San Antonio plans to revisit the comparatively low marketing campaign contribution limits it locations on candidates working for Metropolis Council and mayor, at the moment set at $500 and $1,000 respectively per election cycle.
Town’s Ethics Overview Board simply accomplished a complete evaluation of San Antonio’s Municipal Marketing campaign Finance Code in 2024, and didn’t contact these limits.
However San Antonio simply moved to longer, four-year phrases when its 10 council members and mayor had been sworn in final June.
Underneath the present guidelines, meaning particular person donors who’ve already given the utmost contribution to the present council members couldn’t achieve this once more till June 30, 2028 — the start of the election cycle for a November 2029 municipal election.
Many donors have already maxed out what they can provide for this four-year cycle, forward of an election the place Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones shall be on the poll, and three of her greatest council rivals, Sukh Kaur (D1), Marina Alderete Gavito (D7) and Marc Whyte (D10), are all term-limited from in search of a full 4 years of their current roles.
“The marketing campaign election cycles modified from two years to 4 years, and the place we’re seeing the affect is particularly within the Municipal Marketing campaign Finance Code, and that’s on contribution cycles,” stated Compliance Auditor Maria Perez, who serves because the official liaison between the town and its Ethics Overview Board.
“Contribution cycles run pre-election, post-election and runoff, and now that’s unfold over 4 years versus two years,” Perez advised the board Monday night time. “It has impacted marketing campaign funding, and it’s one thing that the board could wish to take into consideration.”
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The Ethics Overview Board is comprised of 11 members who’re appointed by the council and mayor.
Primarily based on their feedback Monday night time, Perez stated workers has been given the green-light to begin formulating a course of for them to once more evaluation and suggest adjustments to the Municipal Finance Code this yr.
“We simply did this full overview. I don’t know that we actually must do one other full overview, [versus] simply goal these sections,” she advised the board.
However a panel with many new members since then may have the last word say over what they reopen and the way they strategy making the contribution limits match the brand new phrases.
“I’m going to deliver it the board and see what we give it some thought,” Ethics Overview Board Chair Patrick Lang stated in an interview after the assembly. “We don’t wish to stray too removed from the place we’re at, in my humble opinion.”
An increase in PAC spending
San Antonio’s comparatively low contributions limits had been meant to stage the taking part in area for candidates from completely different components of the town, and with various levels of wealth inside their networks of supporters.
However the coverage got here underneath scrutiny within the final metropolis election, when some political watchers blamed it for giving outsized affect to PACs and self-funders.
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PACs aren’t topic to the identical particular person donor limits, and candidates can provide limitless private contributions to their very own campaigns.
After Monday’s assembly, Lang stated issues in regards to the rise in PAC spending have some validity. However on the similar time, he stated, he doesn’t consider greater contribution limits will make it extra honest.
“PACs are a problem, however that’s one thing that we are able to’t police from right here,” Lang stated. “It doesn’t matter if we increase [the contribution limit] to 1,000,000 {dollars}, there’s nonetheless going to be PAC spending.”
All adjustments must be accepted by the total board, then voted on by the council as effectively.
Obligatory ethics coaching
Primarily based on feedback at Monday’s assembly, metropolis workers will even begin serving to the Ethics Overview Board draft a possible coverage requiring ethics coaching for elected officers.
Monday was the primary time the board had met for normal enterprise in over a yr, Perez stated, as a result of slew of ethics complaints it needed to think about towards candidates and elected officers in the course of the 2025 municipal election.
In whole, 10 complaints had been filed, and 5 had been thought-about by the board or a panel of its members, she stated, “which was an enormous quantity for us.”
In lots of instances, the Ethics Overview Board wound up referring council members to particular person ethics coaching periods — one thing they had been purported to have already reviewed and accomplished on their very own.
Lang stated the board had grown pissed off with council members breaking guidelines they had been purported to know, so it deliberate to take a look at updating the town’s Ethics Code to mandate in-person coaching.
That manner, he stated, it will have a document of when council members obtained and signed off on the insurance policies, and will have that “ammunition” useful when members say they’ve been blind-sighted.
“It’s not that we wish to play gotcha,” he stated. ” … [But] as you go alongside, you’ll see the identical violation from the identical folks with the identical excuses.”
In September, the board cited former Mayor Ron Nirenberg for utilizing metropolis assets to create social media content material. Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez (D2) was sanctioned in January of 2025 for his dealing with of a zoning difficulty.
Council members Sukh Kaur (D1) and Marc Whyte (D10) had been additionally each punished for marketing campaign violations in June — marking Whyte’s second offense with the Ethics Overview Board.
A number of the points council members have been cited for previously might get extra readability on this yr’s replace, Perez stated, resembling how official council workers is allowed to separate its time on marketing campaign work, and the way official metropolis logos are handled when showing in marketing campaign images.
