Catching up with District 2 Council candidate Jalen McKee-Rodriguez

Sitting in his classroom before a decorative wall of multicolored wallpaper, Jalen McKee-Rodriguez, 26, greets me through my computer screen. A proud alumnus of UTSA, the white T-shirt, emblazoned with a rainbow version of the Rowdy the Roadrunner logo, immediately captures my attention.

“It’s Pride Rowdy,” he says in an upbeat manner.

It’s been almost two weeks since the rainy municipal election, when McKee-Rodriguez advanced to a runoff with Councilwoman Jada Andrews-Sullivan in the race for the District 2 seat on San Antonio City Council, one of five local contests headed toward the June 5 runoff.

“I think [this] proves that, overwhelmingly, the district doesn’t care so much about stability as they do about quality leadership,” says McKee-Rodriguez  from Sam Houston High School where he works as a math teacher. 

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District 2 is demographically diverse and encompasses a vast section of the city’s East and Northeast Sides. On May 1, McKee-Rodriguez garnered 2,259 of the 8,571 total votes cast in the sprawling district, outperforming his 11 opponents, including Andrews-Sullivan who trailed in second with 1,439 votes. 

Since former Councilwoman Ivy Taylor’s mayoral appointment in 2014, the District 2 office has been a revolving door for appointed and one-term council members.

“For me to ask people for their trust and for their vote? I recognize how significant that is,” he says, understanding that some voters would like to see a council member reach their term limit.

McKee-Rodriguez’s interest in local government started when he volunteered for Michael Montaño ’s 2017 D1 council bid and, a year later, Monique Diaz’s Texas District Court campaign. He theorizes that Andrews-Sullivan made the runoff because of an incumbency advantage. 

“I think Jada should be very grateful for the mayoral race as well as the proposition race because a lot of people did come out because they were very passionate about Prop B,” he explains, adding that if that had not been the case, less people would have been inclined to vote in their district race. This leverage, he predicts, will be comparatively minimal in a runoff, the process that happens when no candidate reaches more than 50 percent of the vote on Election Day, necessitating the top two vote-getters to start again with zero votes and about a month to campaign.

What also boosted his first-time candidacy was the steady flow of political endorsements he received, including those from Texas House members Diego Bernal and James Talarico. But the endorsement that raised more than a few eyebrows was the unconventional one from the council’s own ranks; District 1 Councilmember Roberto Treviño unexpectedly rubber stamped McKee-Rodriguez’s campaign a few weeks prior to the election.

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“I think it’s significant because [Treviño] does sit right next to [Andrews-Sullivan] on the dais,” says McKee-Rodriguez, who served as Andrews-Sullivan’s communications director at City Hall for nearly six months in 2019. “He sees what she’s doing. He sees what she’s reading. He knows when she’s prepared and not, so even though it may not be an endorsement against her, I know she’s not happy about it.”

In a relatively short amount of time, the platform has widened for the progressive wunderkind, who often tweets his views under the handle @theloserteacher. 

“I think I hear myself in news articles or see my picture way more than I would like to,” he admits with a laugh. “I recognize the significance of my voice and what I use it for and what I don’t use it for, because people do recognize me more now than they would prior to the campaign. I’m an introvert so I’ve had [to learn to] be way more outspoken than I normally would be and I have to always recognize that what I’m saying and what I’m doing is being watched and is being heard by people who maybe wouldn’t have been paying attention before.”

If elected, McKee-Rodriguez says that his agenda would prioritize the needs of his community, which include public safety, infrastructure, and protections for the working class. He would also become the first openly gay councilman in the history of San Antonio’s city council. He thinks this could possibly be a vital step for LGBTQ+ visibility in the Alamo City. 

“We saw a picture on Election Night,” he says thoughtfully. “It was a picture of me and [my husband] Nathan hugging.” 

Seeing such a personal photo in a news article struck him as surreal. 

“I think that me running a race in and of itself is groundbreaking and history making. But the probability and the possibility that we’ll win? I can’t even think about what kind of social change that might be able to bring…and the representation that is being created.”

He pauses for a moment, then says with a hint of cautious optimism, “It looks like the odds are in our favor.” 

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