Congress is moving to protect two San Antonio-based Army commands from losing jobs in a service branch restructure that’s become increasingly political.
Earlier this year, Army North and Army South — both located at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston — found themselves at the center of the Trump administration’s plans to reduce inefficiencies within the service branch through equipment modernization and headquarters consolidation.
The two commands are expected to combine with North Carolina-based Forces Command at Fort Bragg into a single headquarters known as the Western Hemisphere Command.
The new headquarters location has yet to be announced, but Army leadership’s preliminary recommendations indicate about 200 San Antonio-based soldiers are expected to move to North Carolina.
Those recommendations come as other military installments are also being moved out of blue territory for political reasons — giving local leaders reason to fear San Antonio could be next.
Earlier this month, President Donald Trump announced plans to relocate a U.S. Space Command headquarters that’s currently in Colorado, a state he lost, to Alabama, one that he carried handily.
He won Texas by nearly 14 percentage points in November, but months later San Antonio elected an outspoken critic of the president as its mayor.
“In every administration and every decision there are winners and losers, and San Antonio needs to be a winner out of this,” U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-San Antonio) told the San Antonio Report on Wednesday.
“If you view it through a partisan lens, we will be a loser.”
‘More transparency’ for a murky process
This week Gonzales and other San Antonio-area lawmakers took big steps to make sure their blue city is also graded on its merits.
Together they secured language in the National Defense Authorization Act mandating that the Trump Administration make the potential locations for the new Western Hemisphere Command public within 90 days of the law being signed — something that’s expected to happen in December.
Their amendment also requires that the administration perform a detailed analysis of San Antonio’s operational, strategic and infrastructure advantages as a potential contender for that site.
Should Army leaders decide to move to missions out of Army North or Army South, Gonzales said, the amendment mandates that they must submit feedback shedding light on their decision-making process.
“[It] puts some teeth into ensuring a decision is not just being made without some input. We’ll get some more transparency,” Gonzales said. “Ultimately it makes a lot of sense to keep [these missions] in San Antonio, so I’m hoping that this pushes it over the finish line.”
A delicate situation
It’s unclear when the administration will make its final decision.
An announcement was expected earlier this summer, and could still come down the pipeline before Congress can act.
Gonazles said he remains in close communication with the administration and saw an opportunity for San Antonio to “strengthen its hand” while defense leaders are focused on other projects.
In July, Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones visited the Pentagon with her own plans to shore up San Antonio’s position, by leveraging her connections as past Air Force Under Secretary.
Jones returned with some insight from Army leaders and started working to help mitigate job losses by lobbying for positions in other states to be relocated to San Antonio.
But Gonzales, who defeated Jones in a bitterly ugly 2020 congressional race, said the mayor should steer clear of a process that’s already quite political.
“I’m trying to [bring the congressional delegation] together and have a pragmatic response laying out all the facts on why San Antonio is the right place for these bases,” Gonzales said. “The mayor coming up here is not helpful to us.”
