in the Texas House until 2016.

Turner ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Houston in 1991 and again in 2003. Turner won the 2015 Houston mayoral election, defeating Bill King by a margin of under two percent in the closest mayoral election in Houston history. On December 14, 2019, Turner won his second term as mayor over Tony Buzbee.

In 2024, after the death of Sheila Jackson Lee, Turner announced his candidacy to fill her congressional seat and was nominated at the subsequent convention. He was then elected in November 2024 and took office in January 2025. he served on the Homeland Security Committee and the Science, Space, & Technology Committee. Turner died in the early morning of March 5, 2025, after attending Donald Trump's speech to a joint session of Congress on the previous night.

Early life and education

Sylvester Turner was born on September 27, 1954, in Houston, Texas, the sixth of nine children of Eddie Turner, a commercial painter, and Ruby Mae Turner. He was raised in the northwest Houston community of Acres Homes. Turner's father died when Turner was 13. After that time, Turner's mother began working as a maid at the Rice Hotel in downtown Houston. Turner later credited her perseverance and optimism as significant influences on his personal and professional development.

Turner attended Klein High School, which had been an all-white school until Black students, including Turner, were bussed there as part of desegregation efforts. At Klein, Turner excelled academically, serving as student body president, winning recognition as a debate champion, and graduating as valedictorian. He went on to study at the University of Houston, where he served as Speaker of the Student Senate and graduated magna cum laude in 1976 with a Bachelor of Arts in political science. Turner had been interested in a legal career from a young age, inspired in part by the TV show ''Perry Mason'', and he went on to attend Harvard Law School, where he was a finalist in the Ames Moot Court Competition and graduated with a Juris Doctor in 1980. Turner was a member of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, and was initiated into the Alpha Eta Lambda chapter in Houston.

Legal career

Upon completing law school, Turner joined the law firm of Fulbright & Jaworski. In 1983, Turner and Barry M. Barnes partnered to found the law firm of Barnes & Turner, where Turner specialized in corporate and commercial law. Turner served as an immigration lawyer for many years in Houston.

He served as an adjunct professor at the Thurgood Marshall School of Law, and as a seminar lecturer at the South Texas College of Law and the University of Houston Law School's Continuing Legal Education Programs.

Political career

In 1984, Turner ran for Harris County Commissioner, Precinct 1 in the Democratic primary, but lost to El Franco Lee. Four years later, he was elected to the Texas House of Representatives in House District 139 in Harris County and remained in office through 2014. During this time, Turner ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Houston in 1991 and 2003.

During Turner's 1991 campaign for Houston mayor, Wayne Dolcefino of KTRK-TV ran an investigative report questioning Turner's involvement in an elaborate life insurance fraud scam. The resulting scandal ultimately cost Turner the election. Turner sued Dolcefino and KTRK and was initially awarded a $5.5 million libel settlement in a jury trial; the trial court reduced the award to $3.25 million, in keeping with the legal limit on punitive damages. Dolcefino and KTRK appealed the verdict to the Court of Appeals, Houston, which reversed the original verdict. Turner brought the case to the Texas Supreme Court, which upheld the Court of Appeals decision. Both courts found that Turner had not provided sufficient evidence to prove malice, based on heightened legal protections that the First Amendment affords to the press. However, both courts found that the KTRK broadcasts were both false and defamatory.

Turner served more than 25 years in the Texas House of Representatives, and throughout his service, he served as a member of the Legislative Budget Board, Vice-Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Chairman of the Subcommittee of Articles 1, 4 & 5 (General Government, Judiciary, Public Safety & Criminal Justice) and the House State Affairs Committee. He also chaired the Texas Legislative Black Caucus and the Greater Houston Area Legislative Delegation. Turner supported policies to attract doctors to underserved areas, proposed a measure increasing state funding for mental health services in Harris County from $32 million to $200 million, and worked to increase funds for legal aid for poor Texans.

In 2015, Turner was elected Mayor of Houston, narrowly winning a runoff against Bill King after taking 31% of the vote on the first ballot. He was re-elected in 2019 and served in the office for eight years.

In October 2017, Turner helped victims of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.

When Turner's eight year tenure as mayor ended on January 1, 2024, the city was in a dire financial state. The city was spending $100 to $200 million more than what it was bringing in each year. In 2023, Turner endorsed Sheila Jackson Lee to be his successor in the 2023 Houston mayoral election; she lost the runoff election by nearly 30 percentage points.

Following the death of Sheila Jackson Lee, which vacated Texas's 18th congressional district, Turner announced his candidacy in the Democratic primary to fill her seat and was nominated at the convention. He won the election and took office in January 2025. During his tenure, Turner served on the Homeland Security Committee and the Science, Space, & Technology Committee. He served in Congress until his death on March 5, 2025.

Hurricane Harvey

In the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, Mayor Turner received criticism for his decision not to suggest any form of evacuation. He responded to the criticism by pointing out the logistics of evacuating "6.5 million" people and the deaths and traffic that occurred during the 2005 Hurricane Rita evacuation. Critics replied stating that 6.5 million people did not have to be evacuated but instead tens of thousands could have been evacuated who were in flood zones or individuals who were most at risk during emergencies could have been evacuated.

Political positions

Ride sharing mobile apps

In 2016, Turner voiced his support for stricter laws regulating Uber and other ridesharing services.

LGBT rights

Turner, while running against Bill King in the 2015 Houston mayoral runoff election, stated he was "100 percent" committed to reenacting Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO) and attacked Bill King for saying he would not revisit the issue of HERO or his support from the Campaign for Houston.

Consumer protections

In 1999, Turner voted to restructure the electric utility industry in Texas to allow customers competition and consumer choice. During his time in the legislature, he also worked to continue to protect Texans, voting for bills preventing gas companies from cutting off service during freezing temperatures, limiting the amount utility companies could raise rates in order to fund certain projects, such as building electric poles and wires, without first getting approval from state regulators, and authoring legislation that required the Public Utility Commission to conduct cost-benefit analyses of any proposals from utility companies that would add more than $100 million to annual consumer electricity costs. During the 84th session, Turner authored legislation that would prohibit electricity companies from charging customers "minimum usage fees" when they used too little electricity. Turner also voted to allow the Public Utility Commission to issue emergency cease-and-desist orders, without first going to a court, to companies whose actions threaten the state's electricity supply. During the 83rd session, he joined a campaign to encourage low-income Texans to enroll in "LITE-UP Texas", a program "authorized by the Texas Legislature through which participants could reduce the monthly cost of electric service by 82%." In the 84th session, he authored a bill to extend this discount program for another two years, until the end of 2017. He also co-authored a bill to help ensure persons living in multi-family residences are alerted when their electricity bill has not been paid.

Public education

In 2004, he voted against a measure that would have scaled "back benefits for future public school employees and discourag dearly retirement." He was also critical of investment managers for the Teachers Retirement Fund for taking over $8.2 million in bonuses while the state was slashing funding for education and the system's investments continued to struggle. In 2011, Turner voted against a measure that would have implemented a 6 percent cut to education funding for all schools in Texas, a move that equated to a $4 billion education funding cut. As a member of the legislature, Turner voted against a measure that would allow school districts to lower their salaries, implement furlough days, and increase student-teacher classroom ratios. He also opposed a corporate tax break that many legislators, in the Texas House of Representatives, believed would hurt public school funding.

Immigration

Texas has banned sanctuary cities, but then Mayor Turner said that Houston would not assist ICE agents with immigration raids.

Health care

A supporter of the federal Affordable Care Act (ACA), Turner voted against joining the Interstate Health Care Compact, an alternative to traditional ACA participation, and introduced legislation that would expand Medicaid in Texas pursuant to the ACA. Turner warned fellow legislators about the potential backlash from constituents if the state chose not to expand Medicaid, which promised a significant return on the state's investment. One of his major accomplishments in the House was legislation that expanded access to the children's health insurance program, which was passed in 2007. Turner also passed legislation in 2015 to free up funding for medical trauma care centers. During the 84th Legislature, Turner introduced legislation that would provide care under Medicaid for people with severe and persistent mental illness and who are transitioning from an institution to the community, and who are at risk of institutionalization or re-institutionalization.

Turner was a regular attendee of various public health programs, including contributions to COVID-19 safety and community-based health care.

Abortion

Turner was long an advocate for abortion rights. He voted against a measure requiring doctors to perform a sonogram on women seeking an abortion at least 24 hours before the procedures. He also fought to protect funding for family planning programs and Planned Parenthood. Turner also voted against a Senate version of a measure that banned abortions after 20 weeks and tightened standards on abortion clinics, and also authored an amendment to the bill that would have required the state to pay the costs abortion clinics would incur on the measure to retrofit facilities so they could be certified as surgical centers. In 2013, the El Paso Times described Turner as a "lion of pro-abortion rights."

Criminal justice

On gun control, Turner opposed measures to limit lawsuits against gun or ammunition manufacturers, allowing concealed handguns on higher education campuses, and rescinding the authority of local governments to ban concealed weapons on public property. He also opposed measures that would reduce the number of training hours required to receive a concealed handgun license. He supported a bill that prohibited the use of state funds for the enforcement of federal firearms regulations. Turner also advocated abandoning the "pick-a-pal system", where judges appoint commissioners who then can pick whoever they want to serve on grand juries.

Homelessness

As mayor of Houston, Turner made it a goal of his administration to end chronic homelessness in the city. Turner asked the police to start enforcing an ordinance that bans sharing food with homeless people in the city of Houston. Consequently, the Food Not Bombs volunteer group in Houston received 44 tickets issued by the Houston police department for providing food to homeless people in Houston, with each ticket carrying a maximum potential fine of $2,000.

Political endorsements

In February 2020, Turner endorsed Michael Bloomberg in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries. In March, Bloomberg suspended his campaign and endorsed then-former vice president Joe Biden. Days after Bloomberg's announcement, Turner endorsed Biden.

Personal life

Turner was married to Cheryl (née Gillum) Turner, a former Harris County assistant district attorney, from 1983 to late 1991. They have one daughter, Ashley Page Turner, who married Jimmie Captain in March 2022.

As mayor, Turner hosted the opening ceremonies of Anime Matsuri from 2018 to 2023, barring 2020, having made appearances in anime cosplay as a member of the Akatsuki from ''Naruto'' in 2018, Goku from ''Dragon Ball'' in 2019, Kyōjurō Rengoku from '' Demon Slayer'' in 2021, Ichigo Kurosaki from ''Bleach'' in 2022, and Luffy from ''One Piece'' in 2023.

Illness and death

In November 2022, Turner disclosed that during the summer he had been diagnosed with Osteosarcoma, a rare type of bone cancer, for which he had surgery and received six weeks of radiation treatment.

On the afternoon of March 4, 2025, Turner fell ill while working in the Cannon House Office Building complex, but after receiving medical attention was able to attend President Donald Trump's address to Congress that evening. Later, he was briefly hospitalized before discharge to his Washington residence, where he died in the early morning of March 5 at the age of 70. Serving a total of 61 days in the House, Turner became the first member of the 119th Congress to die in office and the second incumbent representative for Texas's 18th district to die in a one-year period, after Sheila Jackson Lee.

Houston's mayor, John Whitmire, ordered flags in the city of Houston to fly at half-staff in Turner's memory. Texas governor Greg Abbott ordered flags across the state of Texas to fly at half-staff for Turner until sunrise on March 8, 2025.

Turner lay in state at the Houston City Hall rotunda on March 11, 2025. From March 13–14, 2025, Turner lay in honor at the Texas State Capitol's House chamber.

Turner's funeral took place at The Church Without Walls in Houston on March 15, 2025.

Electoral history

Texas House of Representatives

Houston Mayor

U.S. House of Representatives

See also

* List of United States Congress members who died in office (2000–)
* List of members of the United States House of Representatives who served a single term

References

External links

*
*

Our Candidates page
*
*

, -

, -

{{DEFAULTSORT:Turner, Sylvester
1954 births
2025 deaths
20th-century African-American academics
20th-century African-American lawyers
20th-century African-American politicians
20th-century American academics
20th-century American lawyers
20th-century members of the Texas Legislature
21st-century African-American lawyers
21st-century African-American politicians
21st-century American lawyers
21st-century mayors of places in Texas
21st-century members of the Texas Legislature
21st-century members of the United States House of Representatives
Academics from Houston
African-American legal scholars
African-American mayors in Texas
African-American members of the United States House of Representatives
African-American state legislators in Texas
Alpha Phi Alpha members
American legal scholars
Baptists from Texas
Candidates in the 2003 United States elections
Democratic Party members of the Texas House of Representatives
Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Texas
Harvard Law School alumni
Immigration lawyers
Klein High School alumni
Lawyers from Houston
Mayors of Houston
South Texas College of Law faculty
Texas Democrats
Texas Southern University faculty
University of Houston alumni
University of Houston faculty