HOUSTON — State Rep. Borris Miles practically leaps into the conference room at the Anna Dupre Apartments in inner-city Houston. The residents’ council meeting has already started.

“You gonna give me some sugar,” he says to an elderly woman on his way into the dingy room. She promptly kisses him on the cheek.

The Democratic incumbent solicits their concerns and dutifully listens as the women, many in wheelchairs, fill him in: They want a new roof for a bus stop. Their nonprofit paperwork is a mess. And the cars drive too fast on the boulevard out front.

“Is that it?” he ...

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