Endorsements for the November 2024 General Election: Mayor, City Council, propositions, and more endorsements from our editorial board – News

The Chronicle Editorial Board provides the following endorsements to Democrats in advance of early voting (Monday, October 21, through Friday, November 1) and Election Day, Tuesday, November 5. We urge readers to be thorough with their ballots and cast a vote in every contest. Please note that we only endorse in contested races. Visit austinchronicle.com/elections for more information on the races and important voting information, as well as a shorter, poll-friendly version of these endorsements.

Federal Offices

President / Vice President : Kamala Harris, Tim Walz

U.S. Senator: Colin Allred

United States Representative District 10: Theresa Boisseau

United States Representative District 17: Mark Lorenzen

United States Representative District 21: Kristin Hook

United States Representative District 35: Greg Casar

United States Representative District 37: Lloyd Doggett

State Offices

Railroad Commissioner: Katherine Culbert

Justice, Supreme Court, Place 2: DaSean Jones

Justice, Supreme Court, Place 4: Christine Vinh Weems

Justice, Supreme Court, Place 6: Bonnie Lee Goldstein

Presiding Judge, Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 1: Holly Taylor

Judge, Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 7: Nancy Mulder

Judge, Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 8: Chika Anyiam

State Senator, District 25: Merrie Fox

State Representative, District 19: Dwain Handley

State Representative, District 46: Sheryl Cole

State Representative, District 47: Vikki Goodwin

State Representative, District 48: Donna Howard

Justice, 3rd Court of Appeals District, Place 2: Maggie Ellis

District Attorney, 53rd Judicial District: José Garza

Travis County
Proposition A: For

This tax increase will create greater access to affordable and high-quality child care and afterschool/summer programming and related services for low-income families, and it will increase the average Travis County homeowner’s annual tax bill by $126. That’s well worth it. Specifically, this funding would create just under 2,000 new slots for babies and toddlers from low-income households, and just under 4,000 daycare slots for school-aged kids. We’re all for it.

Austin City Council
District 2: Vanessa Fuentes

Sometimes the choice is easy. In this race, we’ve got an incumbent who has been a fierce champion for her district. She’s thinking about issues that matter to her constituents in the short- and long-term. Among other priorities, she’s focused on preventing flooding partly through an environmental bond package, and unlocking financial assistance for first-time and lower-income homebuyers in the city. Her opponent, Robert Reynolds, is not only conservative, he’s also hardly campaigning.

District 4: José “Chito”Vela

Monica Guzmán is once again challenging incumbent Chito Vela for the District 4 City Council seat, as are a handful of lower profile and more conservative opponents. But there’s no good reason to oust Vela. He has consistently delivered on campaign promises while working in accordance with the progressive Austin values held by his constituents (the same constituents who put Greg Casar on Council before Vela). He has resisted handing big bucks to police and pushed back against an automated license plate reader program while supporting the Austin Police Oversight Act and pushing for density-friendly housing reforms. Guzmán and Vela agree on many points, but they diverge on housing, where she urges caution around changing the city’s development rules. She also emphasizes public process and hearings in a way that will ring alarm bells for those who understand more meetings are not always better – they tend to exclude busier, lower-income residents while giving more airtime to older, wealthier residents who are available at odd times to speak.

District 6: Krista Laine

Unlike the last Republican to represent D6, Mackenzie Kelly is actually interested in serving her constituents. But she’s still the Council’s sole conservative, and her values show up in ways our editorial board cannot forgive. For example, this spring she voted against a resolution to protect transgender rights, telling us later that she is opposed to “virtue signaling” on issues mostly decided at the state and federal level. But showing trans Austinites that their city and its elected leaders stand with them in the face of growing hate is not virtue signaling, it’s vital allyship. Krista Laine is not a seasoned politician, but she clearly embraces progressive values. She has also shown an interest in city issues and has proven to be a quick study of them that we feel will make her a capable Council member.

District 7: Mike Siegel

Leslie Pool will leave big shoes to fill in North-Central Austin, as one of the city’s most engaged and experienced Council members. We think Mike Siegel is best suited to taking on that task because of his experience as a grassroots community organizer and former city attorney. We like Siegel’s positions on major issues: he’s pro-housing, supportive of police transparency (he won the recent “G file” court ruling that strengthened the Austin Police Oversight Act), and has promised to be a voice for labor in local policy making. We also really like Adam Powell, who has demonstrated a clear knowledge of and zeal for housing and transportation policy that has translated into an inspiring, enthusiastic campaign. We feel Siegel’s specific experience gives him the edge over Powell in this contest, however.

District 10: Ashika Ganguly

While the rest of Council has pivoted toward an embrace of housing policies that will help densify the city as a way of addressing the city’s affordability crisis, D10 has resisted. We are endorsing Ashika Ganguly because she promises to help D10 turn that page in a way that will also respect concerns around density that many West Austinites have voiced over the years. She has advocated for more, smaller homes in D10 neighborhoods to make homeownership more attainable for middle-income earners, but she’s also committed to protecting the district’s many sensitive environmental features. Ganguly and her opponent, Marc Duchen, are broadly aligned on issues such as policing and homelessness, but Duchen’s skepticism toward Project Connect was particularly concerning for us. Duchen is highly informed and engaged, but we feel Ganguly will bring a fresh perspective to the dais and, through her work at the Texas Legislature, policy-making knowledge that would serve D10 well.

Mayor: No Endorsement

We aim to endorse someone in every race. But this pool of candidates is tricky. There are two candidates who strike us as knowledgeable and nimble enough to effectively lead Council, but each comes with baggage that this editorial board as a whole could not get past. We considered a dual endorsement, but that would give each candidate the Chronicle’s stamp of approval, and neither has it.

Incumbent Kirk Watson has been effective in many regards. He’s guided Council through a reform of the Development Services Department that seemed impossible in previous years, and he’s moved quickly on other issues, such as through the efficient establishment of the Marshalling Yard to temporarily house more unhoused Austinites following the Salvation Army’s decision to abandon their Downtown shelter. Only a commanding, action-oriented leader could make that kind of progress.

But there have been tradeoffs. A signature of Watson’s leadership is closed-door policy-making that leaves members of the public and even his Council colleagues little or no time to provide meaningful input. The most high-profile example is the APD-DPS partnership he initiated, in private, with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, which allowed state troopers to conduct targeted patrols in Austin. Those troopers ultimately targeted Black and brown Austinites disproportionately. Watson admits he mishandled planning that partnership, but other episodes indicate he didn’t really learn that lesson. Discussion around the Zilker Vision Plan and a potential 2024 climate bond were both scuttled at his behest following mostly behind-the-scenes lobbying. Similarly, Watson pushed for Council to vote on the fiscally questionable, threatening-to-oversight police contract one week after it was announced. An outcry from Council and community members delayed that vote, but it remains unclear if Watson’s rush to make a deal will win out over thorough, thoughtful policy making.

Kathie Tovo presents Watson’s equal in terms of ability to competently run city government, but for better and worse, his opposite in governing style. Through her decade on Council, she was meticulous and fiercely committed to discussing every detail in public. The benefit was open government and some careful planning, and the downside was slow, jargon-filled meetings that were at times inaccessible for the public due to both language and time commitment. In a city facing urgent affordability and climate threats, her approach presents meaningful risks. Meanwhile, her track record of opposition to density-friendly housing policies puts her out of step with the current pro-density Council. Austin voters have expressed their embrace of this approach by electing progressive representatives who support increasing the city’s market-rate housing supply with the aim of reducing housing prices citywide. Tovo thinks Council went too far with these reforms, and that the reforms as drafted won’t achieve their goals. As mayor, she’d be only one vote on a very determined Council, but our editorial board has concerns about the delays and roadblocks she may present to increasing density. For example, Tovo wants to revisit rules around compatibility and parking requirements in particular. That is a callback to times past – times most of our editorial board does not want to return to as our population only continues to grow.

In Doug Greco and Carmen Llanes Pulido, we see well-meaning, progressive candidates with big blind spots. They value and prioritize marginalized communities, but their lack of executive experience is disqualifying (the city of Austin is a $5.9 billion enterprise that employs 13,500 people, after all). Like Watson and Tovo, they care about police oversight. They want Austin to be a safe city for immigrants, queer Texans, and deeply rooted East Austin families of color. But Greco’s suit against the city to allow campaign donations from other states posed serious risks, and signaled short-sightedness. Greco has been a fierce critic of Watson on the campaign trail and, before that, a staunch advocate for working class families as an organizer and at the Texas Legislature, but we don’t think that experience has prepared him to be mayor of the 11th largest city in America. Like Tovo, Llanes Pulido disagrees with Council’s development reforms and has been engaged in the fight against them for years. We think it’s time to move past that approach and toward policies that treat the market as a key part of solving the city’s housing crisis, even if market-based policies do not represent a silver bullet. Also, while Llanes Pulido has been laser-focused on land-use, the city is facing, and will face, a raft of other issues that we don’t feel she is prepared to address. Jeffery Bowen, who serves on the Austin Neighborhoods Council, simply lacks the experience we want to see in a mayor.

Austin Community College Board of Trustees
Place 7: Cole Wilson
Place 9: Julie Ann Nitsch

These are easy. Julie Ann Nitsch and Cole Wilson are both articulate, informed advocates for our local community college, but, just as importantly, they have the kind of lived experience you like to see in leaders. Nitsch knew poverty and homelessness as a young person and brings that perspective to her service on the board, working to make higher education attainable for low-income students by supporting childcare, food pantries, and lower tuition. Wilson shares those goals and told us he’ll focus on finding ways to promote affordable housing for students. Both are former ACC students who credit the college with helping turn their lives around.

Austin ISD Proposition A: For

This proposition asks voters to agree to raise their property taxes to support our local schools. In our reporting over the last six months, we’ve made much of the fact that if Prop. A passes, a majority of the money it raises will go back to the state of Texas – Austin ISD will get only about $41 million of the $160 million in new tax revenue. The thing is, our district really needs that $41 million, and we wholeheartedly support this proposition. As district leaders have said, we can’t trust Greg Abbott, Dan Patrick, and the Texas Republican Party to suddenly ride to the rescue of the state’s public schools, after starving them of necessary funding for six years. It’s up to the people of this community to do what we can to support our students and teachers. It’s time we all gained a deeper understanding of just how important public education is in our lives.

Austin ISD Board of Trustees
AISD District 2: Sarah Ivory

It hurts to pick just one contender in this race. Though they’re a contrast in experience and style, Sarah Ivory and LaRessa Quintana are both powerful, inspiring candidates – but we’re going with Ivory. A former teacher and assistant principal whose children attend District 2 schools, Ivory impressed us with her detailed knowledge of the issues facing Austin ISD – the state’s oversight of special education, the inequity in resources in different schools, the need to partner with the city and county to help address the budget deficit, and much else. Meanwhile, the 29-year-old Quintana is poised, connected, and, as a former foster kid, deeply sensitive to the needs of economically disadvantaged students. But she is not as steeped in the details of AISD’s operations. Whether Quintana wins this race or not, she is likely at the beginning of a prominent career in public service.

AISD AT-Large Position 8: Fernando Lucas de Urioste

There are six candidates running for this position and the Chronicle interviewed the top three – Amy Moore, Lindsey Stringer, and Fernando de Urioste. As in the AISD District 2 race, the distinctions between the candidates were more a matter of vibe than values and each was deeply knowledgeable about the challenges facing our schools. Stringer strongly critiqued the district in several areas, notably its education of students of color. Moore was warm and engaging and we appreciated her passionate opposition to standardized testing. But we lean – by a hair – toward de Urioste for his systems-oriented approach. De Urioste is an expert in special education (an ongoing challenge for the district) and we feel his style will mesh well with the other wonks on the board such as Lynn Boswell and Arati Singh.