Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones’ last-minute push to move San Antonio’s municipal elections to November got a chilly reception in its first public council hearing Wednesday, casting serious doubt over whether it would pass when it comes to a vote next week.
The Texas legislature gave Dallas permission to make the change this year, and in a move that went largely unnoticed, opened it up to other cities to follow suit without having to change their city charters.
The catch is that they have to do it before a Dec. 31 deadline, or risk the possibility the legislature won’t agree to reopen the policy in a future legislative session.
A long list of voting rights groups and civic leaders are now urging San Antonio to jump on what they see as a rare opportunity to help boost turnout, yet member after member on a overwhelmingly progressive council raised concerns about the way it had been pitched and the short timeline to make a decision.
“When I received the memo from the mayor about the work that the City of Dallas had did and how they adopted this unanimously, I reached out to a Dallas City Council member to understand the context in which this was initiated and the work that was done,” said Councilwoman Teri Castillo (D5), a reliable member of the council’s progressive bloc.
“What [they] shared with me is that there was a lot of work put in, in terms of, their City Council took this to the voters of Dallas [for approval],” she said. “… San Antonio residents deserve that same type of engagement.”
Among many council members’ top concerns was the potential impact on local school districts, seven of which currently partner with the city to hold their elections in May.
Those districts would either need to move their elections to November as well or find another municipality to partner with if they want to keep it in May.
Districts aren’t on the same deadline to decide, but many choose that quieter election as a way to attract voters they believe are more focused on local issues, and say that staying there would cost them more money.
“We can’t afford that change for Northside,” said Northside ISD Board President Karla Duran, who was called up to speak at Wednesday’s meeting. “[Holding an election without the city is] a difference of potentially several hundred thousand dollars. That’s a couple of teachers.”
Dallas’ lone school district is moving with the city to November.
Councilwoman Phyllis Viagran (D3) argued that the districts that don’t want to move to November with the city weren’t accounting for the fact that the City Council just moved to four-year terms, meaning the districts are already on their own half of the time going forward.
Viagran was one of three council members who expressed clear support for the measure, along with Councilmen Edward Mungia (D4) and Jalen McKee-Rodriguez (D2).
McKee-Rodriguez, who represents the East Side, said the city shouldn’t lose sight of why some elections were put in May in the first place, which was to discourage certain groups of people from participating.
“I represent the historically black side of town, a part of town with a deep civil rights history, where we are well aware of barriers to voting, voter suppression and efforts to keep turnout low,” he said. “I’m supportive here because this will reduce barriers to voting, it will address voter fatigue, improve turnout, consolidate costs and respond to what my residents, at least, keep asking for.”
Council members Castillo, Ivalis Meza Gonzalez (D8), Misty Spears (D9) and Marc Whyte (D10) disliked the idea of moving quickly on a big change before the end of the year, but sounded supportive of the city taking the idea to voters for more feedback.
If it’s popular, Whyte said, they could ask the legislature to open the window again during the 2027 legislative session, giving them time to implement it before the next city election in 2029.
“Something like this, moving the elections without even talking to the residents, just adds to that voter distrust,” said Whyte, who worried about the optics of council members moving the election and adding another six months to their own terms in the process.
“It’s another instance where the citizens say, ‘Well, they’re doing whatever they want. They’re extending their term in office because they want to,’” Whyte said.
It’s unclear how easy that would be to get the legislature on board again if Jones’ push fails.
State Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer (D-San Antonio) said in an interview this week that Dallas’ proposal sailed through with only a handful of witnesses signed up to speak, a good indication the idea wasn’t controversial.
“At the same time, there’s only 140 days to get people’s business done and I think there’s sometimes a viewpoint that we’re not going to do something that we already did,” he said.
Hearing from the experts
Speaking to the hasty timeline, Jones said at a town hall on Saturday that she only learned about the opportunity when she was reading the news just before Thanksgiving.
She wished the city’s government affairs team had brought it to the council’s attention sooner, but said she wasn’t sympathetic to council members’ suggestion that the city didn’t have enough time to fully consider the idea before Dec. 31.
“This is super important for our community, so I’m going to be super frank,” Jones told the crowd at the Central Library. “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 [for a new Spurs arena] and were not concerned about community engagement.”
Jones needs five council members on her side when this comes to a vote next Thursday.
So far her lobbying effort has been primarily focused on rallying influential supporters, like former Mayor Ron Nirenberg and the League of Women Voters, as opposed to winning over individual council members.
On Wednesday she re-upped that strategy by inviting the author of several studies on municipal election turnout, professor Melissa Marschall with Rice University, who wrote Texas city leaders about the legislature’s move shortly after the bill passed.
Marschall fielded many questions from the council about whether the move to November would truly boost turnout, since Texas’ state constitutional elections have historically drawn less interest than the May municipals.
But she said the research is very clear.
She looked at roughly 10,000 U.S. mayoral elections, about a third of which were held off-cycle, meaning they’re not in the November of an even-numbered year. Of those, 560 cities had May elections, and about 2,300 had them in November odd years.
“In a very large sample of mayoral elections … on average, May elections are about 19% turnout, and the November odd years are about 28%,” she said. “So it’s about a 10 percentage point difference when you just compare the timing of those cities.”
Another point of contention was whether the move would actually save San Antonio money, something Dallas’ research said would occur there.
Municipalities and school districts split the cost of elections based on the number of registered voters they have eligible to participate and the total cost is determined by how many polling cites the county operates.
Jones said City Manager Erik Walsh had estimated in their early conversations that moving to November would results in about $800,000 to $1 million in savings for San Antonio, something council members wanted to learn more about.
On Wednesday, however, Walsh was more circumspect, saying there were too many variables to pinpoint the exact savings.
“Cost is a factor here, but it’s more policy conversation about election policy,” Walsh said. “My guess was $800 million based on what we budgeted, but it depends on what’s on the ballot.”
A low point for the council?
Wednesday’s meeting comes as council has been trying to present a more united front after the November election, but it was marked with many pointed exchanges that highlighted the continued tension between the mayor, council members and city staff.
Jones and Walsh sparred over the potential cost savings and Alderete Gavito suggested Jones should have reached out to the school districts before sending her letter.
McKee-Rodriguez, who just returned from paternity leave in October, said residents elected the council to make big decisions, and they were clearly in an unusual situation with the deadline.
But given the current environment, he added, the idea of extending their terms an additional six months wasn’t particularly appealing.
“With regard to us being in office for another six months, I’ll just say this, if council is going to continue to be the way that it has been for the past few months, I am not interested in that,” McKee-Rodriguez said.