In 2022, the races for Travis County Commissioners Court precincts 2 and 4 were characterized by a distinct progressive disgruntlement with the current leadership in those seats. Commissioners Brigid Shea and Margaret Gómez received harsh criticism from challengers to their left for their actions and their inactions: on the Tesla tax deal and a women’s jail expansion (Shea) and the lack of basic infrastructure and services for parts of Precinct 4 (Gómez).
Now that the longest-serving commissioner is retiring after 31 years of service, Gómez’s seat is wide open to a field of dedicated community advocates. And Shea, who is running for reelection, continues to reap the consequences of her votes, as her challengers build campaigns on those unpopular choices.
Del Valle ISD Trustee Susanna Ledesma-Woody is certainly no stranger to Precinct 4 voters – this is her third time running for Gómez’s seat, which she says proves her dedication to the area. She founded the nonprofit Del Valle Community Coalition in 2010, and in 2022, lost to Gómez by a teeny margin, prompting a brief campaign for a recount.
Ledesma-Woody says that means “people are ready for new leadership,” and takes issue with what she characterizes as the commissioners’ “historic neglect” of Precinct 4. “The only time they focus on our area is when they need our demographics to go and get more funding, or when they’re trying to put affordable housing in areas that lack grocery stores and public transportation, because the land is cheaper. It feels good to say we’re putting affordable housing out here, but in the grand scheme, it doesn’t make sense.”
In the Precinct 2 race, civil rights attorney Amanda Marzullo has a similar complaint: “The incumbent [Shea] has been encouraging folks to build on the outskirts of the city and provide transit to bus their residents to a bus stop. I think that that is completely impractical – everybody who uses a public transit system understands that the number of connections that you need to make compound the amount of time it takes to get somewhere.” Marzullo says the county should instead “get aggressive in trying to get Ken Paxton’s lawsuit that is tying up Project Connect dismissed. We need to get serious about public transportation.”
Two other longtime, well-known community organizers in Precinct 4 have thrown their hat in the ring: Former Constable George Morales, known for being Dove Springs Recreation Center’s namesake and his vaccine outreach during COVID, and former AISD Trustee Ofelia Maldonado Zapata. Morales is campaigning on better road infrastructure for Precinct 4 and improving health care access.
The fourth candidate for Precinct 4, Gavino Fernandez Jr., who served as chief of staff for Travis County Commissioner Marcos De Leon from 1991-1994, has stated his top priority is no more tax increases.
The county is indeed strapped for cash – after zeroing out its savings for flood relief in July 2025, it used disaster declarations to levy a 9% tax rate increase without going to the voters. In an endorsement meeting with the Chronicle, Shea noted that the increase was one-time, and the additional funds were needed to shore up infrastructure against future disasters. Still, Marzullo says the county is spending inefficiently: Commissioners approved a Central Health budget in September with its own tax rate increase, saying federal cuts made it necessary. Marzullo says the county needs an audit of the overlap between Austin Public Health and Central Health: “There are resolutions out there defining what each entity should be spending money on, so we’re maximizing our budgets, but there’s been a lack of discipline with that.”
Ledesma-Woody says she’s been frustrated with Central Health’s performance since COVID: “We had to create pop-up clinics as vaccine hubs. We shouldn’t have to do that as private citizens. Central Health should have been doing that for us – we should be ensuring that they are transparent in how they’re spending their money.”
Rick Astray-Caneda III, another of Shea’s challengers, is running with a background of HIV/AIDS advocacy as the leader of the Friends of the David Powell Clinic, and promises to “push for a focus on prevention that saves lives and costs.”
Shea’s vote for the 2020 tax deal with Tesla is widely considered a mistake that inspired many candidates to run – including Reece Ricci Armstrong, a Liberal Arts and Science Academy high schooler and chair of its Young Democratic Socialists of America chapter and Students United union. Along with making ambulances free, building social housing, and imposing an indefinite moratorium on jail construction, one of his priorities would be to “ensure that companies who receive investment, tax breaks or purchase land from the county sign labor peace agreements to respect workers’ rights, including Tesla.”
Marzullo has been vocally critical of the Tesla deal, along with a group called Tesla Takedown that is pressuring commissioners to withhold the rebates until Tesla provides evidence it’s abiding by the terms of the contract. Marzullo told the Chronicle, “Labor organizations such as LiUNA asked for more time to review the contract … Shea knew this was a problem; she didn’t do her due diligence. Her vote is her opinion, and she should be held accountable for it.”
In an endorsement interview with the Chronicle, the incumbent defended her vote, saying “it’s important to realize the county has not paid a penny in rebates. Our county attorney’s office … are going through an extremely thorough compliance review currently. It’s important for people to remember the context for when this came to the county, it was July of 2020 … Musk was still respected as an environmental leader when he proposed to build the largest factory to manufacture electric vehicles.” She also called the jobs they’ve created a “ladder out of poverty” for people without a college degree. “I voted for the jobs and I still think those are significant, and you don’t have to like the guy to see the value in them. But we will hold them accountable.”
As an attorney at the Austin Community Law Center and former executive director of the Texas Defender Service, a nonprofit fighting mass incarceration and the death penalty, Marzullo says she’d bring critical experience to the court: “There isn’t anybody on the Commissioners Court who has this expertise. We have system actors who advise the Commissioners Court, like the sheriff and the D.A. and the public defender, who are not going to agree on a bunch of things, right? Having an arbiter who understands what the context is for their disagreements is critical.”
In late 2024, she authored an op-ed in the Chronicle criticizing the county’s feet-dragging on the implementation of Counsel at First Appearance. She wrote, “CAFA is just one of a broad set of procedures that desperately need retooling, and these procedures have public safety implications that affect everyone in our community.”
Both Armstrong and Marzullo have pointed to Shea’s donors Steve and Ellyn Yacktman, a thorn in the commissioner’s side in campaigns as far back as her first in 2014. The Yacktmans’ other donations have gone to the 2008 effort to repeal gay marriage in California, along with several donations to anti-trans GOP lawmakers in Texas, and during the 2023-2024 campaign cycle, $500,000 to the Judicial Fairness PAC, a group that works to elect conservative judges, that is also funded by Elon Musk. A group including Austin Community Law Center, Marzullo’s place of work, is circulating an active petition to get Shea to return $50,600 she’s received for this campaign.
In an email to the Chronicle, Shea pushed back on those criticisms. “It is not just a random petition; it is one that my opponent and her husband set up right before the democratic clubs began their endorsement process. If the intention was to influence that process, it does not appear to have worked,” noting she has secured endorsements from over 20 local clubs, including Stonewall Democrats. Regarding the Yacktman donations, Shea explained they became family friends when their sons played baseball together. “There is not much that we agree on politically; however, they do value my work on climate change.”
Candidates in Travis County Commissioners Court Races
Precinct 2
Reese Ricci Armstrong
Evelio E. “Rick” Astray-Caneda III
Amanda Marzullo
Brigid Shea (incumbent)
Precinct 4
Gavino Fernandez Jr.
Susanna Ledesma-Woody
George Morales
Ofelia Maldonado Zapata
This article appears in January 30 • 2026.