Sylvester Turner

Sylvester Turner (born September 27, 1954) is an American attorney and politician who was the 62nd mayor of Houston, Texas.

Turner was born on September 27, 1954, in Houston, Texas, as the sixth of nine children, and was raised in the Acres Homes community in northwest Houston by his father, a commercial painter, and his mother, a maid at the Rice Hotel.

He was senior class president and valedictorian at Klein High School.

At the University of Houston he was Speaker of the Student Senate and graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. degree in political science.

Turner was a finalist in the Ames Moot Court Competition while obtaining a J.D. degree from Harvard Law School.

He is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.

Upon completing law school Turner joined the law firm of Fulbright & Jaworski.

In 1983, he founded his own firm, Barnes & Turner.

He has 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.

Turner was admitted to practice in the State of Texas, federal District Court for the Southern District Court of Texas and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

He is a member of the State Bar of Texas, American Bar Association, National Bar Association, Houston Lawyers Association, and the Houston Bar Association.

Turner served as an immigration lawyer for many years in Houston.

In 1984, Turner ran for Harris County Commissioner, Precinct 1 in the Democratic primary, but lost to El Franco Lee.

During the 84th session, Turner authored legislation that would prohibit electricity companies from charging customers "minimum usage fees" when they used too little electricity.

A member of the Democratic Party, Turner was a member of the Texas House of Representatives from 1989 until 2016.

He attended the University of Houston and Harvard Law School.

Turner ran for mayor of Houston in 1991, losing in the runoff election to Bob Lanier.

During that time, Turner ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Houston in 1991 and 2003.

During his 1991 campaign for Houston mayor, Wayne Dolcefino of KTRK-TV ran an investigative report questioning Turner's involvement in an elaborate 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 that was reduced to $3.25 million by the presiding judge.

KTRK appealed the ruling.

The Texas Supreme Court overturned the money award on the basis of heightened legal protections which the First Amendment affords to the media.

But the court found that both of these specific broadcasts were both false and defamatory.

Turner served more than 25 years in the Texas House of Representatives, and over the course of 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 has 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 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.

He lost again in 2003, coming in third and thus missing the runoff.

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.

Turner won the 2015 election, defeating Bill King in the runoff by 4,082 votes out of 212,696 votes cast in the closest mayoral election in Houston history by percentage.

In 2015, Turner was named one of the top 10 best members of the Texas House on LGBT issues by Equality Texas with an "A+" rating, after Turner said he had "evolved" on LGBT issues.

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

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

Texas in 2016 led the country in drunk driving fatalities, according to data collected by Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) in 2016.

MADD said there were 1,438 traffic fatalities in Texas involving drunk driving in 2016

On December 14, 2019, Turner won his second term as mayor over the more conservative Tony Buzbee, 56-44 percent in a turn out of less than 20 percent of registered voters.

In February 2020, Turner endorsed Michael Bloomberg in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries.

However, in March 2020, he switched his endorsement to former vice president Joe Biden.