It’s a whole new ballgame out there.
Trebor Gordon
A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked a law limiting when candidates in Houston municipal elections can raise money, prompting a scramble to contact donors sooner than campaigns had intended.
The injunction, two months after a City Council candidate said the law infringed on his constitutional rights, could reorder the timeline for future elections and accelerate this year’s mayoral race – the first without an incumbent since 2009.
An ordinance prevented city candidates from raising money prior to Feb. 1. But hours after the ruling from U.S. District Judge Sim Lake, some mayoral campaigns said they were planning fundraisers and placing calls to donors who were thought to be off-limits for three more weeks.
“There’s not that many days, but political calendars will start to shift based on this ruling,” said Mustafa Tameez, a longtime Democratic consultant. “It creates more pressure for people to announce sooner.”
The lawsuit against the city, filed by candidate Trebor Gordon, argued that his First Amendment right to political expression authorized him to raise money for his campaigns whenever his contributors wished to donate. Lake said in the order that Gordon was likely to succeed on the merits in the case.
“It’s a great victory for the First Amendment,” said Jerad Najvar, the attorney for Gordon, who plans to begin raising funds immediately. “It’s a bigger matter than just this campaign.”
See here and here for the background, and here for Judge Lake’s ruling. This is only an injunction – the merits of the case have not been decided – but it seems clear from that ruling that Gordon is very likely to prevail. I won’t be surprised if the city, which has chosen to accept this ruling rather than appeal it, seeks a settlement. In the meantime, anyone that has filed a designation of treasurer for the 2015 elections can start raising money now. If your mailbox is still a smoldering wreck from all the solicitations it had to handle last year, its brief period of respite is now officially over. You have been warned.
As I’ve said before, I think this was the correct ruling. I also think it will benefit incumbents more than challengers, but we’ll see. The January finance reports will be posted soon, so we’ll get a picture of where things stood going into the year – in particular, who had an advantage prior to the opening of what had been the fundraising season – but the July finance reports will tell the story. We’ll need to look for all donations made in January and see who took the biggest advantage of this change in the rules.
One more thing:
Still unclear Friday was how the decision would affect a separate lawsuit filed by likely candidate Chris Bell, who charges that Rep. Sylvester Turner’s fundraising strategy violates the ordinance. Bell’s attorney said Friday afternoon that he still planned to follow through with his suit, which will be heard in court Monday.
See here for the background on that. The crux of that issue is whether Turner, and possibly Sheriff Adrian Garcia, who were free to raise all the money they wanted for their non-city campaign accounts under the old rules, could then transfer those funds to accounts to be used for a city election. Then-City Attorney David Feldman said that they could, and Bell filed suit to stop it. I’m hard pressed to see how Bell prevails here, but let’s wait and see what arguments he and his attorney present in court.