BROWN MAKES HISTORY IN VICTORY

By Alan Bernstein, Political Writer

Lee Brown, who moved to Houston three times during his restless career,
will now move into the mayor's job.

Brown, the former police chief, defeated businessman Rob Mosbacher in
Saturday's runoff by a modest margin considering local mayoral races of the
last 25 years.

With a complete but unofficial count of the vote, Brown got about 52
percent, leaving Mosbacher with about 48 percent.

After notching a series of "firsts" in his academic and law enforcement,
Brown becomes the first ethnic minority elected mayor of Houston. Blacks,
Hispanics and AsianAmericans make up more than 60 percent of the city's
population.

Brown became Houston's first AfricanAmerican police chief in 1982. He left
the post in 1990.

He also mentioned throughout his campaign that he was the first
AfricanAmerican in the nation to earn a doctorate in criminology.

But just as often, Brown tried to appeal to voters of all racial groups
with a carefully chosen slogan: "The mayor for all of Houston."

He banked on that theme in his victory speech to about 1,000 ecstatic
supporters at the Astroarena.

"Let's do it together, together as one city," he said.

Acknowledging the historical significance of his success as a black
candidate, Brown said, "I have achieved my dream. Another great barrier has
fallen in the city of Houston the doors of opportunity have opened wider
for all of Houston's children."

In an interview later, the mayorelect added that his victory, in the wake
of the Nov. 4 rejection of a proposal to junk the city's affirmative action
policies, is "a message that says we appreciate and celebrate our diversity
it says that what you bring to the table is important, not the color of
your skin."

Mosbacher said he called Brown late Saturday night and offered
congratulations.

"I wish him the best and I wish this city the best," Mosbacher told his
cheering supporters at the George R. Brown Convention Center. "I always
felt that you did not have to be elected to anything to serve and to help
others. So I will do what I have done for the last 16 years which is to
be a volunteer"

Brown's victory Saturday validated his status as front runner from the
moment the 60yearold professor took a leave from Rice University and
announced his candidacy in June.

Polls showed that Mosbacher, the 46yearold president of his family's
energy company, in a constant second place in the field of eight candidates.

Brown received 42 percent of the vote in the Nov. 4 election, compared to
29 percent for Mosbacher. The remainder was divided up among six other
candidates.

Saturday's election was necessary because no candidate got a majority in
the first round.

A survey of voters at the polls Saturday indicated that Brown received
nearunanimous support in black neighborhoods, up to 30 percent of the
votes in white neighborhoods and the majority in Hispanic neighborhoods.

Turnout was about 31 percent of the city's 970,000 registered voters
down from about 35 percent on Nov. 4.

Voter turnout patterns indicated that blacks comprised a third or more of
the total electorate; whites supplied about 55 percent of the total.

Winning the Houston mayor's race while losing in white neighborhoods is not
a new feat: Mayor Kathy Whitmire, who selected Brown as police chief, was
reelected in 1985 with strong support from minority voters. Challenger
Louie Welch captured most of the Anglo vote, according to surveys then.

While officially nonpartisan, Saturday's election also split along partisan
lines, according to University of Houston political scientist Richard
Murray, who conducted the survey at the polls for KPRC Channel 2.

About 93 percent of the voters calling themselves Democrats cast ballots
for Brown, a Democrat, while about 93 percent of the selfidentified
Republicans favored Republican Mosbacher, according to Murray's survey.

The runoff took on a strong partisan flavor, with Democratic President
Clinton and Vice President Al Gore endorsing Brown, who was the Clinton
administration's former "drug czar," and with former President Bush and
former first lady Barbara Bush backing Mosbacher, who ran as a Republican
for U.S. Senate in 1984 and Texas lieutenant governor in 1990. The Bushes
are Houston Republicans.

Mayor Bob Lanier and Whitmire also endorsed Brown.

Lanier could not seek reelection because of the sixyear term limit
adopted by the voters in 1991, when he was elected.

"I have nothing but good feelings about Mayor Lee Brown succeeding me and I
have nothing but good feelings after all," Lanier said about his pending
departure from office at the end of the year.

Saturday's election triggered intense getoutthevote efforts on behalf of
both candidates.

Majic 102, a radio station with a mostly black audience, urged listeners to
vote by airing a public service announcement that featured speeches by
Martin Luther King, Jr., President Kennedy and Malcolm X each followed
with the sound of a gunshot. People have died for the right to vote, the
announcement said, and anyone who predicted a low turnout by blacks on
Saturday was "dead wrong."

Mosbacher's campaign, with the help of volunteers such as County
Commissioner Steve Radack, posted bright orange signs saying "Vote Today"
along thoroughfares and highways.

The runoff campaign was marked by "attack" advertisements from both camps.

Mosbacher started the exchange with a TV commercial that alleged Brown was
"ineffective everywhere he's been."

Brown first moved to Houston to take over the police department after
serving in similar posts in Atlanta and Portland, Ore.

He left Houston in 1990 to become New York City police commissioner,
returned to Houston in 1992 to become a Texas Southern University professor
and to care for his wife Yvonne, who died that year, moved into the "drug
czar" job in 1993 and returned to Houston again to join the Rice faculty.
He has since remarried. The's mayoral race was his first campaign for
elected office.

Brown fired back in the war of commercials by alleging that Mosbacher
dodged taxes.

Mosbacher's campaign spent a record $3.5 million through Nov. 26, much of
it on his TV assaults. Combined with Brown's expenditure of $2.1 million,
the total spending also broke records.

Brown and Mosbacher offered contrasting visions and governing philosophies.

Mosbacher offered "common sense business practices," including increased
use of private companies to take over functions from the city, such as
maintenance of municipal vehicles.

Brown offered "neighborhood oriented government," a system that he said
would "empower the people" and resemble the Neighborhood Oriented Policing
programs he installed as police chief.

Mosbacher aimed to eliminate city policies, such as its contracting rules,
that are specific to race and gender. Brown said affirmative action
policies should be preserved.

Mosbacher said during the summer that this probably would be his last
candidacy for public office if he lost.

Chronicle reporters Julie Mason and John Williams contributed to this
story. Copyright 1997 Houston Chronicle