Effort to recall Houston Mayor John Whitmire falls far short of required signatures

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — An effort to get Houston Mayor John Whitmire out of office has ended, falling far short of the support needed to get on the ballot.

And by far short, group members say they didn’t even get half of the signatures they needed.

Mayor John Whitmire has been in office for almost two years.

It was his policies removing bike lanes and a deal settling a long-standing dispute with the city’s firefighters that led to the formation of “Recall for Houston.”

“The hard thing we found with messaging is that there are so many things he’s done,” Recall for Houston member Abbie Culver said.

Volunteers started collecting signatures on Oct. 6th.

Based on the city’s population, they needed to collect more than 63,000 signatures within 30 days just to get the recall on the ballot.

“We don’t know for sure the number because we stopped the verification process once we realized we weren’t going to get the count,” Culver said.

Political analysts have said from the start that this was a long-shot effort.

In fact, they have stated that they cannot recall a time when a recall petition against a mayor has ever been successful in the city of Houston.

“Recalling an elected official is a pretty big deal. We just had an election a little over a year ago where 65% of Houstonians said this is the guy we want,” Bill King, a fellow with Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, said.

King points out that not only is the city’s signature requirement extremely difficult to reach, but the most recent University of Houston survey on Whitmire showed a 59% approval rating.

“Inside Loop 610, in Houston, is barely a quarter of the city,” King said. “These guys hadn’t gone out and talked to people in Kingwood or Clear Lake or west Houston or even in southwest Houston to find out if people are really worried about bike lanes up in Montrose.”

Still, organizers recall their effort as a partial success.

“We tried our best. It didn’t get as far as we needed to, but I think we got a lot of eyes on the issues going on in the city, and we put pressure on the people in power,” Ethan Hale with Recall for Houston said.

“At the very least, this was a month-long education campaign for Houstonians,” Culver added.

The mayor’s office didn’t respond to our request for comment on Friday.

In the past, he has called the effort silly, but said he welcomes any review of his work.

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