Posted on 11/08/2006 2:35:44 PM PST by trumandogz
As she prepares to head for Washington, D.C., for a two-month stint in Congress, Shelley Sekula-Gibbs said this morning that she plans to resign her Houston City Council seat as soon as Tuesday's special election is certified.
"I made a commitment to the voters of District 22," she said at the start of today's regular council meeting. "It would be really wrong of me to say I don't want that vote and that responsibility."
Sekula-Gibbs, a Republican, beat out four other candidates in the special election to serve the remaining two months in U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay's term.
She lost the general election to Democrat Nick Lampson, however, for a full two-year term as the District 22 representative. He will replace her in January.
She called Lampson this morning to congratulate him.
"It is a short job and people know that," Sekula-Gibbs said of her upcoming job.
She added that she still believes she can accomplish some improvements such as lowering taxes during that time.
As for another bid for the District 22 post, Sekula-Gibbs said she is focused on the current job.
"Certainly, 2008 is around the corner," she said. "I am not going to be campaigning at this juncture."
The write-in candidate, who received almost 61,000 votes in final, unofficial totals, thanked voters for learning how to spell her name.
Sekula-Gibbs said she will fly to Washington, D.C., tonight. She said she doesn't know when the special election results will be certified or when she'll step down from her council seat, but added, "I hope soon."
Since Sekula-Gibbs, an at-large council member, has another year left in her council term, the city could hold a special election to replace her.
Sekula-Gibbs was forced to run as a write-in candidate for the GOP instead of having her name on the ballot after DeLay resigned earlier this year.
Lampson chose not to run in the special election.
The convoluted election results could make for an interesting 2008 congressional contest: If Sekula-Gibbs decides to run and wins the GOP primary, she would face Lampson, who then will be the incumbent.
I would give her a break. I think that people had trouble writing her in and thus why she won the special and didn't win the write in.
Many people had trouble working the write in mechanism.
I do not get the feeling that she will be chairing too many committees while in Congress.
So does any Republican we nominate in 2008.
Talk about a "worst-case scenario" - this one is it. I'm sorry for her that this worked out like that.
I haven't done a write-in on an e-Slate machine yet.
But I did have to enter a four-digit code in my e-Slate before I could vote.
I turned a dial to the desired digit and hit the Enter button. I turned the dial to the next desired digit and hit the Enter button. Then I did it twice more, because the code was four digits.
If performing a write-in vote is that simple, that doesn't speak well of the district she wants to represent.
Not necessarily. I don't think making the tax cuts permenent is necessarily out of the question during the lame duck session. The R's have nothing to lose by trying to ram it down their throats.
I'm guessing she'll be back in 2008. Lampson is completely incapable of winning a real race.
A rare glimmer of sunshine.
Shelly, as to lowering taxes, the election is over so you can quit making promises that you know you cannot keep.
Hey, it's more fun to be a Congressman for two months than not at all.
I wonder if she gets the full pension?
While I was voting there was an older lady who was in a booth before me. After she had finished she went to complain to the precinct people that the only page with a name on it was the first page. She said she scrolled through the remaining 11 pages which were all blank. She came to the end and pushed the little red button that said "cast ballot". She wanted them to give her a new code so she could vote again. The precinct people told her to call the precinct office and tell them what happened and they could not let her vote twice.
I very nearly turned around and said if you were having trouble why didn't you ask when you noticed something was wrong? Common sense seemed to have escaped this person.
The first page was the special election. The rest were general election. How someone can't operate this is beyond me. Elementary school kids could do this.
Houston PING
If she's an at-large councilwoman, who represents Clear Lake/Kingwood at City Hall? It's funny, Clear Lake and Kingwood are about 60 miles apart but are in the same district at City Hall, go figure.
Sounds like a reason to CHANGE the system for future write-in candidates since all tabulated write-in candidates are approved PRIOR to election day.
It is assinine to have voters DIAL in the name one letter at a time. A simple A-B-or-C choice for the write in candidate would suffice.
In a straight up election, Tom DeLay would've beat Lampson. The Democrats do not play fair.
They cannot sell their agenda in a honest debate of the issues.
One of the strangest elections this year. She wins the special election and loses the general.
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