Dominic Anthony Walsh/Houston Public Media
Houston Police Chief Noe Diaz, right, and Houston Police Officers’ Union president Douglas Griffith speak at a Houston City Council meeting on Wednesday, May 21, 2025.
As he seeks a second term, Houston Mayor John Whitmire could regain the support of the Houston Police Officers’ Union (HPOU) after union leadership on Friday walked back a pledge to not endorse him.
Earlier in the week, Whitmire voted for a measure prohibiting police officers from detaining people or prolonging traffic stops due to civil immigration warrants. After the vote, police union president Douglas Griffith told Houston Public Media that a threat to withhold endorsements applied to the 11 city council members and Whitmire — but he softened his stance on Friday.
“We have always had a great relationship with the mayor — always,” Griffith said. “He has supported us, and we have supported him. But this is one of those lines in the sand that we have to cross, that we have to draw, and we have to deal with it. If he’s not going to reach out to us and have conversations to fix the issues that we have now, well then we will not support him.”
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He said the final decision will be made by the HPOU Political Action Committee (PAC). The Houston Chronicle first reported on Thursday that the union clarified that endorsement responsibility lays with the PAC.
“Moving forward, depending on what happens in the very near future, will depend on if we endorse the next race,” Griffith said on Friday. “We take this very serious. We take our endorsements very serious, and we’re going to meet with each of these candidates before we ever endorse them again.”
In a statement, a spokesperson for Whitmire’s office said, “The mayor speaks with HPOU frequently, just as he does with other employee unions.”
Political scientist Mark Jones with Rice University said the walk-back marked “a good example of sober second thoughts.”
“After their initial overreaction, they contemplated where they were,” Jones said. “They were broadly in agreement with Mayor Whitmire on a wide range of issues, and they probably don’t want to paint themselves into a corner whereby the candidate who is the best candidate from their perspective on a policy stance, they can’t endorse because they’ve made this rash decision.”
Dominic Anthony Walsh / Houston Public Media
Houston Mayor John Whitmire speaks in favor of a proposed ordinance on April 8, 2026.
Throughout his first two years in office, Whitmire and the union counted each other as staunch allies.
Last year, he spearheaded an $832 million contract raising officer pay by more than 36% over five years.
He also defended the police department as a series of Houston Chronicle reports revealed ramped-up coordination between the department and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), sparking backlash from community members that ultimately led to the measure passed on Wednesday.
“The union may have just jumped the gun on this,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, political science professor with the University of Houston. “The mayor is extremely persuasive, and he can make his position very clear on this issue because of the way he’s developed his political style and his reputation about being a tough-on-crime Democrat. So I fully expect that the mayor can get the union to back him again.”
In its most recent report to the Texas Ethics Commission on April 6, the HPOU PAC held about $740,000 in its war chest. Over the course of the last mayoral campaign in 2023, it reported $15,000 in contributions to Whitmire’s campaign.