Date set for special election to replace late Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee

Gov. Greg Abbott ’s (R-TX) office issued a proclamation Friday, setting Nov. 5 as the date for the special election to replace the late Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX).

The winner of the special election will carry out the remainder of Jackson Lee’s term, not even two months, in the House of Representatives . On the same day, voters will elect the president, senators, and representatives, including Jackson Lee’s full-time replacement, who will begin a two-year term on Jan. 3, 2025.

In his proclamation, Abbott wrote that candidates must file for the race by 6 p.m. on Aug. 22. Several candidates have put their names in the running already, notably including former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and former Houston City Councilwoman Amanda Edwards.

Turner finished his second term as Houston mayor earlier this year. Jackson Lee ran to replace him but lost that race to John Whitmire before she won the Democratic primary in Texas’s 18th Congressional District for the 16th straight time.

“Only Sheila’s passing at this critical moment in the election cycle could bring me out of retirement,” Turner, 69, wrote on his campaign website .

Edwards challenged Jackson Lee in the aforementioned primary, losing to the incumbent by nearly 23 points. Before that, she spent four years on the Houston City Council.

“We must honor [Jackson Lee’s] strong legacy by continuing and building upon her efforts in addition to bringing forth new solutions, as well,” Edwards wrote in a post announcing her candidacy.

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Three-quarters of constituents in Texas’s 18th Congressional District, which includes parts of downtown Houston and some of its northern suburbs, are either black or Hispanic. The seat has been in Democratic hands for over 50 years, and Jackson Lee first won it in 1994.

Jackson Lee died of pancreatic cancer last month at the age of 74, nearly seven weeks after she announced her diagnosis. Vice President Kamala Harris, one of Lee’s fellow Congressional Black Caucus members during her four years in the Senate, delivered the eulogy at her funeral this week.