Sylvester Turner (born September 27, 1954) is an American lawyer and politician who is the 62nd mayor and is currently Houston, Texas. A Democratic Party member, Turner was a member of the Texas Representative Council from 1989 to 2016. He studied at the University of Houston and Harvard Law School. Turner nominated the mayor of Houston in 1991, losing a round selection to Bob Lanier. He lost again in 2003, came in third and thereby lost runoff.
Turner won the 2015 election, beating Bill King in overflow by 4,082 votes from 212,696 votes in the nearest mayor election in Houston history by percentage.
Video Sylvester Turner
Initial years
Turner was born on September 27, 1954 in Houston, Texas, as the sixth child of nine brothers, and grew up in the Acres Homes community northwest of Houston by his father, a commercial painter, and his mother, a maid at the Rice Hotel. He is the head of the senior class and the farewell giver at Klein High School. At the University of Houston he is the Chairman of the Student Senate and graduated magna cum laude with B.A. degree in political science. Turner is a finalist in the Ames Moot Court Competition while earning his J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a member of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.
Maps Sylvester Turner
Legal practice
After finishing law school, Turner joins the law firm of Fulbright & amp; Jaworski. In 1983, he founded his own company, Barnes & amp; Turner. He has served as a professor at the Thurgood Marshall School of Law, and as a seminar lecturer at the South Texas College of Law and the Law MBA Law Continuing Law Program. Turner received training in the State of Texas, federal District Court for Texas Southern District Court and Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. He is a member of the State Bar of Texas, the American Bar Association, the National Bar Association, the Houston Lawyers Association, and the Houston Bar Association. Turner served as an immigration lawyer for years in Houston.
Political career
In 1984, Turner ran for Harris County Commissioner, Precinct 1 in the Democratic primary, but lost to El Franco Lee. Four years later, he was elected to the Texas Representative Council at House District 139 in Harris County and retained power during 2014. During that time, Turner failed to win the mayor of Houston in 1991 and 2003. [1] [2]
During the 1991 campaign for Mayor Houston, Wayne Dolcefino of Channel 13 carried investigative reports questioning Turner's involvement in an elaborate fraud of insurance fraud. The resulting scandal eventually costs Turner the election. Turner sued Dolcefino and KTRK and was initially awarded a $ 5 million defamation allowance reduced to $ 3.25 million by the presiding judge. KTRK appealed the verdict, which was canceled on 30 December 1998 by the 14th Court of Appeals, noting that no matter what the impression the story left with viewers, in Texas one can not be impeded by its implications. They noted that Dolcefino had submitted most of the references to Turner in the form of questions rather than accusations. The three panel judges overturned the verdict and ordered that the case be discarded, arguing that the broadcast was essentially correct.
Turner served over 25 years at the Texas Representative Council, and during his tenure he served as a member of the Legislative Budget Council, Deputy Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Chairman of the Subcommittee Sections 1, 4 & amp; 5 (General Government, Justice, Public Security & Criminal Justice) and the State Affairs Committee. He also leads Black Legislative Black Caucus and Delegation of the Regional Legislature of Houston. Turner has supported a policy of attracting doctors to underserved areas, proposing a measure that raises state funding for mental health services in Harris County from $ 32 million to $ 200 million, and works to raise funds for legal aid for people Texas is poor.
Hurricane Harvey
In the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, Mayor Turner has received criticism for his decision not to suggest any form of evacuation. He has responded to criticism by showing the logistics of evacuating "6.5 million" people and the deaths and traffic that occurred during the 2005 Hurricane Rita evacuation. Critics have replied that 6.5 million million people should not be evacuated but vice versa thousands can be evacuated in the flood zone or the most risky individual during an emergency can be evacuated. Furthermore, Mayor Turner has been accused of hyperbole in the characterization of the inhabitants of the City of Houston (his jurisdiction). Only 2.3 million people live in Houston, not 6.5 million (the total for the metropolitan area) as he stated.
Uber
In 2016, Turner voiced his support for laws governing Uber and other ridesharing services to protect public safety.
LGBT Rights
In 2015, Turner was named one of the 10 best members of Texas House on LGBT issues by Equality Texas with an "A" rating, after Turner said he would "let LGBTQ people... get married anywhere and wherever in Houston, also let future business owners... have their LGBTQ base club "
Turner, against Bill King at the 2015 Mayor's election, said he was "100 percent committed to reviving the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO) and attacked Bill King for saying he would not review the HERO issue, along with his support of the Campaign for Houston.
Consumer protection
In 1999, Turner chose to restructure the electric utility industry in Texas to enable customer competition and consumer choice. During his time in the legislature, he also worked to continue protecting Texas, casting a vote for bills that prevented gas companies stop service during freezing temperatures, limiting the number of utility companies can raise rates to fund certain projects, such as building polar and cable power, without first get approval from state regulators, and make laws that require the Public Utilities Commission to perform a cost-benefit analysis of each proposal from a utility company that will add more than $ 100 million to annual consumer electricity costs. During the 84th session, Turner wrote a law that would prohibit power companies from charging "minimum use" fees to customers when they use too little electricity. Turner also voted to allow the Public Utilities Commission to issue emergency orders, without first going to court, to companies whose actions threatened the country's electricity supply. During the 83rd session, he joined a campaign to encourage low-income Texas residents to enroll in "LITE-UP Texas", a program "endorsed by the Texas Legislature where participants can reduce monthly electricity service fees by 82%." In the 84th session, he wrote a bill to extend the discount program for another two years, until the end of 2017. He also co-authored the bill to help ensure people living in multi-family dwellings were notified when their electricity bills had not been paid.
Public education
In 2004, he voted against a size that would scale "future returns for public school employees and eliminate the spirit of early retirement." He is also critical of investment managers for the Teacher Retirement Fund to extract more than $ 8.2 million in bonuses while the state is cutting funding for education and investment systems continue to struggle. In 2011, Turner voted against a measure that would impose a 6 percent cut on education funding for all schools in Texas, a move equivalent to a $ 4 billion education budget cut. As a member of the legislature, Turner voted against actions that would allow school districts to lower their salaries, apply day offs, and improve teacher-student grade ratios. He also opposes the corporate tax breaks that many legislators, in the Texas Representative Council, believe will hurt public school funding.
Health care
As a supporter of the Federal Affordable Care Act (ACA), Turner opted against joining the Interstate Health Care Compact, an alternative to traditional ACA participation, and introduced a law that would expand Medicaid in Texas under the ACA. Turner warned fellow legislators about the potential reaction of constituents if the state chose not to expand Medicaid, which promised a significant return on state investment. One of the main achievements in the House is a law that expands access to the children's health insurance program, passed in 2007. Turner also passed a law by 2015 that would waive funds for a medical trauma care center, which has not received an amount full of funds intended to be spent specifically in trauma centers. The law will bring $ 25 million to the Greater Houston area over the next two years, including $ 11 million for Ben Taub and $ 10 million for Memorial Hermann. During the 84th Legislature, Turner introduced a law that would provide care under Medicaid for people with severe and persistent mental illness and who move from institution to community, and who are at risk of institutionalization or re-institutionalization.
Sylvester Turner has long been a defender of women's right to vote. He chose to oppose actions that require doctors to conduct sonograms in women seeking an abortion at least 24 hours before the procedure. He also struggles to protect funding for family planning and Planned Parenthood programs. Turner also voted against the Senate version of the act that prohibits abortion after 20 weeks and tightens standards on abortion clinics, and also writes amendments to the bill that would require states to pay abortion clinic fees to be imposed on measures to retrofit facilities so they can be certified as surgical centers. In 2013, the El Paso Times described Turner as a "pro-abortion right lion."
criminal justice
On gun control, Turner opposed measures to limit lawsuits against arms producers or ammunition, allowing hidden pistols on college campuses, and canceling local government authorities to ban hidden weapons on public property. He also opposed measures that would reduce the number of hours of training required to receive hidden gun licenses. Turner supports a bill banning the use of state funds for federal firearms enforcement. He also advocated leaving the "pick-a-pal" system, where the judge appointed a commissioner who could then choose whom they wanted to serve in the grand jury.
Personal life
Turner is a member of the Brookhollow Baptist Church. She married Cheryl Turner from 1983 to 1991, and they had one daughter, Ashley Paige Turner.
See also
- List of mayors from the 50 largest cities in the US
References
External links
- Profile in Vote Smart
- Legislative page
- Our Candidate page
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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