City propositions all win

I had the pleasure of attending a Greater Houston Partnership lunch today at which a panel (which featured Ted Delisi, Paul Burka, Sonny Messiah-Jiles, and Mustafa Tameez) discussed last night's election results. I'll have something to day about this later, but now, before the sleep deprivation catches up with me, let's catch up on some news.

White's props win by wide margin

Houston voters approved all eight of Mayor Bill White's propositions on Tuesday's ballot, allowing the city to finance future capital projects and granting flexibility around a revenue cap.

The first six ballot measures, collectively a $625 million bond issue that would pay for streets and drainage, public safety projects and other city improvements, were approved by comfortable margins.

The two more hotly contested ballot measures - propositions G and H - also earned broad support. The measures would allow changes to a voter-imposed 2004 revenue cap in the City Charter and an additional $90 million this year for police, fire and emergency services.

At a City Hall news conference Tuesday night, White said Houstonians were overwhelmingly supportive of his ballot initiatives.

He said that would let the city meet public safety and quality-of-life needs of the community.

"Tonight was good for the people of Houston," he said. "We've kept the city moving."

Local businessman Bruce Hotze, a key Proposition G critic who fought two years ago to win voter approval of the revenue cap known then as Proposition 2, said his side couldn't match the 8-to-1 spending advantage enjoyed by White and Continental Airlines, which joined the mayor in supporting the measure.

"This was a David and Goliath race," Hotze said. "It was the taxpayers versus the corporations. They've raised a huge amount of money. It's pretty hard to compete with that."

My heart bleeds for you, dude. You want to push for comprehensive campaign finance reform so as to limit the ability of corporations and sugar daddies like Bob Perry and James Leininger to dump money into races like this, you give me a call and we'll talk. Till then, feel free to cry me a river.

Only Prop D was even close, going by the election returns (start on page 33). It passed by a 53-47 margin. Prop G, which modifies the city charter and thus takes any other ballot initiative off the table until 2008, cleared the bar with 61% of the vote. Game, set, match.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on November 08, 2006 to Election 2006 | TrackBack