Austin, Texas

The City of Austin is the capital of the U.S. state of Texas. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, Austin has a population of 656,562 people, making it the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 16th largest in the United States. A 2004 U.S. Census estimate placed the population of the city at 681,804. Austin is the county seat of Travis County and is situated in Central Texas. The Austin–Round Rock metropolitan area is one of the fastest-growing in the United States and is home to an estimated population of 1.4 million as of 2003.

Government and politics

Law and government

Austin is administered by a city council of seven members, each of them elected by the entire city, and by an elected mayor. Council and mayoral elections are non-partisan, with a runoff in case there is no 50 percent majority winner. Austin remains an anomaly among large Texas cities in that the council is not elected by districts, though there has been a strong effort to change the election system to one of single districts.

Related Topics:
City council - Mayor

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Politics

The main political actors within Austin city politics are interest groups such as the pro-environmental Save Our Springs Alliance, the Austin Police Association, Austin Toll Party and the Austin Business Council.

Related Topics:
Save Our Springs Alliance - Austin Police Association - Austin Toll Party - Austin Business Council

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The political controversy that dominated the 1990s was the conflict between environmentalists, strong in the city center, and advocates of urban growth, who tend to live in the outlying areas. The city council has in the past tried to mitigate the controversy by advocating smart growth, but growth and environmental protection are still the main hot-button issues in city politics. In fact, Austin's well-established excessive traffic problems -- today's most glaring problem with Austin in general -- are largely rooted in historical choices to not support growth by denying highway/infrastructure development.

Related Topics:
Environmentalist - Smart growth

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Austin is well known as a center for liberal politics in a generally conservative state, leading some Texas conservatives to deride the city as the "People's Republic of Austin." Austin's suburbs, especially to the west and north, and several satellite municipalities, however, tend toward political conservatism.

Related Topics:
Liberal - Conservative - People's Republic

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As a result of the major party realignment that began in the 1970's, central Austin became a stronghold of the Democratic Party while the suburbs tend to vote Republican. To a limited degree the division between Democratic and Republican precincts coincides with the aforementioned divisions between supporters of environmental regulations and supporters of urban growth. One consequence of this is that in the most recent redistricting plan, formulated by the Republican-majority legislature, the central city has been split among multiple sprawling districts that do not conform to any unifying economic, geographic or cultural theme. Many political observers have characterized the resulting districting layout as gerrymandering. The plan was contested in Federal court, but a judicial review of the redistricting plan determined the plan was not illegal.

Related Topics:
Democratic Party - Republican - Gerrymandering

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Overall, the city leans Democratic; in the 2004 presidential election, although Senator John F. Kerry lost Texas' U.S. Electoral College votes when he was defeated by President George W. Bush by a wide margin, he won a substantial majority of the votes in Travis County as illustrated in this pictorial of votes by-county. Of Austin's six state legislative districts, three are strongly Democratic, one strongly Republican, and two are swing districts (one presently held by a Republican and the other by a Democrat). However, two of its three congressional districts are presently held by Republicans; this is largely due to the 2003 redistricting, which left Austin with no congressional seat of its own.

Related Topics:
John F. Kerry - U.S. Electoral College - George W. Bush

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The combination of economic conservatism with social liberalism has also made Austin an active area for the Libertarian Party. Although the Libertarians remain a third party, the party is very active in the Austin area, and two past Libertarian presidential candidates, Ron Paul and Michael Badnarik have come from the vicinity of Austin.

Related Topics:
Libertarian Party - Ron Paul - Michael Badnarik

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