Photo courtesy of the Congressional office of Sylvester Turner

MIAMI – Texas U.S. Representative Sylvester Turner, who was the former mayor of Houston, has died suddenly, merely two months after being sworn into Congress.

He was 70 years old.

The Democrat was an American attorney and served 25 years in the Texas House of Representatives from 1989 to 2016.

Turner was born and raised in Houston and graduated from the University of Houston with a bachelor’s degree in political science and a law degree from Harvard Law School.

Following the death of Sheila Jackson Lee, which vacated Texas’s 18th Congressional district, Turner announced his candidacy in the Democratic primary to fill her seat and was nominated at the convention.

He won the election and took office in January 2025.

According to reports, in 2022, Turner disclosed that he had been diagnosed with bone cancer, for which he had surgery and received six weeks of radiation treatment.