In the course of roughly 14 months, members of the San Antonio City Council have censured three of their own for such transgressions as a drunk driving arrest, fleeing the scene of a car collision and berating a former romantic parter over a political dispute.
Censures are a primarily symbolic means of public condemnation, and the practice has drawn criticism from council members who say its recent use has been arbitrary.
But after months of discussing ethics behind closed doors, council members plan to vote this week on codifying a set of rules governing their behavior and outlining the potential punishments for members who break them.
Thursday’s council meeting agenda includes a proposal to include in the City Charter a four-page Code of Conduct for council members that outlines the “City Council’s values” as they apply to interacting with one another, staff and members of the public.
Its provisions range from avoiding profane language to detailing when a council member should disclose an intimate relationship with a member of city or council staff.
The draft also suggests making many of the behavioral and workplace standards that already exist for city staff apply to members of the council.
While the “democratic process” requires “listening to differing opinions and engaging in respectful debate,” a background document says, the ordinance would formalize “City Council’s commitment to fostering a safe and productive work environment, expected standards of conduct, and a process for addressing complaints and enforcement measures consistent with the City Charter.”
The proposed code of conduct says complaints about violations should be submitted in writing to the city manager by council members, their staff or city staff.
The complaints should be reviewed within 10 days, and the City Attorney could bring in an independent investigator if necessary, as it did when former Councilman Mario Bravo (D1) was accused of berating Councilwoman Ana Sandoval (D7) ahead of a city budget vote in November 2022.
Judgment calls
Councilwoman Adriana Rocha Garcia (D4), a proponent of a council code of conduct, said that as a member of the Ethics Review Board in 2017, she was appalled at the way council members spoke to one another.
When she was elected to the council two years later, she said, it quickly became clear the problem stemmed from a lack of formal guidance regarding members’ behavior.
“I asked if there was a code of conduct because, I’ll be honest with you, I just couldn’t believe some of the things that were coming out of council members that I thought was just so disrespectful towards one another,” Rocha Garcia said in an interview.
Without codified rules, recent efforts to enforce council conduct standards have drawn push-back from members of the public who say censuring a council member or removing them from committee assignments unfairly punishes the constituents who elected them.
That has happened twice to residents of District 10, who took their frustration out on Nirenberg after Councilman Clayton Perry and his successor, Marc Whyte, each were censured, Perry for leaving the scene of an accident that later was found to be alcohol-related and Whyte after his arrest on a DWI charge.
Nirenberg declined to comment on the proposed council code of conduct ahead of Thursday’s scheduled vote.
“There have been enough concerns from the general public: ‘Is the City Council functioning the way it should? Are they being fair, reasonable, and are they being aboveboard with everybody?” said Councilman John Courage (D9), who supports council’s plan to clarify their expectations for member conduct.
“I want to reinforce to the community that they can trust their city government,” said Courage, who last week announced he was running for mayor in 2025.
Set of rules
The new proposed code says that after an investigation into member conduct has been completed, City Council will be briefed on the matter to determine what punishment, if any, is needed.
Council members involved in the issue will be expected to recuse themself while the findings are presented but will be allowed to address the council.
Spelling out that process could resolve one of the major conflicts surrounding recent censures. Before Whyte’s censure vote, the councilman said he addressed colleagues in executive session. Bravo, on the other hand, says he was not permitted to do so.
Bravo engaged four attorneys to look into his 2022 censure process, which he says sought to punish him for breaking rules that didn’t exist and deprived him of the opportunity to tell his side of the story.
“[My] attorney’s response was, ‘You are guaranteed minimum due process. The city does not have a process for this situation, therefore you are guaranteed nothing,'” Bravo said.
After censuring Bravo, other council members said they felt it was important to set clear guidelines for how and when the mechanism is used.
“I think that we need to have a more defined process so that everybody gets treated fairly,” said Rocha Garcia, who added that the current lack of policy leaves the door open to political favoritism. “It could be any one of us that is the next one that we enforce this on, so I want it to be equitable.”
If a determination of misconduct is made, a majority vote of the council is required to issue a written letter of reprimand, an official censure or a call for a member’s resignation. The council can vote to remove a member from office only if they are convicted of crime involving “moral turpitude,” according to the City Charter.
“There’s nuances to all of that,” Nirenberg told reporters earlier this month after calling a vote to censure Whyte.
“In terms of severity, censure and vote of no-confidence, in my view, are nearly identical,” he said. “City Council doesn’t have the authority to remove a member so a call for resignation is just one degree higher.”
