{"id":297248,"date":"2026-05-17T17:43:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T17:43:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/297248\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T17:43:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T17:43:12","slug":"houston-city-council-district-c-joe-panzarella-wins-special-runoff-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/297248\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston City Council District C: Joe Panzarella wins special runoff election"},"content":{"rendered":"

\" <\/p>\n

HOUSTON – Joe Panzarella has been elected to fill the vacant Houston City Council seat in District C.<\/p>\n

He won the special runoff election<\/a> on Saturday against Nick Hellyar with almost two-thirds of the total votes.<\/p>\n

Houston District C runoff results <\/p>\n

The backstory:<\/p>\n

The District C seat was left vacant when Council Member Abbie Kamin decided to run for Harris County attorney.<\/p>\n

Panzarella will finish out the remainder of the term that expires on Jan. 1, 2028.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Harris County Attorney candidate Abbie Kamin filling in as interim<\/a><\/p>\n

Local perspective:<\/p>\n

District C includes Houston residents in The Heights, Montrose, Rice Village, Meyerland and other areas.<\/p>\n

Pushback from locals \"CAIR <\/p>\n

Dig deeper:<\/p>\n

Panzarella’s win comes despite recent opposition from Jewish leaders.<\/p>\n

Community leaders had a two-page ad created against candidate Joe Panzarella<\/a> on Thursday for allegedly seeking endorsement of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), a group Governor Greg Abbott has labeled<\/a> a front for “foreign terrorist organizations.”<\/p>\n

The ads accused Panzarella of “proudly embracing” the endorsement of a group the Jewish leaders claim traffics in “antisemitic hate” and maintains ties to actual terrorist groups.<\/p>\n

\n Featured\n <\/p>\n

Houston Jewish leaders issue protest against council candidate backed by CAIR<\/a> <\/p>\n

National and international controversy is cascading into local Houston politics as a candidate in this weekend’s Houston City Council runoff election draws heavy fire from Jewish leaders for seeking the endorsement of CAIR, a group Governor Greg Abbott has labeled a front for “foreign terrorist organizations.”<\/p>\n

On Friday, a petition was filed to extend the voting period for the District C runoff.<\/p>\n

Petitioners noted that the voting hours conflicted with the Jewish sabbath, during which members of the Jewish faith were not allowed to drive or use elections.<\/p>\n

The petition was rejected in court.<\/p>\n

MORE: Petition fails to extend voting period for Houston District C runoff<\/a><\/p>\n

The Source: The information in this article comes from Harris County election results, the City of Houston, and previous FOX 26 reporting.<\/p>\n

Houston<\/a>Election<\/a>Heights<\/a>Montrose<\/a>Meyerland<\/a>Top Stories<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON – Joe Panzarella has been elected to fill the vacant Houston City Council seat in District C.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297249,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[409,1988,56,58,57,6865,1987,223,287,2053,216,393],"class_list":["post-297248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-election","tag-heights","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-meyerland","tag-montrose","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-top-stories","tag-tx","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}