Andrew Schneider/Houston Public Media
Acting Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee and former Houston City Council Member Amanda Edwards will compete in the runoff for the special election to fill Texas’ 18th Congressional District.
It’s been just over a week since Houston voters chose the top two candidates in the special election to fill out the term of the late Congressman Sylvester Turner, and Gov. Greg Abbott has yet to schedule the runoff for Texas’ 18th Congressional District.
On Monday, a spokesman for Abbott told Houston Public Media, “An announcement on that will be made at a later date.”
Abbott is constrained as to when he can call the runoff by both federal and state election laws, according to University of Houston Law Center assistant professor David Froomkin.
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“The state election code requires that the runoff be held between 70 and 77 days, or in other words, between 10 and 11 weeks after the final canvass of the election,” Froomkin said.
That 10-11 week window is designed to guarantee participation of serving members of the military based overseas, under the federal MOVE (Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment) Act.
Harris County expects to canvass the results of the election on Thursday, Nov. 14. But Froomkin notes that the final canvassing authority is the governor himself.
“A special provision for legislative vacancies requires that the governor conduct the state canvass ‘not later than the 14th day after election day.’ So the runoff date would need to be 70-77 days after that.,” Froomkin said.
Because the election must be held on a Saturday, that effectively constrains the governor to call the election no later than Saturday, January 31.
The runoff candidates are acting Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee and former Houston City Council Member Amanda Edwards, both Democrats.
Last Friday, Congressman Al Green, who currently represents Texas’ 9th Congressional District, announced he would be a candidate for the Democratic primary in Texas’ 18th District in 2026. Republican state lawmakers redrew Green’s home, and much of his base, into the 18th as part of a mid-decade round of congressional redistricting this past summer.
Sylvester Turner died in March after barely two months in office. Abbott waited until April to call the special election. He set it for November, arguing that Harris County had a poor record of conducting elections and would benefit from having the extra time to prepare. Menefee and Edwards, as well as many other leading Democrats, strongly criticized Abbott for denying residents of the 18th District a voice in Congress for the better part of a year.
“People observed at the time that there was no reason that the special election could not have been held in May under the election code, and indeed, there is a strong argument under the federal constitution that the governor had a duty to fill that vacancy expeditiously,” Froomkin said. “The additional delay that we’re now experiencing with the runoff, I think, is a further reason to think that the voters would have benefited from calling the special election in May, rather than postponing it until November.”
Editors’ Note: This article was updated on Nov. 12 to include that the governor has final authority over canvassing, meaning the runoff could occur as late as January 31.