The interim and non-interim Mayoral hopefuls of San Antonio

Robert Rivard previews the sausage-making process in San Antonio.

It takes six votes to win, a majority that will be harder to achieve if some of the announced candidates exercise their right to abstain. If all five abstain from voting for someone else, it will be impossible to gain the necessary majority. Such a stalemate would open up the process to all 10 council members, according to the rules of procedure outlined by City Attorney Robbie Greenblum at a recent council meeting.

If the interim mayor is, however, successfully elected on the first round of voting, you will know the real vote occurred behind closed doors and out of public view. I hope that doesn’t happen, and I don’t necessarily believe it will.

What is more likely is an inconclusive first round in which at least two of the candidates, District 8 Councilman Ron Nirenberg and District 7 Councilman Chris Medina, receive no votes and are eliminated from the next round. It’s also possible, of course, that both will reach this conclusion before July 22 and reverse their stated intentions to seek the mayor’s seat.

Either way, that would leave three candidates.

One is District 2 Councilwoman Ivy Taylor, the presumed frontrunner who has stated her willingness to serve out Castro’s one year unexpired term and then step down without seeking election as mayor next May. She would be San Antonio’s first African-American mayor and in a strong position to seek a seat in the state Legislature afterwards if state Rep. Ruth Jones McClendon (D-San Antonio) does not run again.

Taylor’s pledge not to run in next May’s city election makes her an appealing compromise candidate to council members who want to run in May themselves or who want to support a candidate not on the Council.

It also would leave San Antonio with a figurehead leader lacking the political power of an interim mayor perceived as a possible candidate for election to a full term in May.

The others two candidates are District 6 Councilman Ray Lopez, the senior member of Council, and District 5 Councilwoman Shirley Gonzales, both of whom have expressed an interest in winning the interim seat and going on to run in May.

Two suburban Council members, District 9 Councilman Joe Krier and District 10 Councilman David Gallagher, were said to be provisionally committed to Taylor, if you believe city hall chatter. That’s still four votes short, but it’s a start.

Lopez is experienced and believes he would be effective as mayor, but younger Council members seem more inclined to look at candidates from their generation. Gonzales has entered the contest, in part, because she and others feel it’s time for San Antonio to elect its first Latina mayor. She also believes she is just as qualified as anyone else pursuing the job. Gonzales had no mayoral aspirations before Castro’s Cabinet nomination, but circumstances have placed her and everyone else on the Council in a position none anticipated.

The unique nature of Council politics has thrust all of them into an uncomfortable position. The Council members who might have been the most likely to try and succeed Castro in 2017, had he sought and won a fourth term, aren’t the Council members with the strongest hand in the July 22 contest.

Makes your head spin a little, doesn’t it? Rivard is absolutely right that the San Antonio City Council needs to amend the city’s charter to include a less-crazy, more-democratic Mayoral succession process. A special election on the next viable uniform election date makes the most sense to me. In the meantime, the main question seems to be is it better to put in a placeholder till next May so all of the wannabees for a full term can start out on even footing, or is it better to put in someone that will be auditioning on the job for a full term?

How you answer that may depend on who you would like to support in 2015. One person who won’t be tapped to fill Julian Castro’s shoes for the next few months is State Rep. Mike Villarreal, who is busy building up support for his 2015 campaign.

For 35 years, the most successful candidates and most effective mayors have been practical Democrats who have won the backing of the business community.

This is not just because these candidates have well-financed campaigns. It is because a mayor with an ambitious agenda needs the support of the majority of voters — who in San Antonio are Democrats — and the support of the business community, which is practical.

The most effective San Antonio mayors of the past 35 years — Henry Cisneros, Nelson Wolff, Phil Hardberger and Castro — all fit that profile.

For the past 10 years, the best political harbinger of business support is Mike Beldon, head of one of the city’s largest roofing companies, former chairman of the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce and former chairman of the Edwards Aquifer Authority. In 2005, he served as treasurer and finance director for Hardberger’s campaign against a young Castro. Four years later, he did the same for Castro in his successful campaign against Trish DeBerry.

Now Beldon has signed on as the mayoral campaign manager for state Rep. Mike Villarreal.

Other than the Council members named above that would run for “re-election” if they win the Council beauty contest, there aren’t any serious contenders that are openly working it for 2015. Villarreal is known to have statewide ambitions, and Mayor of San Antonio would be a nice jumping-off point for a future statewide campaign, certainly one with greater potential than State Rep, at least at this time. One interesting twist on this is that Sen. Leticia Van de Putte is said to have expressed some interest in being Mayor before, and could conceivably jump in if she’s not presiding over the Senate next spring. I trust Rep. Villarreal will see that as extra incentive to work even harder on behalf of her candidacy for Lite Gov.

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2 Responses to The interim and non-interim Mayoral hopefuls of San Antonio

  1. Thomas says:

    Has the Seal of the City of San Antonio always depicted the flag of Chile?

  2. Maybe Chile took inspiration for its flag from the San Antonio seal.

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