Changes

==Running for mayor==

==Running for mayor==

Flores announced that she would run for mayor in the fall of 1997, after the incumbent, Saul N. Ramirez, Jr., resigned to join the [[Bill Clinton|Clinton]] administration. Ramirez later became the deputy in [[Washington, D.C.]], to United States [[Department of Housing and Urban Development]] Secretary [[Andrew Cuomo]], since the [[governor]] of [[New York]]. Flores won the special election runoff in the winter of 1998. Then she ran for a full term in May 1998. She defeated an outgoing councilman, Alfonso I. "Poncho" Casso, who reappeared in 2012 to seek a position on the Webb County Commission and a previous city attorney, Fausto Sosa. In 2002, she was easily reelected to a second full term when she defeated a former city councilman, Felipe Cardenas, who had been recalled from office several years earlier, as permitted under the Laredo municipal charter, though there is no recall in Texas for state positions.

Flores announced that she would run for mayor in the fall of 1997, after the incumbent, Saul N. Ramirez, Jr., resigned to join the [[Bill Clinton|Clinton]] administration. Ramirez later became the deputy in [[Washington, D.C.]], to United States [[Department of Housing and Urban Development]] Secretary [[Andrew Cuomo]], since the [[governor]] of [[New York]]. Flores won the special election runoff in the winter of 1998. Then she ran for a full term in May 1998. She defeated an outgoing councilman, Alfonso I. "Poncho" Casso, who reappeared in 2012 to seek a position on the Webb County Commission and a previous city attorney, Fausto Sosa (1960-2023). In 2002, she was easily reelected to a second full term when she defeated a former city councilman, Felipe Cardenas, who had been recalled from office several years earlier, as permitted under the Laredo municipal charter, though there is no recall in Texas for state positions.

Flores was term-limited by the Laredo city charter, which was drafted during the administration of one of her predecessors, [[Aldo Tatangelo]], who served from 1978 to 1990. She was succeeded by Raul Salinas, but she and six of the sitting eight council members endorsed Salinas' opponent, outgoing city council member John Clifford Galo (born 1958), who in 2012 reentered politics to contest successfully as a Democrat a seat on the Webb County Commissioner's Court.​

Flores was term-limited by the Laredo city charter, which was drafted during the administration of one of her predecessors, [[Aldo Tatangelo]], who served from 1978 to 1990. She was succeeded by Raul Salinas, but she and six of the sitting eight council members endorsed Salinas' opponent, outgoing city council member John Clifford Galo (born 1958), who in 2012 reentered politics to contest successfully as a Democrat a seat on the Webb County Commissioner's Court.​