San Antonio Mayor Jones blames city staff for last minute push to move elections

San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones speaks about moving the city’s municipal elections during a town hall at the Central Library on Saturday. Credit: Michael Karlis

San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones said the timing of her push to move the city’s municipal elections to November, which some on council have called hasty, comes down to a lack of information from city staff.

“I found out about it when I read that Dallas voted in November to move their elections,” Jones told the Current during a Town Hall over the weekend at San Antonio’s Central Library. “When I read that, I dug a little further into why they did that and the benefits.”

During the last legislative session in Austin, Texas lawmakers passed Senate Bill 1494, which gives cites until Dec. 31 to move their municipal elections to November during years when neither a presidential nor midterm contest is taking place.

Gov. Greg Abbott signed the bill into law June 20, two days after Jones took office. However, Jones didn’t start pushing council to act on the potential move until the last week of November. That gave her colleagues six weeks, not including the holiday break, to gather public input on the issue.

“I think that this council has always placed a priority on community engagement,” District 10 Councilman Marc Whyte told the Current of the condensed timetable. “Moving the time period when we elect our local elected officials is a pretty big deal. So, I think one of my concerns is that we haven’t had enough time to discuss this with our constituents.”

But Jones said she hasn’t procrastinated on the matter. Rather, city staff never informed her about details of the state bill.

“[Assistant City Manager] Jeff Coyle and that team, they do a [state] legislative wrap-up,” Jones said. “This is not something in that email wrap-up, but this is pretty significant.”

Every legislative session, the City of San Antonio sends a delegation to Austin. That group compiles a report of notable bills that Alamo City elected officials, including the mayor, should know about.

Despite SB 1494 directly targeting local governments, however, the measure didn’t appear in Coyle’s legislative wrap-up.

“When I raised it with Erik [Walsh], the exact response was that ‘this wasn’t a city priority,’” Jones said.

In a statement to the Current, Walsh and Coyle said SB 1494 wasn’t considered a priority bill because it didn’t mandate any change, nor was it part of the city’s legislative agenda for the session.

“Because it was not part of our State Legislative Program, City staff did not take a position position on SB 1494 or include it in our Council briefings,” they said.

Research conducted by experts, including Melissa Marschall, a Rice University political scientist specializing in local elections, and Zoltan Hajnal, a quantitative social scientist at the University of San Diego, shows that moving the elections during off-years could double turnout.

Jones also maintains that moving the elections could save the City of San Antonio $1 million and provide greater access to potential voters, since more polling stations would be open during a single, unified election.

It’s worth noting that if a motion to shift the election timetable is approved by council, Jones and the rest of the sitting members would get an additional six months in office.

Jones’ proposal has the support of roughly a dozen civic-engagement organizations, including Voto Latino, the Texas Organizing Project, the League of Women Voters San Antonio.

Still, some council members, including Whyte, aren’t completely sold on the idea.

“We only got a couple of weeks’ heads up on this, and we’re coming up on the holiday season,” Whyte said. “We’ve already had our final D10 community meeting for the year. It’s going to be tough to bring together a large group of residents to discuss it.”

Even so, Whyte said his office is actively seeking input from constituents, despite the short timeframe.

For her part, Jones said she’s skeptical of those concerns, pointing to what she perceives as some council members’ lack of community engagement on Project Marvel and public financing of a new downtown arena for the Spurs.

“Some of these folks that have said there’s not enough time for community engagement on this topic voted on a term sheet to sign our community up for $489 million and did not have community engagement,” Jones said. “So, I’m going to be spared the lecture on that one.”

Both members of the public and council will be able to get their say on the matter during Council’s Wednesday B Session starting at 2 p.m. Jones said she hopes to hold a council vote on the proposal on Dec. 18.

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San Antonio Mayor Jones blames city staff for last minute push to move elections

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