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Chris Hollins soundly defeated Orlando Sanchez in the runoff for city controller Saturday, scoring his first victory to elective office over the veteran Republican politician.
He formerly served as interim Harris County Clerk, appointed to that post in 2020 after former Clerk Diane Trautman abruptly resigned due to illness.
Hollins had 60 percent of the vote to 40 percent for Sanchez in early and absentee tallies from Harris, Fort Bend and Montgomery counties, and maintained that lead late into the night. Early voting was expected to make up more than 60 percent of the total.
In November’s election, Hollins took 44.8 percent of the vote compared to Sanchez’s 27.3 percent.
“The people of Houston spoke with one voice,” Hollins said Saturday night. “It was incredibly clear that our brand of leadership is what Houston wants and Houston needs to serve in the controller’s office.”
That voice was a little shaky Saturday with some voters expressing a lack of familiarity with both the controller’s office and the candidates in the typically low-key race.
Amid the attention around the mayoral race, Rice Military resident Katie Walker said she had heard next to nothing about the other races on Saturday’s runoff ballot.
“I don’t think I saw any advertising around other races,” Walker said after voting at the West End Multi-Service Center.
Walker said she did a quick 20-minute Internet search to figure out who she wanted to vote for, and ended up settling on Hollins. She said she read the two candidates’ biographies, and felt Hollins’ experience suited the position better though she was not confident in her answer.
“I barely know what the office does,” Walker said.
Washington Avenue resident Dennis Clay had similar qualms, saying he did not know a lot about the controller’s office. He voted for Sanchez mainly due to name recognition.
“I had no particular reason, I was mainly here to vote for mayor,” Clay said.
The controller is the city’s chief financial officer. The office’s main duty is to certify the city has the funds available to pay for the contracts and services to be approved by City Council.
“This city has some real financial challenges,” Hollins said. “We’re going to start having to put a plan together along with the mayoral administration and city council to put our city on a path to sustainability.”
He said his goal was to make the city more efficient and effective in providing critical services, and he would be offering ideas and best practices to every city department.
The office also is responsible for overseeing the city’s investments, performing internal audits, conducting the sale of bonds on behalf of the city and producing Houston’s annual financial report. It also has a hotline for the reporting of fraud, waste and abuse of funds.
Hollins, 37, is a lawyer and former management consultant. As the interim county clerk, he oversaw the 2020 election during the pandemic. Several of the practices he instituted, including multiple drop boxes for mail ballots, a plan to send mail ballot applications to all voters, and 24-hour voting prompted strong pushback from local and state Republican leaders who sued to halt those measures. State lawmakers subsequently passed a law prohibiting 24-hour voting.
Hollins, a Democrat, originally filed to run for Houston mayor, but dropped out when U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee announced she would enter the race.
He currently is a member of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority of Harris County’s board of directors.
Sanchez, 66, served six years on Houston City Council and was Harris County treasurer for 12 years. He ran for mayor of Houston in 2001 and 2003, reaching a runoff each time as a Republican. He ran for controller in 2019, losing to current Controller Chris Brown.
Brown is leaving office at the end of the year because of term limits.
“The outcome isn’t always as you want it, I’ve won many and I’ve lost several,” Sanchez said. “As I like to say, this isn’t my first rodeo.”
Sanchez said he had not thought about any future races, and did not see any upcoming races that appealed to him. He did leave the door open for a future campaign.
“Never say never, I turned 66 this year. How old is John (Whitmire), 74?” he said.
In addition to preventing and rooting out waste and fraud and overseeing the controller’s financial duties, both candidates had campaigned on issues outside the controller’s responsibilities, including crime, affordable housing and education.
“There’s nothing that the city spends a penny on that’s not related to what happens in the controller’s office,” Hollins reasoned. “So, we’re going to have our hand and have our voice heard on these issues. And not our voice: the voice of the people and the city of Houston.”
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