Nov 06, 2009  |  By: Amy Cavanaugh  | COMMENTS     

Houston City Controller Annise Parker was the top vote getter in Tuesday’s mayoral election and now advances to a runoff next month against the runner-up, former city attorney Gene Locke.

If Parker, a lesbian, wins the December election, Houston will become the largest U.S. city with an openly gay mayor.

Parker received 31 percent of the vote, Locke took 25 percent, and urban planner Peter Brown claimed 23 percent. Because no candidate received 50 percent of the vote, a runoff between the top two vote getters is required. All three are Democrats.

“We’re thrilled at the first-place finish, but now the hard work really begins,” said Denis Dison, a vice president of the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, which endorsed Parker. “In six weeks, the voters will have the final say in this race, and Annise will need our community standing with her throughout the runoff campaign.”

A specific date for the runoff election was not set yet before Blade deadline.

Before she became city controller, Parker served six years as a Houston City Council member. She also dedicated time to working for LGBT rights, including campaigning against the repeal of Houston’s non-discrimination policy in 1985 and the passage of a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in Texas in 2005. As a city council member, she led an effort to reinstate Houston’s non-discrimination policy in 2001.

Jeri Brooks, a Parker campaign spokeswoman, said that Parker ran “a really good grassroots campaign.”

“We’re going to continue to galvanize local supporters moving forward,” she said. “Annise is very focused on running her race and making sure the people of Houston know her experience and that she’s the only candidate prepared to run the city from the very first day.”

Brooks said Parker’s experience includes six years as city controller, which means Parker “understands pressure points, has conducted tough audits and can come in immediately and implement ways to save taxpayers money and run the city more efficiently.”

“We expect in five weeks that we’ll be able to claim victory,” Brooks said.

Randall Terrell, political director for Equality Texas, said that Parker’s first-place finish “shows that we have a qualified candidate and sexual orientation just doesn’t matter.”

“People didn’t vote for her because of her sexual orientation or despite it, but they voted for her because she’s qualified,” Terrell said. “She’s well-known in Houston.”

Terrell said that December’s runoff election would be “interesting” due to its unexpected dynamic.

“Everyone expected Peter Brown to make it into the runoff instead of Gene Locke, and we had been expecting that Gene’s endorsement would go to Annise,” he said. “Now the choice for mayor in Houston is between an African-American male and a lesbian, and that’s not the view most people have of Houston.”

Parker spent about $507,000 on her campaign, while Brown spent more than $2 million of his own money during the campaign. Brown was shown leading in some polls in the weeks before the election.

Dison said Wednesday there was “no indication yet” which candidate Brown would endorse in the runoff election.

The city’s current mayor, Bill White, is term-limited after six years in office. He is planning to run for the U.S. Senate in 2010.

Parker was one of 56 openly LGBT candidates who were endorsed by the Victory Fund this cycle. Other notable races included Christine Quinn, a lesbian and New York City Council speaker, who retained her seat; Simone Bell, a lesbian running for a seat in the Georgia State House, who will face a runoff against Asha Jackson; Charles Pugh, who is gay and won a seat on the city council in Detroit; Mark Kleinschmidt, who became the openly gay mayor of Chapel Hill, N.C.; and Steve Kornell, who is gay and won a seat on the city council in St. Petersburg, Fla.