Gina Ortiz Jones speaks to the press during her mayoral campaign. Credit: Facebook / Gina Ortiz Jones
Bad Takes is a column of opinion and analysis.

“That really got out of hand fast,” to quote legendary anchorman Ron Burgundy.

San Antonio’s mayoral race between former Under Secretary of the Air Force Gina Ortiz Jones and one-time Texas Secretary of State Rolando Pablos has taken a turn for the nasty as evidenced by the acrimonious debate that played out May 20 at Stable Hall.

When the moderator, San Antonio Report Editor-in-Chief Leigh Munsil, questioned the candidates about the role outside Political Action Committee money played in both campaigns, Ortiz Jones said San Antonians “are rightly fearful of having this city run by a Greg Abbott puppet,” in reference to her rival.

““You’re a puppet,” Pablos retorted. “You parachute into this community just to run for office.””

But if American film noir and Japanese samurai flicks have taught us anything, it’s that sometimes it takes an outsider who can play both sides against the middle to clean up the town.

And something that urgently needs a cleaning up is the murky manner in which San Antonio insiders have so far handled plans for the downtown sports and entertainment district grandiosely known as Project Marvel.

“The city has been discussing this since early 2023, and the City Council for a really long time did not, at least publicly, push back against it, or ask for more information, or demand accountability,” Express-News reporter Molly Smith summed up on a recent Enside Politics podcast. “They kind of went along with whatever the mayor and city staff wanted.”

And when the curtains of backroom secrecy finally parted last November, “very few council members — with maybe the exception of District 5 Councilwoman Teri Castillo and District 2 Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez — said anything critical,” Smith added. “It was a lot of ‘Rah-rah-rah! This is amazing!’ And I think once [city council mayoral candidates] got on the campaign trail and saw that voters were skeptical of the use of public dollars, they kind of started changing their tune.”

Fitting then, not a single city council member who ran for mayor broke 10% in the May 3 general election. Sensing the vibes, Jones has repeatedly called out Pablos for giving away the store when it comes to his endorsement of Project Marvel.

“The best way to get the highest-wage jobs is not to already say, ‘Hey, we’re going to pay for 50% of the new arena,’” Jones argued during the Stable Hall debate. She’s suggested, for example, that whatever deal coalesces around Project Marvel fully fund the popular Pre-K 4 SA program, which provides early childhood education to thousands of local students annually.

Both Jones and Pablos are arguably overqualified for the position they seek. In a fairer world, Jones would be a member of Congress and Pablos one of the precious few potty-trained adults in the Abbott or Trump regimes. Instead we’ve been subjected to an all-too-familiar showdown between a metric-driven, needs-first Democrat and a business-friendly, growth-first Republican.

That is, if the Texas Election Code didn’t forbid local candidates from declaring a party affiliation.

The facts are on Jones’s side. Fact is, when noncitizens live in constant fear of ICE knocking on the door, they’re less likely to report crimes to law enforcement, meaning we’re all less safe. Fact is, draconian abortion bans have increased teenage pregnancy and driven talented professionals and entrepreneurs away from the state. Fact is, business can be booming while generational poverty persists.

“If you ask urbanists about opportunity and poverty in San Antonio, they are pretty clear about what might bring real change, and growth for growth’s sake isn’t it,” award-winning journalist Mimi Swartz wrote in Texas Monthly last winter.

Pablos may be at his best when lathering an “aw, shucks” gloss on counter-factual right-wing populism. He’ll speak of affording immigrants dignity and due process, then slip in the usual dog-whistles about the now-closed Migrant Resource Center and “violent criminal aliens.” However, Trump’s promised mass deportations would go well beyond undocumented immigrants with felony convictions, as many Latinos who voted for Trump have learned the hard way.

Pablos has incessantly touted his local roots and charged his opponent, a graduate of John Jay High School, with being a “carpetbagger,” pettily refusing even to call her by the name Ortiz. How many individuals with his skin tone would need to be mistakenly sent off to the El Salvadoran gulag, how many kids with cancer deported without their meds, before Pablos, who was born in Mexico, remembers where he came from?

Echoing another failed mayoral candidate John Courage’s ignorant remark that being homeless is “very easy,” Pablos told an audience at Trinity University last Wednesday, “A lot of [the homeless] want to sleep under the stars.”

That’s utter crap. Give someone without a place to stay a hotel key, and 99 out of 100 will take the shower and bed. If they’d rather pitch a tent under a highway than accept city services, that should tell you something about some of the shelters which too closely resemble penal institutions.

Last June, when Trump’s hand-picked Supreme Court constitutionally protected the state’s authority to criminalize homelessness, first responders from more than 100 organizations filed an amicus brief explaining what they experienced in dealing with those in need of shelter.

“The idea that people choose to live or sleep in public spaces is a myth,” they wrote. “Multiple surveys and studies have shown that the vast majority of those who are unsheltered would move inside if safe and affordable options were available.”

How can we trust a mayor to address homelessness if they’re still propagating that myth? And how is Pablos’ “different direction” for the city not just more of the same? Should we as a city take the immigrant-bashing, however politely coded, and the denial of standard reproductive care lying down, or should we insist, against Abbott’s heavy-hand, on the right of cities to prioritize how to allocate their own limited resources?

My humble advice for our next mayor is that she not exclusively focus on the importance of competent government, but that she also emphasize the vitality of unions, community organizations, street activism and a broader international movement for social justice.

One city official in a weak mayoral system, however defiant, can’t take on one-party rule by herself without the multitude. It’s our duty to show up for her in kind.

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This article appears in May 29 – Jun 11, 2025.