A New Age for Houston Politics?
This story was cross-posted from the Texas Observer, an investigative news organization that covers Texas communities whose stories are often ignored.
Among the youngest cohorts of voting age, there’s a running online joke that they “should’ve been” buying real estate or investing in Bitcoin decades ago, before seemingly everything exploded in value, but instead, alas, they were fetuses.
Part of me wonders if Congressman Al Green, the long-serving 78-year-old now facing 37-year-old Christian Menefee in the primary for the newly drawn historically Black 18th Congressional District, might be feeling something similar. Maybe, if he’d been a little nicer to the crypto industry from his seat on the Financial Services Committee (a position he first nabbed way back in 2005), the super PAC Fairshake—backed in large part by the controversial “techno-optimist” Marc Andreessen’s venture capital firm—wouldn’t be spending $1.5 million to get him out of Congress.
Money is one thing, but that last-minute outside offensive doesn’t fully explain a 24-point favorability gap (52 to 28 percent), advantage to Menefee, the former Harris County attorney who just a couple weeks ago won the runoff to represent the 18th after it sat vacant for nearly a year. (Menefee won under its current boundaries, not the redrawn lines for the upcoming primary.)
So, what gives? We’re talking about Al Green, the man who stood and shouted in protest at Donald Trump during his 2024 joint address to Congress, wagging his gold-capped cane while his fellow Democrats twiddled on their phones and went mute; who was escorted out of the House chamber minutes into Trump’s 2026 State of the Union address for holding a sign reading, “Black people aren’t apes!,” a reference to an AI-generated video Trump posted that depicted the Obamas as apes. Poll after poll has shown that Democrats want their electeds to fight harder. Was this not fighting? Green, the former president of the Houston NAACP, who saber-rattled about impeachment in 2017—who actually filed articles of impeachment in July 2019, months before his fellow Democrats would join him. The congressman who once confronted Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, about his company’s historic ties to slavery. Are you not entertained?
If you ask Green, it isn’t the age difference. In fact, to say as much is, per his office, “ageism.” On January 18, days after Houston Chronicle columnist Joy Sewing wrote that “People are ready for a new generation of leadership,” Green posted a video to Facebook: “I think that the Chronicle quite frankly needs new leadership,” he said, before ripping the newspaper into pieces. But the Chronicle wasn’t the only rag in the laundry bin. Politico called the race a “generational fight,” while The Texas Tribune said it was shaped in part by “the thorny politics of age and seniority.” The New York Times called it “an example of the generational clashes in Democratic primary contests.” Now, the congressional district—formerly home to civil rights icon Barbara Jordan—might fall into the hands of a 37-year-old for the first time since, well, Barbara Jordan. (The youngest representative to lead the district, at least within the past 50 years, remains Mickey Leland, who assumed office at age 35 in 1979.)
Right now, Houston-area politics is looking decidedly old. Mayor John Whitmire, age 76, already announced he’s running for reelection in 2028. Annise Parker, the former mayor and current frontrunner to replace Lina Hidalgo as Harris County Judge, is 69. The median age of its city council is roughly 55—two years older than that of Dallas, eight years older than that of Austin, and a whopping 20 years older than that of Houston’s median resident.
But no congressional district in the nation has faced the bitter consequences of gerontocracy quite like Texas’s 18th. First, the Houston institution, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, died of cancer in July 2024 at the age of 74, a year into her 15th term. Next, after a special election, former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, age 70, took over the seat. He died just two months into his term. For months and months, Governor Greg Abbott delayed calling a special election to fill the seat—which so happened to help maintain the Republicans’ slim majority in the U.S. House. Then this summer, at Trump’s request and on Abbott’s orders, the Texas Legislature convened in a special session to redraw the state’s congressional maps to add five more GOP-leaning districts. Green’s 9th Congressional District—a majority Black and Hispanic seat—was a direct casualty of the gerrymandering, as it was reconstituted as a red district largely outside of Houston. The 18th lost some of its core territory while absorbing parts of the 9th as well.
For 332 days, residents lacked representation. That left “a wound” among voters, Durrell Douglas, a Houston organizer born and raised in the district, told me. Even Mike Doyle, chair of the Harris County Democratic Party, told Houston Public Media that “Anybody who’s looking at the race is obviously legitimately concerned about … we can’t go through this again.” Having won late January’s special election against Amanda Edwards with nearly 70 percent of the vote, Menefee is technically the incumbent. And while Green has correctly pointed out that he didn’t move to a new congressional district, the district swallowed him, Douglas said that he and the rest of the 18th made themselves “overwhelmingly” clear when they voted for Menefee a couple weeks ago. “It’s like, pull a Lloyd Doggett and step aside,” he said, referring to the veteran Austin congressman who, following Republicans’ redistricting, gave up his seat for 36-year-old Greg Casar.
CHRISTIAN MENEFEE MAY NOT HAVE BEEN BUYING real estate as a fetus, but he certainly came of age amid the McMansion boom that, like the show “MTV Cribs,” came crashing down post-2008. (At the time, Menefee was a cashier at HEB.) Late last September, his campaign alluded to the cult-favorite TV series in a commercial—the camera zipping around Menefee’s Tuscan-style suburban home, presenting phrases like “Sued Trump” and “Sued Ken Paxton” in gold-bling pastiche while he spars with a punching bag in the garage.
Menefee, like Green, wants us to know he’s a fighter. He may not have the traditionally influential endorsements Green has accrued—from Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis, age 71, one of the main progressive power brokers in town, to longtime California Congresswoman Maxine Waters, age 87—but he’s taken on heavyweight Republicans “and won,” he says in the commercial. Among Menefee’s endorsements are members of the comparatively youthful wing of Houston politics.
(Neither Menefee nor Green’s offices responded to multiple requests for comment.)
Before Menefee won the Harris County attorney seat in 2020, the office was a sleepy afterthought, second fiddle to the district attorney’s office. Where his predecessor, the Democrat Vince Ryan, politely quibbled with Attorney General Ken Paxton—such as in a lawsuit against Volkswagen for skirting diesel emissions limits—Menefee took him to task, defeating him before the Texas Supreme Court in 2022 to ensure all votes in Harris County were counted.
Both candidates are “speaking to the reality of the moment that we’re living in now,” said Rain Eatmon, leader of an advocacy group in Houston’s Acres Homes. “But, once again, the fresh air that Menefee brings really renews a sense of hope, because not only is he closer to the ground, but he’s also closer to the moment.”
One need only view the two candidates’ online policy pages to understand what she means. Where Menefee cites specific problems within the district—“vacant lots, crumbling infrastructure, and a lack of basic necessities like grocery stores”—and advocates for specific positions such as Medicare for All, Green’s page is comparatively vague. He repeatedly assures readers he will “continue to” make efforts for “Immigration” and “Housing,” but specific bills, let alone specific ideas beyond opposing cuts to our already shredded social safety net? No dice. And not to discount Green’s accomplishments on the Homeland Security and Oversight committees, or the money he’s allocated to his district, but since 2007, he’s been the primary sponsor of just four bills.
Juli McShay, a local professor and Houston organizer, put it bluntly: “As of late, the way Green has come off as a fighter has been more performative.” Corisha Rogers, 32-year-old co-founder of the Houston Progressive Caucus—which spearheaded the effort to bar John Whitmire from ever again receiving the Harris County Democratic Party’s endorsement—concurred. “We have a lot of performative candidates right now,” she said. “That’s what we want to change.”
Green’s biggest asset is his experience—as Eatmon told me, he’s remembered as “a light in the darkness” through the desegregation years—but his experience may also be his Achilles’ heel. The prevailing feeling of the day is that the country wouldn’t be in this mess if these septuagenarian politicians actually knew what they were doing, and that they’ve failed to pass the reins. Meanwhile, Menefee can authentically campaign on what he terms “affordability” because he lived it—from his helm at the cash register—in a way that those like Green (who were insulated from the worst of the Great Recession) simply didn’t.
One wedge Green is pushing hard on is Menefee’s connection to the crypto lobby. In an impromptu 19-minute press conference on February 13, Green proclaimed: “We cannot allow the crypto industry to own Congress! Mr. Menefee didn’t know what he was doing when he signed on with them.”
Is it an obvious line of attack? Sure, but it’s not one without merit.
More than 60 percent of the country believes cryptocurrency is neither safe nor reliable. I’d bet most came to that conclusion merely by using their eyes, watching plain-as-day corruption as Trump and his allies exchange decentralized assets like notes in a classroom. Meanwhile, residents of countless municipalities, from Minneapolis to San Marcos, have organized against the recent boom in data centers—upon which crypto miners and AI titans rely.
Yet Menefee, on his policy page, says the blockchain offers “the potential to increase trust, transparency, and efficiency—from finance to supply chains,” later offering a conciliatory promise to “protect consumers” and “support innovation.” It’s a rare disconnect for a politician elsewhere so adeptly tapping into voters’ presentiments.
I asked Douglas, the organizer born and raised in the 18th, if he thought this line of attack might harm Menefee among voters. “My mother is a 59-year-old Black woman—she’s your median CD-18 voter,” he said. “She doesn’t know what crypto is.”
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