Austin's Outside PACs Have Spent Just Over $1 Million on Tuesday's Election — About What All 18 Council Candidates Spent Combined
Ten independent committees, none of them bound by the city's $500 contribution limits, have poured a campaign's worth of money into five council races, the audit amendment and the parks and library bonds. It is split almost evenly between keeping Austin's course and changing it.
Ten independent political committees reported spending just over $1 million this month to influence which local candidates and issues prevail on Nov. 3, the Austin Free Press reported in a money-tracking analysis read by this desk.
Unlike city candidates, these groups are not bound by Austin's $500 campaign contribution limits — and the scale shows it. The $1 million they spent is about the same amount that all 18 candidates now running for five Austin City Council seats have spent over the course of the entire campaign, according to recent reporting by the Austin Bulldog. The outside money is evenly split between calls to keep the City Council on its current course and appeals to take it in new directions, the Free Press found.
Leading the pack is the Save Austin Now PAC, which gathered the signatures that put Proposition I — a mandate for independent city audits — on the ballot, a policy opposed by a majority on the council. Save Austin Now reported $355,713 in recent expenditures, 34 cents of every tracked dollar, including about $80,000 to Potomac Strategy Group, the political consulting firm of Save Austin Now co-founder Matt Mackowiak. Behind it, Better Austin PAC spent $110,110 to support incumbents José Velásquez and Zohaib 'Zo' Qadri, and the Parks, Pools Trails & Books PAC reported $85,858 promoting the parks and library bond Propositions A and B. Equity Action PAC reported $32,573 backing four RECA-backed candidates — Velásquez and Qadri, plus open-seat candidates Amber Goodwin in District 1 and Selena Xie in District 8 — while also supporting Propositions A, B, G and H and opposing Proposition E. On the other side of the audit fight, the top supporter of the anti-audit efforts is the AFSCME union at $74,000, followed by $10,000 apiece from two local couples and smaller amounts from committees of Travis County Judge Andy Brown ($2,000) and Austin Mayor Kirk Watson ($1,053). Austin voters settle all of it on Tuesday.
