Will status quo be victor?

Pasadena election outcome unlikely to bring changes

In nearly three decades living in her one-story, pastel-yellow home north of Texas 225, Cynthia Dunnahoe has seen the streets fall into disrepair in her heavily Hispanic neighborhood. Public officials, she says, have largely been absent.

A former corrections officer who identifies as Hispanic, Dunnahoe hoped that her vote for mayoral candidate John Moon Jr. on Saturday would bring attention, and investment, to the north side of Harris County’s second-largest city. He was the only candidate who visited the area, she said.

But Dunnahoe said she fears that Jeff Wagner’s victory in the race will mean more of the same for her community. Wagner, a retired Houston police officer, has been aligned with outgoing Mayor Johnny Isbell, a controversial figure who had led the city on and off for decades and was singled out by a federal judge for pushing a redistricting scheme that intentionally diluted the voting rights of the city’s Latino population.

“This part of Pasadena is really going down,” Dunnahoe, 55, said. “They need to build us up.”

Wagner and Isbell did not respond to requests for comment Monday.

In Pasadena, demographic struggles have defined politics and spilled into the federal courts. While state political leaders and national advocacy groups considered the struggles a microcosm not just for Texas but also the country, city voters opted this spring for the status quo.

Experts said low turnout by Hispanics limited political gains in a city where they

now make up nearly twothird of the population, up from less than a third in the 1990s.

“I think when you don’t have power and influence and benefits, it’s hard to motivate people to fight for that,” said Rice University political scientist Robert Stein. “It’s easier to motivate people to keep and fight for what they have.”

In the closely watched voting-rights case, Chief U.S. District Judge Lee H. Rosenthal ruled in January that the city intentionally violated the rights of Hispanic voters with a redistricting plan pushed through by Isbell and his allies several years ago.

Spring elections left the City Council divided 4 to 4 between those allied with Isbell and those pushing for broader change. Wagner will get to cast the tiebreaking vote.

A Wagner spokesman stressed last month that he would focus on the entire city as mayor.

“Jeff talks about the entire city as a whole,” the spokesman, Blake Douglas, said. “He is a very fair individual, and he is a man of God. He has made efforts and continues to make efforts to reach out to all areas of the city.”

An even split

Three Hispanic candidates who were elected are all seen as proponents of change. They include council members Cody Ray Wheeler and Sammy Casados, who were reelected, as well as Felipe Villarreal, who won his seat in a runoff to represent the northernmost portion of the city. Don Harrison, a fourth council candidate, has been a critic of Isbell’s.

In addition to Wagner, other candidates seen as aligning with Isbell include council members Bruce Leamon and Cary Bass, who were re-elected, and newly elected Phil Cayten and Thomas Schoenbein. Cayten is a former council member.

“This is one battle and regardless of who won this one, the war is still not won,” said Cliff Walker, candidate services and recruitment director for the state Democratic Party.

Walker noted that one progressive candidate, Steve Halvorson, lost to Leamon, an incumbent, by nine votes.

Similar patterns

Turnout data, however, shows that national attention on Pasadena’s voting rights struggle has not translated yet into a surge in political participation.

Though Pasadena’s more diverse northern precincts have about 9,000 more registered voters than those south of Spencer Highway, efforts to get them to the polls fell short, according to data provided by Harris County.

In the May election, about 16.5 percent of voters in the south turned out, compared with 11.3 percent in the north.

Voting in the June runoff displayed a similar pattern, though results for that election are still unofficial.

While some see the spring elections as a disappointment, some also see hope.

Celia Arellano, 70, lives next door to Dunnahoe, as she has for the last 20 years. She has seen it turn from largely white to Hispanic, and also seen the roads wither and stray animals increase.

Arellano, while concerned about low turnout among Hispanic voters after years of efforts to disenfranchise them, said she sees hope in Wagner’s election. She voted for Wagner, as well as Villarreal.

Arellano believes Wagner can and will listen to Hispanic voters.

She said, “I want to give him a chance.”