54 Facts About Sylvester Turner

Sylvester Turner was an American attorney and politician who served as the US representative for from January 2025 until his death in March 2025.

Sylvester Turner was first elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 1988 and continued to serve in the Texas House until 2016.

Sylvester Turner ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Houston in 1991 and again in 2003.

Sylvester Turner won the 2015 Houston mayoral election, defeating Bill King by a margin of under two percent in the closest mayoral election in Houston history.

On December 14,2019, Sylvester Turner won his second term as mayor over Tony Buzbee.

In 2024, after the death of Sheila Jackson Lee, Sylvester Turner announced his candidacy to fill her congressional seat and was nominated at the subsequent convention.

Sylvester Turner was then elected in November 2024 and took office in January 2025.

Sylvester Turner died in the early morning of March 5,2025 after attending Donald Trump's speech to a joint session of Congress on the previous night.

Sylvester Turner served a total of 61 days in the House.

Sylvester Turner was born on September 27,1954, in Houston, Texas, the sixth of nine children of Eddie Turner, a commercial painter, and Ruby Mae Turner.

Sylvester Turner was raised in the northwest Houston community of Acres Homes.

Sylvester Turner later credited her perseverance and optimism as significant influences on his personal and professional development.

Sylvester Turner attended Klein High School, which had been an all-white school until Black students, including Sylvester Turner, were bussed there as part of desegregation efforts.

At Klein, Sylvester Turner excelled academically, serving as student body president, winning recognition as a debate champion, and graduating as valedictorian.

Sylvester Turner had been interested in a legal career from a young age, inspired in part by the TV show Perry Mason, and he went on to attend Harvard Law School, where he was a finalist in the Ames Moot Court Competition and graduated with a Juris Doctor in 1980.

Sylvester Turner was a member of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, and was initiated into the Alpha Eta Lambda chapter in Houston.

Sylvester Turner served as an immigration lawyer for many years in Houston.

Sylvester Turner served as an adjunct professor at the Thurgood Marshall School of Law, and as a seminar lecturer at the South Texas College of Law and the University of Houston Law School's Continuing Legal Education Programs.

In 1984, Sylvester Turner ran for Harris County Commissioner, Precinct 1 in the Democratic primary, but lost to El Franco Lee.

Sylvester Turner sued Dolcefino and KTRK and was initially awarded a $5.5 million libel settlement in a jury trial; the trial court reduced the award to $3.25 million, in keeping with the legal limit on punitive damages.

Sylvester Turner brought the case to the Texas Supreme Court, which upheld the Court of Appeals decision.

Sylvester Turner chaired the Texas Legislative Black Caucus and the Greater Houston Area Legislative Delegation.

Sylvester Turner supported policies to attract doctors to underserved areas, proposed a measure increasing state funding for mental health services in Harris County from $32 million to $200 million, and worked to increase funds for legal aid for poor Texans.

Sylvester Turner was re-elected in 2019 and served in the office for eight years.

In October 2017, Sylvester Turner helped victims of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.

In 2023, Sylvester Turner endorsed Sheila Jackson Lee to be his successor in the 2023 Houston mayoral election; she lost the runoff election by nearly 30 percentage points.

Sylvester Turner won the election and took office in January 2025.

Sylvester Turner served in Congress until his death on March 5,2025.

Sylvester Turner responded to the criticism by pointing out the logistics of evacuating "6.5 million" people and the deaths and traffic that occurred during the 2005 Hurricane Rita evacuation.

In 2016, Sylvester Turner voiced his support for stricter laws regulating Uber and other ridesharing services.

Sylvester Turner, while running against Bill King in the 2015 Houston mayoral runoff election, stated he was "100 percent" committed to reenacting Houston Equal Rights Ordinance and attacked Bill King for saying he would not revisit the issue of HERO or his support from the Campaign for Houston.

In 1999, Sylvester Turner voted to restructure the electric utility industry in Texas to allow customers competition and consumer choice.

Sylvester Turner voted to allow the Public Utility Commission to issue emergency cease-and-desist orders, without first going to a court, to companies whose actions threaten the state's electricity supply.

Sylvester Turner co-authored a bill to help ensure persons living in multi-family residences are alerted when their electricity bill has not been paid.

In 2011, Sylvester Turner voted against a measure that would have implemented a 6 percent cut to education funding for all schools in Texas, a move that equated to a $4 billion education funding cut.

Sylvester Turner opposed a corporate tax break that many legislators, in the Texas House of Representatives, believed would hurt public school funding.

Sylvester Turner warned fellow legislators about the potential backlash from constituents if the state chose not to expand Medicaid, which promised a significant return on the state's investment.

Sylvester Turner passed legislation in 2015 to free up funding for medical trauma care centers.

Sylvester Turner was a regular attendee of various public health programs, including contributions to COVID-19 safety and community-based health care.

Sylvester Turner voted against a measure requiring doctors to perform a sonogram on women seeking an abortion at least 24 hours before the procedures.

Sylvester Turner fought to protect funding for family planning programs and Planned Parenthood.

Sylvester Turner voted against a Senate version of a measure that banned abortions after 20 weeks and tightened standards on abortion clinics, and authored an amendment to the bill that would have required the state to pay the costs abortion clinics would incur on the measure to retrofit facilities so they could be certified as surgical centers.

On gun control, Sylvester Turner opposed measures to limit lawsuits against gun or ammunition manufacturers, allowing concealed handguns on higher education campuses, and rescinding the authority of local governments to ban concealed weapons on public property.

Sylvester Turner opposed measures that would reduce the number of training hours required to receive a concealed handgun license.

Sylvester Turner supported a bill that prohibited the use of state funds for the enforcement of federal firearms regulations.

Sylvester Turner advocated abandoning the "pick-a-pal system", where judges appoint commissioners who then can pick whoever they want to serve on grand juries.

Sylvester Turner asked the police to start enforcing an ordinance that bans sharing food with homeless people in the city of Houston.

In February 2020, Sylvester Turner endorsed Michael Bloomberg in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries.

Sylvester Turner was married to Cheryl Sylvester Turner, a former Harris County assistant district attorney, from 1983 to late 1991.

In November 2022, Sylvester Turner disclosed that during the summer he had been diagnosed with Osteosarcoma, a rare type of bone cancer, for which he had surgery and received six weeks of radiation treatment.

Sylvester Turner is the first member of the 119th Congress to die in office and the second incumbent representative for Texas's 18th district to die in a one-year period, after Sheila Jackson Lee.

Sylvester Turner lay in state at the Houston City Hall rotunda on March 11,2025 with the Combined Honor Guard of the Houston Fire, and Houston Police posted colors at the front steps of City Hall as his casket, which donned the US flag, arrived at the building.

Sylvester Turner's lying in state at Houston City Hall was open to the public, with his family and local officials showing up to honor Turner.

Sylvester Turner's funeral took place at The Church Without Walls in Houston on March 15,2025.