Then-Mayor Sylvester Turner, Police Chief Art Acevedo and U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee lead the March For Our Lives on March 24, 2018, in Houston.

Editor's Note: This column has been updated to reflect County Attorney Christian Menefee's entry into the race to fill Sylvester Turner's congressional seat.

While Houstonians pay tribute to the life of Sylvester Turner this weekend, mourning comes with a community's deep concern about the future of his congressional seat.

The deaths of two sitting members of Congress within a year has been a heavy blow to Texas’ 18th Congressional District, which includes nearly 800,000 people across downtown, a portion of the Heights, Acres Homes, Third Ward and northeast Houston, as well as Humble and the area surrounding George Bush Intercontinental Airport. Turner, who served two terms as Houston's mayor, died March 5 just two months after stepping into the job held for nearly 30 years by U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee. She died in July from pancreatic cancer.

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