More results to come, but this runoff race is probably over. Early voting totals from the Austin City Council Place 4 runoff are in, and Laura Morrison got 60% of the vote to Cid Galindo's 40%.

Categories: City Politics | Elections |
Posted by Elise Hu at 7:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Disclaimer: I shot this off of our monitors because it takes too long to change formats from our video format into a useable digital video format to upload online. So the audio quality is fine since this played in our speakers, but the video is a little shaky.

Categories: City Politics |
Posted by Elise Hu at 11:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Washington Post blogger Chris Cilizza does a quick "Winners and Losers" analysis piece after major primaries/caucuses, and I'll try it here on PJ since my photoblogging failed so miserably last night. (Blasted wireless card!)

Final election results are here.

I admit my knowledge of Austin city politics is quite limited, as state politics/the lege usually keeps me busy enough. I'm covering city races because our former City Hall reporter, Kevin Peters, left just before elections heated up. (He went to our sister station, KHOU-TV. We miss you Kevin).

But I do cover politics, and as they say, all politics is local... so here's an outside-looking-in view of this year's winners and losers:

Winners
The People Who Actually Voted
35,830 people voted in this year's municipal elections. That's eight percent of registered voters in Travis County. Blame it on Mother's Day weekend, voter fatigue or just plain ignorance. But less than 10% of the people registered to vote decided three city council seats and millions in bonds for the Austin ISD. If you did vote, (and I trust that most PJ readers in Austin certainly did), you win, because your vote carried a lot more weight than had more people turned out.

Mark "Puppetmaster" Nathan
The Austin political consultant advised both Place 1 winner Lee Leffingwell and Place 3 winner Randi Shade. While you never want your consultant making the news, Nathan was dragged into the race by Shade's opponent -- Kim. The Kim campaign sent a mailer alleging he's a "developer lobbyist" who would only enhance his power at City Hall if Shade were elected. He brushed off the charge, so did voters. Both Nathan's candidates won with more than two-third's of the vote.

Lee Leffingwell's legs
My first impression upon seeing Leffingwell's TV ad was, wow, he's showing a lot of leg.

"I've taken a lot of ribbing about that," he said.

But Leffingwell won a three-way race with 68% of the vote; a testament to his strength as an incumbent, his job performance during his first term and, dare I say, his nice stems? The electorate's looking for bold leaders. Leffingwell's willingness to show a little leg must say something about boldness.

Public Safety Unions
The public safety groups endorsed Leffingwell in Place 1, Randi Shade in Place 3, and Cid Galindo in Place 4. Two are winners, the other made a runoff. The groups were brought into the vitriolic final weeks over their Shade endorsement. The Kim campaign alleged (in an unsourced robocall) that Shade "made promises" to increase law enforcement staff and got an endorsement in exchange. The police, firefighters and EMS came out swinging, blasting Kim on Monday of the final week of the campaign. When Kim's campaign kept this narrative going, they came back to blast Kim a second time. In the end, Shade counted on not just public safety - but a broad coalition of support - to trounce Kim nearly 2 to 1.

Losers

"Lisa" the Robocaller
This electronic voice of "Lisa" has yet to turn up in real life. "Lisa" made the robocall launched against Shade last Monday, a symbol of the negative tone in the Place 3 race's final weeks. As it turns out, the robocall - and subsequent free media about it - did very little to change the results between early voting (62-28) and election day (66-26).

Tim Mahoney
What happened in this Austin Community College trustee race? A student named Mike Reid was in the running for the board of trustees, but dropped his bid before election day. But Reid still picked up about five thousand votes anyway, which kept Tim Mahoney from getting the fifty percent plus one necessary to avoid a runoff. Mahoney will face Harrison Keller in the runoff, set for June 14th.

Predictions of the Place 3 Race
Those who dared to make predictions about the Kim-Shade race almost unanimously guessed the results would be within ten points -- or closer. Those kinds of predictions were blown out of the water by Saturday night's results, when Shade shellacked Kim in a major way, avoiding a runoff and unseating a sitting councilmember. Again, I admit my limited knowledge on city politics before writing this next line -- but I think Shade was the beneficiary of the small electorate as much as incumbent Lee Leffingwell was.

Shade won because most of the 35,000 or so voters went into the booth as longtime Shade friends or people actually knowledgeable about Kim and her past few years in office.

I visited a street corner on Friday, where Shade was doing some visibility. A man with a cup of Ben and Jerry's walked up and goes to the candidate, "Why should I vote for you?" After realizing he was serious, Shade launched into highlights of her stump speech. The man seemed engaged, but unimpressed. Then he goes, "Who are you running against?"

Shade told him Jennifer Kim.

"Oh, you'll definitely get my vote then," he said. And it appears that was a sentiment among voters that carried the day -- and carried Shade into elected office.

Categories: City Politics | Lame-brained Analysis |
Posted by Elise Hu at 9:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

12:24am: Photoblogging failed miserably because of unreliable connection to the internet, both via the wi-fi available at the victory parties and the shoddy wireless card I had with me. To make up for my miserable liveblogging failure tonight, I will do a post mortem winners/losers post in the morning. Well, later in the morning.

7:49pm: Connection to the internet has been in and out like crazy, so I apologize for the lack of live-ness to the blogging. We are on our way to Jennifer Kim's party now... to get some reaction and photos. More photos later.

7:39pm: The Shade party, which is right next door in this Clarksville neighborhood, is rocking. Partygoers have learned of Shade's early vote shellacking of incumbent Jennifer Kim. Shade won the early vote with 62% to Kim's 28%. Ken Weiss captured 10% of the vote, but if these numbers hold Shade avoids a runoff.

7:09pm: Starting the evening at Lee Leffingwell's party, which has about fourteen people in attendance so far. Leffingwell isn't expected until 7:30, so we got here early for parking. Early returns not showing yet.

Categories: City Politics |
Posted by Elise Hu at 7:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A commenter asked whether I made a mistake in linking to the Chronicle's reporting on Jennifer Kim's consultant and his troubles with the PUC. But my conversation with PUC spokesman Terry Hadley backs up the Chronicle's original reporting. Let's hit this in Q&A format, since it's Friday night and y'all have other places to be.

1.) Has a formal complaint been filed against the Kim campaign for its robocall?
Not yet. The Austin Firefighters Association met with its attorney Friday afternoon to consider its options. They are looking at two possible complaints - one for the robocall's failure to identify the source of the call and a second for Kim consultant Elliott McFadden's failure to have a proper permit in order to place robocalls in the first place.

2.) Kim's consultant told reporters that the "PUC assured them" that "there was no violation. Is that true?
No, says the PUC spokesman. "No one from our enforcement section was in on the meeting with Ignite [McFadden's firm]. So that wasn't part of the discussion. It was about how to get the permit and how to apply," said Hadley.

3.) Is the Kim robocall in violation of state law?
We don't know. The robocall could be in violation on two grounds. One, running a robocall without a permit and two, not identifying the call's source.

"I've seen reports they happened before Monday, and they did it without a permit," said Hadley. "We do not approve messages in advance, but we do need to look into it if someone files a formal complaint."

(This is a link to Ignite's application, which shows its permit was not approved until Monday. The controversial robocall was placed LAST Thursday.)

Here is a link to PUC statute, with this key paragraph:

Within the first 30 seconds of the call, the ADAD message must clearly state the nature of the call, the identity of the business, individual, or other entity initiating the call, and the telephone number (other than that of the ADAD which placed the call) or address of the business, individual, or entity.

Categories: City Politics |
Posted by Elise Hu at 3:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Disclaimer: This following post will only be interesting to you if you are a level five political nerd or higher. (Not sure how many levels there are, let's assume five is high.)

With municipal election day just a day away here in ATX, the dueling campaigns of incumbent Jennifer Kim and challenger Randi Shade have gotten bogged down in a dizzying fight over law enforcement's endorsement of Shade.

Those of us in the press were already weary by Wednesday's round three -- or was it round four -- when Kim's consultant, Elliott McFadden, came out to reiterate its controversial robocall's claim that Shade promised law enforcement increased staff. This was followed by law enforcement's counter press conference, which was followed by the Kim camp's counter-counter-rebuttal... or something.

The robocall, released last week, was controversial for a couple of reasons:

1.) It asserted that Shade's call for increased staff was a "promise" and insinuated that it was a quid-pro-quo for an endorsement.

Shade - and law enforcement - immediately hit back, saying no such promise was made, especially not for an endorsement. Even though the only primary sources called foul on this claim, the Kim campaign "stood by" their statements by citing a secondary source -- the editorial page of the Statesman.

2.) The source of the call was only identified as "your neighbor Lisa". Weeell, turns out it was actually the Kim campaign, cloaked behind the electronic voice of "Lisa". (McFadden says Lisa is a friend of his, and a friend of the campaign.) Public Utilities Commission statute requires automated robocalls to identify the source of the call. Law enforcement groups were doubtful "Lisa" would qualify, and said they'd file a complaint.

But tonight - the Austin Chronicle discovers where the robocall meets the road:

Continue reading "When the PUC Stops Being Polite... And Starts Getting Real" »

Categories: City Politics |
Posted by Elise Hu at 10:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)