The final spending stretch

Correction: Contrary to what I wrote yesterday, Ryan Alter never actually publicly supported Austin Energy's acquisition of gas "peaker" plants. The City Council vote was controversially held behind closed doors; Alter merely said afterward that he was glad that the final deal included "guardrails" he had advocated for.

Let's take a quick look at some campaign spending in the final weeks of city races. These figures are from groups that have reported new spending since my last update on this subject last week. Groups that are raising and spending money are required to file a report on the 8th day before the election covering spending over the past month.

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Austin United: This group reflects the left/right anti-growth alliance that we've seen emerge in recent years. Its website doesn't list any people involved, but its campaign finance reports show that its largest donor is Robin Rather, the former Save Our Springs chair and activist with the Zilker Neighborhood Association. Rather contributed $28,000 to the PAC and also provided $13,000 of consulting services for free. Save Our Springs has also contributed over $20,000 of consulting and legal services. Most of that came last year, however, when the group was leading a petition to stop the Convention Center expansion.

This year, however, it is supporting a number of Council candidates. Since July 1 it has spent $37,000 to boost candidates in District 9, District 5, District 8 and District 3.

In D9, its focus is simply on defeating incumbent Zo Qadri. It has spent on behalf of challengers Rich Heyman and Katie Kam, both of whom its website describes as worthy picks for Council. In fact, it transferred $10,700 to a separate group, Zo Must Go. I don't understand the point of setting up a second group, but whatever.

Why back two candidates? It wouldn't make sense in the first-past-the-post system that exists in state and federal general elections, but in this instance they know that their best shot of taking down Zo is to simply keep him below 50% in the general election and force him into a December runoff.

In Southwest Austin's District 8, Austin United is spending on behalf of Jeff Bowen, the conservative head of the Austin Neighborhoods Council running against Selena Xie.

In East/Southeast Austin's District 3, it's spending against incumbent José Velásquez and for challenger Neha Shah.

And in South Austin's District 5, it's spending against incumbent Ryan Alter and for challenger David Weinberg.

The Realtors: Meanwhile, the Austin Board of Realtors PAC has spent $43,500 in the past month in support of Alter, Xie, Qadri and Amber Goodwin in District 1. My guess is that it's ignoring District 3 because they don't think Velasquez needs help.