Houston’s shaven-headed Democratic mayor looked more like a Republican this month when he spent the night accompanying cops as they busted hookers and dealers, confiscating guns and baggies of pills and pot.
But John Whitmire is the type of no-nonsense ‘old-school Democrat’ who’s coming back into fashion now that ‘defund the police’ progressives are in the rearview mirror and Donald Trump is back in the White House.
Indeed, Whitmire’s approach could be the way forward for a party crushed in the 2024 election.
The 75-year-old has in recent weeks launched efforts to tackle his Texas city’s chronic homelessness crisis and its rising rates of violent crimes, as he gets more cops on the streets and wrongdoers behind bars.
To this end, he does not appear afraid to defy the progressives in his own party, such as Sheila Jackson Lee, the Hillary Clinton-endorsed opponent he roundly defeated in the December 2023 mayoral election runoff.
Though Houston’s streets look less apocalyptic than those in San Francisco and other run-down liberal cities, it has a stubborn problem of homeless drug addicts that leave residents scared to go out after dark.
Unhoused people with mental health and addiction problems are plain to see under the US 59 overpass in Midtown and on grassy spots throughout the city, often high on drugs or sleeping in tents or on cardboard.
Whitmire is also keeping his hands off Trump’s immigration crackdown, as was evidenced last month when federal agents busted a 58-year-old undocumented alien and sent him packing to Mexico, to face charges of child rape.
Mayor John Whitmire donned a black vest to accompany cops on drug busts in a downtrodden part of Houston earlier this month
The 75-year-old has vowed to reclaim public spaces from the growing tent encampments of homeless people
Residents of America’s fourth-biggest city told DailyMail.com that Whitmire marks a return to normalcy for a Democratic Party that got too obsessed with identity politics and forgot how to deliver basic services.
‘He’s what the Democratic Party used to be like: in touch with the community and focused on solving problems,’ said Carrol Robinson, a former city council member and associate professor at Texas Southern University.
‘A center-right, door-knocking, street-walking, talking-to-your-neighbors kind of politician.’
The married dad-of-two this month donned a black vest as he accompanied police in the working-class Alief area of Southwest Houston, where they arrested dozens of people and seized a gun, vehicles, pot, coke, and Xanax.
It echoed recent outings by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and other Trump administration officials, who have dressed in body armor to go out on patrol with immigration agents.
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Still, Whitmire’s efforts to boost cop numbers and raise their salaries has yet to bear fruit in the city of 2.3 million people.
Houston is beset by higher rates of violent and property crimes than comparable cities, such as San Antonio and Los Angeles, according to a recent review of 2022 crime data by accounting firm Ernst & Young.
His administration this month turned to pastors to work with cops to tackle an alarming uptick in the number of youngsters who turn to crime.
Whitmire’s views on public safety were shaped by his hardscrabble upbringing, in which he witnessed domestic abuse and moved frequently as a child, his office says.
At one point, he and his family were robbed in their own garage.
Last month, he pushed again to end a homelessness crisis that has fallen by 17 percent since 2020 but nevertheless sees a shocking 3,280 people without a roof over their heads across the city — including in the recent cold snap.
More than a third of them suffer from a severe mental illness, far more than the national average, says the city’s Coalition for the Homeless.
Whitmire’s administration last year banned people from sleeping on the streets, in line with a Supreme Court ruling, and he vowed to reclaim public places that had become no-go zones of tents, trash and human waste.
‘It’s not fair to the public to have to engage them,’ the mayor said.
The career politician won Houston’s 2023 mayoral race with more than 65 percent of the vote in his runoff against his anti-MAGA opponant
An alarming 3,280 people do not have a roof over their heads on any night in Houston
Whitmire has kept his hands off the work of immigration enforcers, who last month deported Nestor Flores Encarnacion, a 58-year-old undocumented alien who’s accused of raping a child
Houston is beset by higher rates of violent and property crimes than comparable cities, such as San Antonio and Los Angeles
More than a third of Houston’s homeless suffer from a severe mental illness, far more than the national average
‘If Houston isn’t efficient and isn’t growing, it’s not worth being in,’ says Joel Kotkin, a research fellow at the University of Texas
Amid Trump’s immigration crackdown, Whitmire has trodden carefully in a city that is 44 percent Hispanic and sits just 300 miles from the US-Mexico border, keenly aware of the impacts of irregular migration.
He asserts that local cops have ‘not participated in federal efforts’ to apprehend illegals, even as Houston has avoided any of the sanctuary rules to stop information sharing with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.
In the weeks after Trump’s return to the Oval Office, ICE teams stepped up targeted operations in Houston, as well San Antonio, Galveston, and other cities across the Lone Star state.
Houston agents on January 23 deported Nestor Flores Encarnacion, a 58-year-old undocumented alien, to his home country of Mexico, where he faces allegations of child rape. He’d entered the US illegally four times, says ICE.
When it comes to finances, Whitmire’s centrism also aligns neatly with the cost-cutting Trump administration. This month, his team announced plans to lower the city’s $330 million looming budget deficit without raising taxes.
‘I think we can all agree on that, we’re broke,’ he’s said.
He seeks to trim spending and save the city 15 percent of its budget, echoing the federal effort of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), which has axed whole agencies in a haphazard bid to save trillions of dollars.
The career politician won Houston’s 2023 mayoral race with more than 65 percent of the vote in his runoff against Lee, a civil rights activist whose progressive anti-MAGA platform tanked among voters. Lee died last year.
Whitmire instead promised to boost public safety, hire more cops, fix the streets, and turn the page on the corruption that bedevilled Houston under Mayor Sylvester Turner’s administration.
Houston immigration teams deported Nestor Flores Encarnacion, 58, back to his native Mexico
Whitmire accompanied cops as they patrolled the streets and seized a gun, vehicles, pot, coke, and Xanax.
The married dad-of-two vowed to get more cops on the streets and to boost their wages
Houston has 17 percent fewer homeless people than in 2020, but the numbers remain alarmingly high
When Houstonians voted again in the November 2024 presidential election, Trump made gains in the surrounding Harris County — increasing his vote share to 46.5 percent, from 42.7 percent in 2020.
‘Houston is a pretty centrist city when it comes to electing mayors and officials,’ said Robinson.
‘We’re not San Francisco. We don’t want our property taxes raised; we don’t want our money wasted. We want police in the street; we want criminals prosecuted.’
Joel Kotkin, a research fellow at the University of Texas, frames Whitmire as among a breed of pragmatic, realist mayors, who focus on jobs, growth and public safety, as voters sour on soft-on-crime progressive politicians.
Much like Whitmire in Houston, such recently-elected Democratic mayors as Daniel Lurie in San Francisco and Philadelphia’s Cherelle Parker are spearheading efforts to get dangerous junkies and villains off the streets.
‘People don’t move to Houston for the topography or the weather,’ Kotkin told DailyMail.com.
‘They go there to make money and have a better life. If Houston isn’t efficient and isn’t growing, it’s not worth being in.’