Duffy and Jefts hold big money lead, mostly out-of-town donations

Cedar Park City Council – Incumbents Duffy and Jefts hold big money lead, mostly out-of-town donations

 (4/30 Updates:  Correction of place numbers and inclusion of Duffy's final April report which was not available at the time of the original post.)

Place	Candidate	Total contributions	Out of town contributions+
3	Christopher	$ 10,848.64	$ 1,828.30
3	Duffy	$ 20,246.80	$ 10,915.00
5	Jefts	$ 27,231.80	$ 14,475.16
5	Robinson	$ 11,523.64	$ 1,350.00
1	Thomas	$ 7,260.00	$ 6,010.00
1	Kelly	$ 8309.34	$ 2,735.00

 

+Out of town contributions include unidentified cash

With all finance reports through April 26 now posted, Ann Duffy’s contributions of almost $20,000 are far ahead of challenger Hulyne Christopher, who reported over $10,000.  Duffy’s out-of-town contributions were about $11,000 while Christopher received just $1,800 from donors outside Cedar Park including about $1,200 from Andy Pitts of Leander.  Duffy reported donations from several PACs.  Duffy’s donors include area Democrat elected officials John Bucy and Gloria Dholakia as well as fellow city officials Corbin Van Arsdale and Stephen Thomas.  Christopher’s donors include former Republican office holders Tony Dale, John Lux, and Lyle Grimes.

With all 2019 reports filed, incumbent Heather Jefts reported the most contributions so far with over $27,000.  Of those contributions Jefts has reported over $14,000 in out-of-town money plus donations from several PACs. Jefts's donors include area Democrat officials Rep. John Bucy, Rep. Celia Israel, Rep. Vikki Goodwin, Brigid Shea and Gloria Dholakia as well as fellow city officials Corbin Van Arsdale and Stephen Thomas.  Challenger Rodney Robinson reports contributions around $11,000 with about $10,000 coming from Cedar Park.  His donors include area Republicans Tony Dale, John Lux, and Lyle Grimes.  He received $1,203.30 from Andy Pitts of Leander as one of his out of town donors.

Of the incumbents Stephen Thomas trails significantly behind Duffy and Jefts with only $7,260 reported in contributions for 2019.  Thomas, a Republican, lost supporters due to his donations of $650 each to Democrats Duffy and Jefts.  The large majority of Thomas’s contributions came from out of town sources and also from PACs. Challenger Tim Kelly reports just over $8,000 total contributions received.  Of that Kelly has about $2,700 out of town money with no PACs reported and no donations from Andy Pitts.  Kelly’s donors include former Republican office holders Tony Dale, John Lux, and Don Zimmerman.

Citizens for Cedar Park PAC reported expenditures for Christopher, Kelly, and Robinson of close to $15,000.  The PAC contributors are listed in the finance reports.  The One Cedar Park PAC did not file for April.

Cedar Park election finance reports are found at the city website -- https://www.cedarparktexas.gov/departments/city-secretary/candidate-officeholder-campaign-finance-reports.  Note that Duffy’s final April report was not posted at the time of the initial posting of this article, but was posted at the end of the day April 29.

Leander City Council Race - What Candidate Finance Reports Show

Leander City Council Race - What Candidate Finance Reports Actually Show
(Hint:  There is more to Leander elections than Andy Pitts.)

Remember the movie "Ground Hog Day" with Bill Murray where the main character wakes up only to find that he is repeating the same day over and over?  Yesterday I felt that way about the Leander City Council election.

With the first week of Early Voting for the 2019 city council positions complete, the Hill Country News issued what could be described as a "hit piece" against some of the candidates in the Leander and Cedar Park elections using some of the same narrative used in the 2018 election.

In both cities candidates fall into two informal groups or slates.  In Leander the challengers are endorsed by recently elected mayor Troy Hill and are seen as part of the 2018 changing of the guard that also elected Christine Sederquist and Marci Cannon.  Kathryn Pantalion-Parker, Chris Czernek, and Jason Shaw are running with the endorsement of current Leander mayor Troy Hill.  Jason Shaw has also received the endorsement of the Williamson County Republican Leaders organization, and Parker has received the endorsement of prominent Williamson County Republicans including Commissioner Cynthia Long and former Texas House Representative Tony Dale.

The Hill Country News article titled "Big money dominating local city council races", dated April 27, 2019, revived a theme from the 2018 mayoral campaign that accused the city council of being bought by Leander citizen Andy Pitts through the Texas Stronger PAC and other outside money.  Travis Outrider researched those claims during the 2018 runoff election and found that while Texas Stronger PAC made a significant financial contribution to Hill, his opponent Villareal had received twice as much money as Hill with less than Hill's amount coming from Leander citizens.  You could perhaps describe the claims as "fake news" or at least a campaign claim that did not hold up to facts and worthy of Pinocchio.   (Reference:  https://travis-outrider.blogspot.com/2018/05/.)

Based on research of the campaign finance documents available publicly on the city website, it appears we have another day but the same song. (Trivia:  "I Got You Babe" by Sonny and Cher plagued Murray.)  The facts show that although Texas Stronger did make significant contribution to those three candidates, they each received more donations from Leander citizens than their opponents.  In fact all three received more contributions than their opponents even without the Texas Strong PAC donation.  Apparently Pitts makes a great boogie man in campaign opposition pieces, but analysis shows that the three candidates he supports would be beating their opponents in donations in both dollars and citizen support without him.

Here is the breakdown of campaign contributions as currently posted on the city webpage. (Reference:  https://www.leandertx.gov/citysecretary/page/elections2019)

Place	Candidate	Total contributions	Leander contributions
1	Parker*	$  9,570.00	10
1	Lantrip	$  2,325.04	2
3	Shaw*	$  9,415.04	10
3	Ross	$  646.00	2
5	Seiler	$  5,306.50	8
5	Czernek*	$  10,005.00	12

* Received $3000 from Texas Stronger PAC according to finance reports filed.