Two weeks ago, Mayor Ivy Taylor forced her colleagues on Council into an awkward position: Vote against ethics or against her.

Eight opted not to cross Taylor. They voted to accept the mayor’s own proposal to grant herself immunity from future ethics complaints stemming from violations she acknowledged making.

Two council members — Rey Saldaña and Ron Nirenberg — voted no against an ordinance that set a terrible precedent. They lost the vote, but on Monday they struck back, creating a request that the council now vote to strip itself of the authority to grant any ethics waivers “desired by a city employee, official or candidate.”

Not only is this sound public policy, it’s also a deft act of political jujitsu, forcing Taylor into a position even more awkward than the one she foisted upon her colleagues.

The mayor now must decide whether to vote against ethics or against herself.

“The question is, do you think it is right for us as a council to continue to leave this vulnerability open, so that essentially with six votes we would be officiating ourselves,” Saldaña told me. “I could come to the fourth floor (of City Hall) and lobby five other people and say, ‘Hey, I need you to waive something for me.’ And we’re colleagues, we’re friends. We shouldn’t be able to do this.”

For 15 months, between her appointment to the mayor’s seat in summer 2014 and last fall, Taylor was violating the ethics code.

She and her husband Rodney, who is a Section 8 landlord, accepted housing vouchers administered by the San Antonio Housing Authority. Both federal law and the city’s ethics code prohibited Taylor from doing so because, as mayor, she appoints SAHA board members.

The conflicts were resolved on Nov. 1, 2015, when the Housing Authority of Bexar County took over the Taylor vouchers from SAHA. Yet, through Oct. 31, 2017, someone could have filed an ethics complaint against Taylor for those 15 months of violations, leaving the city’s Ethics Review Board to consider a possible fine or letter of reprimand.

At least, until a wave of the mayor’s wand.

During her tenure, Taylor has shown a stage magician’s flair for making things disappear: streetcar, water policy studies, future ethics complaints and, yes, exactly the type of request that Saldaña and Nirenberg created on Monday: a so-called “council consideration request.”

Typically, a CCR is sent to the council’s five-member Governance Committee, which is chaired by Taylor and meets once a month.

The mayor could ignore the request altogether, forgetting to place it on the committee’s agenda: a slight she has committed in the past, and against Saldaña, no less.

Or the governance committee could simply decide not to bring it to the full council for a vote: a possible outcome, considering Taylor has stacked the committee with her most loyal lieutenants, including council members Joe Krier, Mike Gallagher and Rebecca Viagran. (The outlier is Nirenberg.)

In this case, though, Taylor’s authority on the matter is also her greatest vulnerability.

Any attempt to kill the measure — whether by ignoring it, allowing it to die in committee or voting against it on the dais — would be a clear vote against ethics.

The reason is articulated in the CCR itself: “The public demands the utmost confidence that the San Antonio City Ethics Code is applied fairly and uniformly to all City employees, officials and candidates, and it is the responsibility of the Council-appointed Ethics Review Board, composed of residents throughout the city, to ensure it.”

Would the mayor refute that?

Or will she do the right thing this time, and refute herself? I tried calling Taylor for this column but she did not respond.

“This is a rebuke of this or any future mayor asking the council to officiate ethics code violations,” Saldaña said. “The fact that this (ordinance) exists now … is a vulnerability. I think (Taylor) is going to have to put herself outside of her role for a little bit to decide what would be best for the city.”

bchasnoff@express-news.net