Opinion Story

Call it the $9.1 million shot. kind of heard around the world.

Uber and Lyft’s political arm, Ridesharing Works for Austin, said its spending in the recent Proposition 1 election. It was more than seven times the previous record of $1.2 million for an Austin election campaign and was necessary to counter confusing ballot language about the rules for ride-hailing companies.

But the amount was so unprecedented that longtime politicos and observers suspected there was a second rationale at work: The companies wanted to send a message to other cities that might try their hand at regulating the ride-hailing industry.

“They had a pool of money to spend on this as an urban election that was in proportion to what their bottom line was,” said Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas. “The larger game of this election was state, national and even international regulation and what the precedent meant.”

However, in the week since Austin voters decisively rejected Prop 1, it appears that news of the ride-hailing giants’ massive spending and subsequent defeat landed with a thud instead of a bang. In cities such as Houston, Chicago and Los Angeles, the fight over fingerprinting for ride-hailing drivers for criminal background checks is being driven by local political forces, though some note was taken of the Austin outcome.