How Independent Redistricting Works in Austin, Texas

Having an independent commission redraw the city’s ward map—as a coalition led by CHANGE Illinois is promoting in Chicago—is unusual but not unheard of in this country. It worked in 2013 for Austin, Texas, which is about to repeat the process. 

Austin, in fact, not only changed how district boundaries are drawn but also how the city council is structured. In addition to approving an independent redistricting commission, voters decided to replace a city council elected at large with a 10-member council on which each member represents a district.

An independent commission is now mandated each time Austin redistricts, while in Chicago an independent commission–drawn map would have to compete for support. Austin is also much smaller than Chicago (population 978,908 versus 2.7 million). Still, its experience with redistricting is instructive here.

For one thing, there’s the reason voters in Austin wanted a change: the previous representation on the city council was deemed unfair to certain neighborhoods and minorities. A fair map is the rallying cry of Chicagoans who want to take redistricting out of the hands of politicians.

In addition, there was opposition to change from Austin politicians, including some council members. Their arguments sound familiar in Chicago, where the council’s Black and Latino Caucuses have already said that they know best.

“The opponents of the commission in Austin argued that ordinary citizens were naive and ill-equipped to handle redistricting,” said Steve Bickerstaff, a retired University of Texas law professor who has represented state and local government jurisdictions on redistricting matters. “Although some critics suggest that ‘ordinary citizens’ lack the same capability as politicians for understanding the complexities of redistricting, my experience in redistricting and the achievements in Austin say otherwise. The process in Austin was a great success.” 

After Austin voters in 2012 decided to change the city charter to allow for the new council structure and an independent redistricting commission, applications were sought for citizen volunteers for the commission. From more than 500 applications, 14 people representing diverse populations were chosen in a transparent process. Following mandated guidelines, they sought extensive, ongoing public input as they created and revised a map where neighborhoods would not be broken up and districts would be compact and contiguous rather than gerrymandered into weird shapes. The commission adopted a district map in 2013 that was final without any action by the city council.

The commission “drew what I thought were excellent districts,” commented political consultant Peck Young, retired director of Austin Community College’s Center for Public Policy and Political Studies.

The new map was first used for the mayoral and councilor election in 2014. About one-third of Austin’s registered voters turned out, compared with only about 10 percent in the previous five city council elections. Authors of a report published by the League of Women Voters of the Austin Area suggested that interest created by the independent commission effort carried over into turnout at the polls.

“At a time when politicians elicit distrust, citizen redistricting can provide a transparent — and transforming — alternative to ‘politics as usual,’” the report concluded.

“The process in Austin demonstrated that there is a great untapped reservoir of talent among our citizens and showed one way in which that talent can be realized,” Bickerstaff said. “It is a model for all cities. Redistricting need not be a quintessentially political process.”

As in Chicago, Austin must redraw its districts again to reflect population changes from the 2020 Census. As may or may not happen in Chicago, Austin’s map will be drawn by ordinary citizens, not politicians. 

It’s expected that a majority of Chicago aldermen will present a gerrymandered map that benefits their reelection and the racial and ethnic constituencies they represent. Citizen-proposed remaps need the support of at least 10 aldermen. If there are two or more map proposals with the necessary aldermanic support, the winner will be chosen by Chicago voters in a special election in March 2022.