Quote:
Originally Posted by hookem
I hope you are right, but I think we may all be overestimating just how democratic the entire city is. When it's geographically cut up, I can see far South, far North, and Northwest parts of Austin going republican.
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No. Here are precinct maps of results from recent elections. Keep in mind that outer precincts are much less dense than inner precincts. So the large amount of red you see compared to blue is really hiding the true nature of the local partisan edge.
This is the 2008 McCain/Obama election:
This is a composite map, average votes received by each major party in each precinct in all Gubernatorial and Presidential elections between 2002 and 2008 (including Bush, who would have had a hom state boost of around 5% according to academic literature on the subject):
As you can see, the only substantially Republican areas of the metro area are outside of the city limits (very far western - and mostly rural, but with some suburban growth - Travis County), parts of Round Rock, and generally outer Williamson County.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hookem
But even if they are not technically republican, the people they vote in will still be anti-business NIMBYs like Tovo and Morrison. Tovo's platform was basically populist anti-spending and distrust of big companies/developers (and she kept the liberal part super quiet). And her win was fueled by the non-central areas eating that stuff up.
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Without getting into a discussion on this more in depth - which isn't appropriate - as a general rule you should understand that Republicans are more pro-growth and pro-business than are Democrats. Our local politics is driven by the inner battle between pro-growth Democrats and anti-growth Democrats (which comprise, roughly speaking, about equal portions of the party base) given that Democrats dominate the city's elections. Having Republicans on the city council, oddly, might actually be the best thing that downtown could have. See Houston, Dallas, and Fort Worth for the large scale visionary projects championed by their local Republican bases - the Arts district in Dallas, fwiw, is a leaning Republican area of town - that Austin lacks.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Austin_Expert
Travis County as a whole is consistently blue, with the city of Austin even more so.
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Yes, see above maps.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Austin_Expert
Look at the Travis County Commissioners Court as an example. The people elected are majority Democrat. That doesn't necessarily mean that they are "progressive", though.
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Actually, the commissioners court is dominated by progressive Democrats - but these are actually broadly considered
anti-growth in the modern era. Progressive is currently conceived of in the American system as being one of
social progress, not business progress (which is what the majority of this board would prefer).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Austin_Expert
I'm sure that there will be some Repubs elected to the council now, but no more than one or two at a time consistently.
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There
may be enough current Republican population base to sustain a single district in the northwest - more on that in a minute - but I really doubt it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Austin_Expert
However, the council's focus on downtown will almost assuredly come to a halt, which is a shame.
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Not really a halt, but it will be a detriment to the focus given downtown by our electeds. The problem really with this assertion lies with the city government more broadly. Almost everyone employed by the city cares about downtown's health, so the focus will still be there.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Austin_Expert
But the city does cover 300 square miles, and it is about time that the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people out side the central 50 square miles or so of the city have some representation.
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Eh. They have representation at the moment, in the form of about half the council.
Above I've colored in precincts that overlap with the city of Austin (unfortunately, because of annexation practices in Texas precincts almost never end where the city ends - they're also drawn by the county, which is a big problem that I won't get in to). I've kept it to precincts that are mostly Austin (there are about 5 or 6 more that could be included if I wanted
every precinct that has a piece of Austin, but they'd be precincts in which the population either doesn't live in Austin or mostly doesn't live in Austin). The precincts colored in are all precincts which have an average Republican vote total that is higher than the Democratic average (again: measure by the average votes received in each precinct across all Gubernatorial and Presidential election between 2002 and 2010).
As you can see, these precincts can form three board groups, which I've assigned different (meaningless, by the way) colors.
The first group (red) is a total population according to the 2010 census (which is what the districts will be drawn with when they are drawn) population counts of 86,595. A substantial portion of that - I'd guess around 30% - is outside the city limits. The average Democratic v. Republican two party vote share here is 40.4 to 59.6. That's pretty solidly Republican. However, Obama won 50.2 to 49.8. Even if you keep this entire area together in a single district, once you include about a dozen or so more precincts to get the population where it needs to be for equity the statistics change dramatically to be a likely Democratic district. Fortunately, the area in question is supposed to be split in two with each split piece drowned into much bluer territory.
The second group (peach) is about 2/3 that population, and with probably about 20% outside city limits: 64,145. Average Democratic v. Republican is 57.0 to 43.0, but, again, Obama won here 52.2 to 47.8. This area is also split in most proposals with both pieces being attached to much bluer areas of town.
The last is a single precinct that has about 7,000, about half of which are outside the city limits. It will be drowned into the Hispanic district that will be required by the Voting Rights Act, so it won't matter.
Literally everything else in the city is rock-ribbed blue. One more point: even if districts elect Republicans, they're not going to be conservatives. The one Republican State Representative from Travis County - Workman - is very very moderate. He even had a Tea Party challenger in the primary this past cycle (
http://www.ryandownton.com/ watch the video, it's hilariously - and badly so - funny) - and in a total twist opposite to what normally happens, Workman easily defeated him. Given that the territory within Austin's city limits is much less "red" than Workman's W. Travis Co. district, I'd imagine that any Republican elected in Austin would be even more moderate.
Kevin: the topic isn't germaine to the thread. Will you move the entire discussion into a new thread entitled "Austin Politics" or something like that?
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