March 5, 2025 Publisher
Former Houston mayor and current U.S. Congressman Sylvester Turner has died at the age of 70, according to current Houston Mayor John Whitmire.
Whitmire announced Turner’s passing at the beginning of Wednesday’s City Council meeting. He added that Turner was taken to the hospital in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, where he was later pronounced dead.
The confirmation of Turner’s death came just months after he won Texas’ 18th Congressional District race. He served as the city’s mayor for eight years and 27 years in the Texas House of Representatives.
Turner was in attendance at the U.S. President’s State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night, according to his X account.
“We’ve lost an outstanding public official,” Houston Mayor John Whitmire said in city hall on Wednesday. “Experience matters folks. No one will be able to step into Sylvester’s shoes and carry on his duties because there’s only one Sylvester Turner.”
Turner was mayor of Houston from 2016 to 2024 and saw the city through Hurricane Harvey and the COVID-19 pandemic.
He was elected to represent Texas’s 18th congressional district in November 2024, following the death of longtime Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in June 2024.
Source:
