McAllen puts campaign finance reform, petition power on November ballot

McALLEN — When heading to the polls this November to cast their ballots for the nation’s president, voters here will also be asked to decide on two proposed amendments to the McAllen City Charter.

If passed, the amendments will impose strict caps on campaign contributions, and give McAllen residents the power to recall an elected official, or petition to overturn an ordinance passed by the McAllen City Commission.

“It feels amazing, honestly. I’m so ecstatic that they finally agreed to get it on the ballot,” Karen Salazar, a community organizer with the Austin-based political organizing nonprofit, Ground Game Texas, said after a special commission meeting Monday afternoon.

Salazar led efforts to circulate the petition, spending months staking out polling places and shopping plazas, and block walking through McAllen’s residential neighborhoods in an attempt to gather the thousands of signatures Ground Game needed to submit the petition to the city.

“The first one … is changing the amount of contributions that one can contribute towards the mayor candidate or a city councilman. Currently, the limit is $10,000 per person for the mayor and $5,000 per person for the city commission,” McAllen City Manager Roy Rodriguez said after Monday’s meeting.

“The amendment would lower that to $500 no matter what position you’re running for,” Rodriguez added.

The second proposal calls for giving McAllen residents the power of initiative in the form of recalling an elected official, or petition to have an ordinance that’s been approved by the commission rescinded.

Ground Game billed the first half of the petition as a way to fight corruption in a Rio Grande Valley political landscape that has often been marred by headlines of public officials who have been accused of taking bribes to the detriment of the constituents they swore to represent.

Oftentimes, many such headlines have involved a web of kickbacks between elected officials and contractors hired to perform work in those officials’ cities, counties or school districts.

According to Ground Game, unfettered political contributions can help fuel such corruption, especially when firms with special interests donate thousands to select candidates who may then feel beholden to their donors.

But McAllen officials have pushed back against Ground Game for targeting their city for its so-called “McAllen Anti-Corruption Act.”

Mike Siegel, general counsel for Ground Game Texas, holds up a stack of signatures from McAllen voters in support of a ballot iniative to implement campaign finance reform and other measures. Siegel and a group of Ground Game volunteers delivered the signatures to McAllen City Hall on Monday, June 24, 2024. (Dina Arévalo | darevalo@themonitor.com)

Speaking the day that Ground Game turned in their petition in June, both Mayor Javier Villalobos and District 2 Commissioner Joaquin “J.J.” Zamora argued that McAllen is one of the few Valley cities that hasn’t had to contend with public corruption.

It’s something the pair brought up again during Monday’s meeting.

“You know, I’ve been here 28 years, I’ve never heard of the city of McAllen being involved in any controversial issues, anything regarding corruption or any of that,” Villalobos said.

“This is something that obviously the sufficient number of petitioners signed off on it. Who am I to object to the will of the people,” Zamora said a few moments later.

“I think this is something that we’ll have to leave to the voters for them to decide,” he added.

In June, Zamora said Ground Game would have been better off focusing their anti-corruption initiatives in other nearby cities.

“I’m not gonna name them by name, but I think we know who they are — Western Hidalgo County,” Zamora told The Monitor on June 24.

The second half of Ground Game’s petition effort calls for giving McAllen residents what it refers to as “direct democracy powers” — the power to change municipal legislation if they think elected officials aren’t quite cutting it.

The second charter amendment would remedy that by giving residents the power to call for an ordinance to be put before the McAllen City Commission should enough signatures from qualified voters be gathered.

McAllen City Secretary Perla Lara officially notes the time she received a collection of signatures from Ground Game Texas calling for a campaign finance reform ballot initiative at McAllen City Hall on Monday, June 24, 2024. (Dina Arévalo | darevalo@themonitor.com)

In a related power, residents would have the ability to call for a ballot measure — or referendum — to put a policy passed by the commission up for vote by the city’s electorate at large.

“Within 60 days of the effective date of any ordinance which is subject to referendum, a petition signed by qualified voters of McAllen … may be filed with the city secretary requesting that any such ordinance either be repealed or submitted to a vote of the people,” Ground Game’s petition reads, in part.

Despite his misgivings about the anti-corruption portion of the petition, Commissioner Zamora nonetheless said in June, “As McAllen goes, the Valley goes.”

And that’s precisely why Ground Game focused on McAllen, Salazar, the UTRGV student who led the nonprofits referendum efforts, said.

“I think that McAllen has the motto of leading first, and I think that it’s great that they are leading first,” Salazar said.

“Hopefully we can do more campaigns like this and demonstrate to Valley residents overall that local democracy, that we can do work like this,” she said.

Salazar referred back to a comment Villalobos made just before calling for a vote on ordering the November charter amendment election.

“The city mayor, he mentioned that the voters will do the right thing and I’m very confident that they will,” Salazar said.

The two differ, however, on what that “right thing” is.

“I don’t think this is really necessary,” Villalobos said.

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