How we’ve changed Austin for the better — together

Reflecting on seven years of true progressive change.

Seven years ago, when I was twenty-five years old, you elected me to Austin City Council. I promised to push our city away from hollow liberal branding and toward meaningful solutions for working families.

Today, as I begin the process of stepping down from the Council, I want to reflect on what we have accomplished. There’s a simple reason for this reflection. Too often, the status quo persists through the lie that “nothing ever changes.” We have disproved that lie. We have shown that when people lead, then politicians must follow.

In 2015, City employees were making $7.25/hour, affordable housing investment was scarce, and police reform was deemed a virtually impossible issue. Through building new coalitions under district representation, through passing progressive legislation, and by fighting like hell, our movement has changed all of this.

As I leave the City Council to run for U.S. Congress, I want to remind us of how far we have come, even though we still have so far to go. Here’s a quick list of the highlights.

9. We’ve doubled our investment in public health.

With Gov. Greg Abbott and Trump refusing to serve the most basic public health needs in a pandemic, our community was able to respond with safety equipment, childcare support, vaccines, and economic aid. For too long, Austin was behind many other cities in public health funding. As you can see below, we have transformed our budget to prioritize the health of working families.

8. We transitioned from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

In 2015, Austin generated the overwhelming majority of our power from fossil fuels. In 2021, we will generate most of our power from renewable energy sources like wind and solar. No big public utility in America has so significantly transitioned from dirty to clean energy. That’s because of our partnership between advocates and elected officials to take on the climate crisis.

7. We’ve kept families together.

I’ve worked to build, and then significantly grow, a new pot of funding for immigrant legal services. When Trump sent ICE into our neighborhoods to separate families, we responded by supporting immigrants with this fund. We also helped replicate this fund in San Antonio and Houston.

6. We led the country on keeping families housed during the pandemic.

As the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, I fought to make sure that families forced out of work would not be forced into sleeping on the street. Together, we ensured that the rate of Austin’s pandemic-era evictions and foreclosures was among the lowest in the United States.

5. We’re on track to drastically reduce homelessness.

We can all agree that we want people to live in housing with support, not under bridges. Unfortunately, for decades our government has not addressed homelessness. But recently, all of this is finally changing. With leadership from Mayor Steve Adler, housing advocates, and those experiencing homelessness themselves, we finally passed the measures necessary to drastically increase housing and support services, and drastically reduce homelessness.

4. We’ve decreased our jail population by stopping needless arrests.

I passed legislation to end all tickets and arrests for personal marijuana possession, so that Austin Police could focus on more serious issues. We successfully fought against the practice of jailing people because they were too poor to afford fines. And we elected progressive prosecutors like José Garza and Delia Garza who are putting people over profit. Austin has led the national charge to invest in people, rather than punishment.

3. We’ve stood up for survivors of sexual assault and cleared a decades-long rape kit backlog.

Survivors of sexual assault organized and demanded that the city end its shameful, decades-long backlog of sexual assault evidence. Their bravery and their stories moved me to push the police department to reorganize their budget and finally clear the backlog.

Next, we must pass real policy change to prevent such neglect from ever happening again, and our city needs to settle the lawsuit brought forward by survivors who have been failed by our system.

2. We’ve created more affordable housing to stop the displacement of working families.

Our community is in a housing crisis. In years past, housing was not a top priority for city bond investments. Together, we changed all that. We’ve won record-breaking elections totaling over $500 million to keep thousands of families from being pushed out of the city. We must build on this momentum. We can push the federal government for major housing reform while changing our local housing rules that drive up home prices. We cannot give up: keeping people from being pushed out of the city must be a top priority.

1. We’ve raised wages for thousands of workers.

When I arrived on Council in 2015, the city employees and city contractors made as little as $7.25 an hour with no health insurance. With your support and the help of our labor movement, I passed policies that raised that to $15 an hour for both city employees and contractors who accept city work, more than doubling the rate that the lowest paid workers receive in exchange for their efforts. We required prevailing wages — which are generally union wages — for thousands more workers on projects where the City has influence.

And although the Texas Legislature has banned raising the minimum wage for everyone, and the all-Republican Supreme Court has blocked our paid sick time laws, we know that it’s only a matter of time before we win the fight in Congress to guarantee fair pay and benefits for every Texan.

Of course, there are many other major policy wins that I haven’t mentioned. We passed a historic mass transit election that will help hundreds of thousands of people get around, we kept Planned Parenthood open in East Austin, and we’re finally providing new family violence shelters in our community.

This wouldn’t have been possible without all of the people and organizations that I’ve worked alongside to deliver these progressive changes.

We have changed who City Hall works for. The challenges we continue to face are enormous. But if we keep organizing, we can win. We’re proof of that. I am so proud and honored to have been a part of it.