Houstonians Will Now Have a Tool to Fight City Hall

Friends,

Well, the results of Tuesday’s election are in and 83% of Houston voters approved of Proposition A! This is a huge victory!

As you know, Prop A will allow 3 council members to add items to the weekly City Council agenda. Currently, only the Mayor has that power. All that ends on January 1st, 2024.

Prop A’s passing is a collective victory for the coalition that gathered the 40,000 petition signatures, and those of us who helped take Prop A to the finish line during campaign season.

I truly believe that Prop A would not have come to pass had I not run for Mayor in 2019. There was not a single political candidate or organization that I know of that had been focusing on reducing the power of the Mayor’s office prior to my 2019 campaign. I brought that issue to the table and had fellow candidates agreeing with me that the Mayor’s office was too strong.

In 2020, the Houston Charter Amendment Petition Coalition came together to gather petitions to see if we could amend the city charter to give City Council members some more power and take power away from the Mayor’s office.

Interestingly, outgoing Mayor Sylvester Turner actually delayed putting Prop A on the ballot for 2 years until it was finally added to the 2023 ballot. Turner clearly did not want to give council members the power that Prop A grants.

Thankfully, he is on his way out and whoever is going to be the next Mayor will now have to contend with Houstonians having more of a voice at City Hall. We still have to do the work of lobbying our council members to fight for us, but now they actually will have incentive to do so.

I hope each of you will keep your ears and eyes trained on City Hall so we can make use of Prop A and hold our elected officials accountable.

I have some ideas on how to use Prop A starting in 2024. Stay tuned. The fight has just begun.

Thank you.

– Derrick Broze