LGBTQ+ Latina Alejandra Salinas won the Saturday, Dec. 13, runoff for the non-partisan at-large seat on the Houston City Council.
The Houston lawyer, known as a progressive, came out on top of a crowded field of 10 candidates in the Nov. 4 general election with 21.2 percent of the vote. former council member Dwight Boykins, generally considered a more moderate candidate, was right behind her with 20.1 percent of the vote.
But when the votes were counted in Saturday’s runoff, Salinas had defeated Boykins by nearly 20 percentage points, 59.3 percent to 40.73 percent.
Salinas was endorsed by the LGBTQ Victory Fund, and according to her profile on the Victory Fund website, her fight for equality started in high school, despite being threatened with suspension, she “secured a campus-wide forum for students to speak out about a federal immigration bill that was a threat to her local community.”
As president of the College Democrats of America, she “courageously came out as an LGBTQ Latina on nationwide television during the 2012 Democratic National Convention to inspire LGBTQ youth to find their own voices,” the website notes. And, “as a nationally recognized attorney, [she has] protected Harris County elections from partisan interference, reversed discriminatory school policies and stood up to Donald Trump’s illegal executive orders targeting law firms.”
Salinas serves on the board of the Greater Houston LGBTQ+ Chamber of Commerce and the board of Second Mile Haiti, a nonprofit working to provide prenatal and family care to mothers and families in Haiti. She and her wife, Elizabeth, are members of St. Philip Presbyterian Church and are law partners at Susman Godfrey LLP.
— Tammye Nash