Mayor Elect Lee Leffingwell won't be sworn in until June 22nd, but he has indicated who will be stepping into office with him on Day 1 as his staff at City Hall. You'll noticed some new faces as well as members of his current council staff being carried over into the Mayor's office.
Mark Nathan (chief of staff)
Nancy Williams
Matt Curtis
Amy Everhart
Janet Jackson
The following is from today's press release form the Austin Firefighters. Relevant claims highlighted with a response of mine following.
The Austin Firefighter's Association today released polling data that points to their efforts as the deciding factor in Lee Leffingwell's higher than expected margin of victory and subsequent concession from opponent Brewster McCracken. "No one expected Councilman Leffingwell to win with such a high margin.
Our campaign analysis shows that efforts by our PAC were successful." said PAC Chair Lt. David Lundstedt. Many political experts expected Leffingwell to top out between 39 and 44 percent and lead McCracken by 10 points and were surprised by his 48% vote total and 20 point margin. PAC Vice-Chair and coordinator of the Leffingwell effort Fire Specialist Randy Moreno says the results are not a surprise to him. "We knew going in that turnout would be low and that a concentrated, grass roots, get-out-the-vote campaign could be successful.
Polling data provided by the AFA PAC shows an increase in voter turnout of almost 50% from 2006 in the precincts targeted by the firefighters' team. Additionally, Leffingwell won 7 of the 11 targeted precincts by well over 50%. As a result, "When we endorse a candidate we don't just lend them our name," says Association President Stephen Truesdell. "We back it up with money, time and effort."
Firefighters also point to the targeting of minority voters as crucial to Leffingwell's success. They employed a strategy to reach out to Hispanic voters, traditionally ignored by other campaigns. Efforts included Spanish language get-out-the-vote TV commercials and ads in local print media such as Arriba and La Prensa. They also used new media and social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook and Twitter to reach out to younger voters. As a result, the Firefighters canvassing team knocked on over 5,000 doors and contacted over 14,700 voters.
I certainly applaud the Firefighters for their work and attempt to look back at the election results to measure the impact that they had. Measurement and analysis of actions to results is something that we see far too little of in politics and I'm not even talking about what is made public. There is far too little of it done for private means a well.
That being said, if one is going to make such claims in a press release, it would be appropriate to release data that can be analyzed by third parties to verify the validity of such claims (which is lacking here). Without an ability to verify claims, they remain simply that- claims.
For instance, the Firefighters also had expenditures and support for Place 1 candidate Perla Cavazos who garnered less than 35% of the vote yet nary a word about the effectiveness of their efforts in that race. Just because she lost doesn't mean that their efforts weren't effective- they very well could have been responsible for thwarting a larger loss. That information is just as valuable and relevant to validating the effectiveness of their efforts in the Mayor's race.
So I'm curious as to which precincts were targeted, even as I acknowledge that the best targeting this cycle may not have been by precinct, but down to the "next most likely voter" in any precinct which was a factor in Chris Riley's election. I'll ask the campaign staff to what extent they might be willing to share some insight into that strategy.
And to put some actions to my own questions and critique, I'm doing a little analysis on those precincts targeted by the 10,000 Austin Progressive Coalition doorhangers since technically sat on that board this year. Look for that post (hopefully) later this week.
Update: Thinking about it a bit more, a ratio of 7 out of 11 precincts being won is far less than the percentage of precincts won by Leffingwell citywide. And from what I was told by other sources during the campaign after putting up this post, it's my understanding that the targeted precincts were in Southest Austin largely in the 4th County Commissioner District. Year over year, that area had the worst turnout by percentage (pdf) and raw votes (pdf) of any place in the city so a 50% increase of the vote there likely represents less than a thousand vote difference in turnout. In a best case scenario based on the turnout of ~58,000 voters, that would be a shift of less than 2% points. Certainly helpful, but just a part of the greater puzzle that boosted Lee's total.
If what I'm told is wrong and the precincts referenced are elsewhere, I'll happily stand corrected. I'm just working with what was shared in the press release and during the campaign.
Update 2: I read this press release slightly different and likely incorrect as pointed out by David in the comments. I also have received the precinct level data since writing this post and will follow up tomorrow on it (though I received it from another member of the local media, not the firefighters media contact who I asked).
This map is courtesy of the Austin American-Statesman which did a great job putting it together after the election. I expect we'll see some more from the Austin Chronicle tomorrow.
I think it's pretty clear that Lee if Mayor of Austin, all of it. Though Brewster was able to win one west campus precinct and the downtown precinct covering 6th Street. Other than that, it was slim pickings for Carole and Brewster on the peripheral precincts.
If Lee Leffingwell proves as effective at running the city as he did running for mayor, the people of Austin will be well served.
What a nice back-handed compliment to start us off!
Having endorsed McCracken, we were disappointed and, frankly, surprised he did not run a better campaign. On election day, he put out an e-mail that said "the mayor's race will be very, very close." But it wasn't close at all.
Really? You were surprised? How is that even possible? I mean -- I was one of the only supporters of McCracken on this site (I even voted for him when we were deciding who to endorse as a site). I wrote a huge solar energy piece that raised McCracken's #1 issue to the front of our site; I wrote about the tech-related stuff a lot; and I never touched the transportation contrasts between Leffingwell and McCracken.
But even I knew he had a major uphill battle ahead of him -- and I'm not even living in the city right now.
Former mayor Carole Keeton Strayhorn's campaign was far more visible on television, while Leffingwell succeeded in mobilizing the Austin Democratic machine
I'd be more impressed with the "machine" talk if I had any evidence that the Statesman wasn't just repeating lines from Brewster (and myself) about the Austin political machine. Brewster was exactly the kind of candidate that could have re-shaped the electorate and done things differently, but (for whatever reason) never got quick enough traction in his campaign.
But one thing that is way worse than any machine -- and I never saw the Statesman editorial board write about this -- are anonymous leaflets, anonymous websites, and last-minute robocalls. I was fine with my support of the McCracken campaign until the Brewster Nation parking ticket fliers came out -- after which the Brewster Nation website was "mysteriously" pulled down and no one from the McCracken campaign really addressed if they were behind it or not. After that, and the robocalls, it became pretty clear that there are things far worse than political machines in our City Council races.
Anonymous leafets from an anonymous website is probably against the law (which is why, I'm sure, the Brewster Nation site was taken down), and even if it's not, it violates so many principles of freedom of speech that we at BOR (and the Statesman, for that matter) should hold above other issues.
But it seems the Statesman just put buried their head in the sand on that one, preferring to talk about other made-up, fictionalized issuess:
Leffingwell, 69, is a retired commercial airline pilot, and he showed the public a studied cockpit calm in his campaign that, he suggested, was just the ticket for the storms beating on the city's financial wings. It's important, though, that he not rely too heavily for advice on the unions, particularly the police and firefighters' unions, that supported him.
First of all, that first sentence about "cockpit calm" is just offensive to me as an English major.
Second of all -- STILL WITH THE UNIONS? I guess one should never pick a fight with someone that buys ink by the barrel (even if they will only be able to afford that ink for a few more years). Again, for anyone that cares to learn any truth about the Lee/union saga the Statesman ed board fictionalized entirely on its own, read here.
For now, Leffingwell has earned our congratulations for his victory and best wishes for a successful term as mayor of a city we all love.
A city the editorial board loves so much that they are surprised by its election outcomes, promote ridiculous statements about the Mayor-elect's ties to unions, and decided twice that George Bush would be the best person to represent the city's interest.
Brewster McCracken was graceful in his congratulations for Leffingwell. It is too bad the Statesman couldn't muster the same respect for our new Mayor.
Jeff Jack sent out this email. Per Jeff's email, Lee needs our immediate help. Please share widely.
What a GREAT Day in Austin!
This afternoon Austin officially has a new Mayor, Lee Leffingwell! Brewster McCracken concedes the election at 4:00 and Lee will now be our next Mayor.
But while we all may appreciate that Brewster did the right thing by getting out of the runoff, it has presented a problem for Lee.
Due to our election laws, Lee can only raise money to pay off his campaign debt until midnight tonight.
As many of you know Lee had a late start in the campaign due to his pledge to not cause a special election when he decided to run before filling out his term as the place one council member.
So to be able to match Brewster's early fundraising, Lee had to put on the table about $100,000 of his own money to be competitive and now has only until 12:00 tonight to raise money to cover his campaign debt.
So many of you getting this e-mail worked hard for Lee realizing that he was the best person in the race to protect our neighborhoods and environment, support our small businesses, and ensure the continued support for our health and human services.
And many of you also expected that there would be a runoff and may have been holding back a little money to help him in that anticipated runoff.
But his over whelming show of support from all over the city (Check out the Austin American Statesman Map in today's paper!) has convinced Brewster to pack it up. So there will be no runoff but there is still a big campaign debt.
It is not unusual that the financial backer of the losing candidates will jump on the band wagon late, and may round up some money to help make amends, it probably will not be enough to get Lee out of debt...
Therefore if you had not given to Lee or had not given all that the law will allow ($350 per person or $700 for a couple) now is the time to make a pledge and help retire Lee's campaign debt. Whether it is $350 or $5 everything will help. You do not need the cash tonight, but you will need to make a pledge to the campaign before midnight. Please go to the link below and help Lee pay off this campaign debt.
info@austinleadership.com
And please send this message to everyone who you know that is thankful that our new Mayor will be Lee Leffingwell!
Runoff is Saturday, June 13; Riley Defeats Cavazos Nearly 2:1 in Place 1
Mayoral candidates Lee Leffingwell and Brewster McCracken will be forced to go to a runoff to decide who will be the next Mayor of Austin. The runoff will be Saturday, June 13.
With 100% of precincts reporting, Lee Leffingwell finished with a commanding lead on the field of five candidates with 47.26% of the vote. He won almost the same percentage of votes through the early vote period as he did on election day. Full results can be found here:
Election results from the Travis County Elections Division were reported throughout the night here at Burnt Orange Report through our site's new @texaselections widget. The results tally 58,630 votes cast, representing 13.01% of registered voters.
For about twenty minutes in the evening it looked like Leffingwell may tick up fast enough to reach the 50% threshold. But as more boxes came in, the returns evened out, and it became clear that a highly anticipated runoff would soon become a reality. Behind Leffingwell, Brewster McCracken won 26.8% of the vote, which will be enough to send him into a runoff. Slightly behind McCracken, once-Austin mayor and former Texas State Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn finished has 21.43% of the vote, leaving her in a disappointing third place.
Burnt Orange Report writer David Mauro reported earlier in the night that in 1997, Ronney Reynolds conceded rather than face a runoff against Kirk Watson, who received 48.47% in his initial election. However, McCracken's campaign has clearly stated that McCracken will go forward for the runoff.
Rounding out the election returns for mayor, David Buttross won 3.84% of the vote, but may still be in for some exciting news. Earlier in the evening he went to the hospital for the possible birth of his second child. KXAN news is reporting Buttross and his wife were expecting a child before the night was over. Fourth place and a new child -- I'll bet he'll still be happy.
Josiah Ingalls, however, will have less to smile about. He finished in last place, with only 0.69% of the vote. Josiah has announced that he will be looking for a job on Monday -- he recently lost his position at the Hilton Hotel.
Riley Defeats Cavazos 65.52% - 34.48% in Place 1; Spellman, Martinez, & Cole Win Big
In the Austin City Council Place 1, which was expected to be the only other real contest on the ballot, Chris Riley defeated Perla Cavazos with over 65.52% of the vote. Cavazos thanked Riley for a hard-fought campaign, as Riley celebrated his victory with many supporters tonight, including Burnt Orange Report writer and Riley campaign manager, Katherine Haenschen.
In Place 2, Mike Martinez won a commanding 84.97% over Jose Quintero. Martinez' 43,630 votes were the most any candidate received in Saturday's election.
In Place 6, Sheryl Cole also won a decisive victory over Osemene Sam. Over 83.17% of voters chose Cole for the seat.
And finally, Bill Spellman won his unanimous election to Austin's Place 6 seat. Though he only needed his own, he did get 43,104 of the 58,630 voters to choose him, anyways.
To re-read Burnt Orange Report's all-night election coverage, scroll through our Twitter widget below for the recaps and updates we posted throughout the night.
Lee Leffingwell has earned the support of the progressive community in Austin, and he'll provide strong leadership as our next Mayor. If you haven't already voted, then please click here to find your polling location.
Leffingwell's willingness and ability to work patiently with disparate interest groups - as well as his council colleagues - has broken policy logjams and moved the city forward on water conservation, redevelopment, public safety, and other issues. We haven't agreed with him on every issue, but he listens very well and seriously considers all public input, including opposing viewpoints. His mandate will also include being an inspiring, forward-thinking leader; he will need to use wisely the "kitchen cabinet" he proposes, in order to generate fresh ideas, solutions, and public energy.
Come to Lee's headquarters today and volunteer! Let's spread the word about Lee's progressive vision for Austin.
You can choose from several volunteer options:
1) Phone banking
2) Poll workers
3) Street visibility
It's a beautiful day in Austin, TX. So come volunteer and elect a mayor who shares our values.
The basics was that McCracken had received about $8,000 more than he should have from out-of-town dollars. Leffingwell approached McCracken's campaign about this; McCracken's campaign said it was ridiculous; Leffingwell filed a municipal complaint, and here we are.
Why is nobody asking a single expert to weigh in on this issue? It certainly seems like rampant mudslinging. I heard yesterday that the Leffingwell camp was going to file "criminal" charges, which 1. They don't have the authority to do and 2. That makes it seem all the more likely this is just dirty politics less than a week before the election.
While there is some question as to who Mr. Bombadil may or may not be, calling for an expert to weigh is worthwhile. After all, we could debate things back and forth all day -- but I'm not an expert, and neither is Tom.
Jim Cousar, though, is an expert. In fact, another commenter in KT's original post, Jeb, even said:
Would it be too much trouble for someone in the media to speak with Jim Cousar or another expert in election law about this?
To answer Tom and Jeb's request, here is a legal memo from Mr. Cousar about the situation, as provided by the Lee Leffingwell campaign (I wonder if Tom and Jeb will still accuse Lee of dirty campaign tricks now that their requests have basically been met). From Lee's website, Cousar wrote an opinion:
SUMMARY There is no legal basis in the City Charter for accepting additional out-of-town contributions, prior to the May election, once the cap has been reached. Neither the plain language of the charter provision (which allows additional amounts only in the case of a runoff election), the legislative history of the Charter, nor analogous provisions of other campaign finance laws support that theory. If a candidate has accepted more contributions from out-of-town contributors than the Charter allows, those amounts should be immediately refunded to the contributors.
Brewster McCracken has had a formal complaint filed against him in municipal court by fellow Austin Mayoral candidate Lee Leffingwell. The charges are that he has accepted an excess of ~$8000 more than is allowable from out of Austin donors according to campaign finance laws that McCracken helped approve. Carole Strayhorn, while not a party to the complaint, has joined Leffingwell in criticizing McCracken and called for him to return the donors.
McCracken's campaign replies that the funds are within the caps if one considers the additional funds that can be raised when you allow for a runoff, though there is no explicit provision that allows for that line of reasoning in the current code. And of course, there is no guarantee that McCracken will make a runoff.
A good rundown of the story courtesy of Fox 7. We'd post the KVUE story but they are the ONLY broadcast station in Austin that hasn't woken up and made their broadcasts embedable elsewhere online. I guess they can have fun over in their walled garden along with News8Austin because I'm not linking to either of their content on this.
I wrote below about the cowardly anonymoity of the purveyors of Brewster Nation, and how they actually hurt free speech by violating campaign law and refusing to disclose who they were on their website or in their leaflets.
The internet is a new and powerful phenomenon. Let's treat it with some respect, be honest in our campaigning, and stop engaging in fear-mongering anonymous attacks that destroy the best parts of free speech that gave all of us our (online) voice in the first place.
Details about the group are extremely sketchy; their website has no contact info other than a generic email address. A Whois search says BrewsterNation.com is registered to Kimiko Tokita, a woman who is also named as a media contact in the press release announcing the website launch. However, in a comment on the Brewster Nation blog, the administrator writes “Brewster Nation is funded by a private Austin individual exercising his [emphasis added] right to free speech, and providing a web portal for others to share their opinion.” Tokita confirmed she was hired to work for the group by a figure who, for now, wishes to remain anonymous.
Update by KT: I know who's behind the website. It's clearly your neighbor Lisa.
