Councilman Diego Bernal
After the San Antonio City Council passed a nondiscrimination ordinance last September, opponents tried to force a repeal election. To do so they had 40 days to collect signatures from 10 percent of the city’s voters. They managed to get only about a third of the signatures needed.
The group’s next target was Councilman Diego Bernal, author of the nondiscrimination ordinance.
To recall the councilman, opponents needed signatures of 10 percent of the registered voters in the district. Although they promoted the idea that the ordinance allowed men to use women’s bathrooms where they would assault little girls, the group was unable to collect the needed signatures by the March deadline. They were 1,000 signatures short of the 5,800 needed.
The new strategy is to support an opponent of Bernal in the 2015 election. He ran unopposed in the previous election.
Bernal thanked his staff for acting professionally despite the amount of hate mail they received.
Gina Casteneda, organizer of the opposition to the ordinance, has taken the position of Texas field organizer for Americans for Prosperity, the conservative group funded by the Koch brothers.
