What happened
City officials gave initial approval to a slate of propositions that would amend the city charter, Austin's governmental rulebook, on July 18. Some of the proposals stem from an extended process to revise certain civic rules that was launched last year.
Council member Ryan Alter originally sponsored that work and said he supports the final list of updates to city functions and how Austinites can directly impact local government.
“A good number of these are technical changes that just need to happen to make sure we’re operating properly," Alter said. "But I do think fundamentally we have made some changes that will help improve the public petition process. And so we will be able to have more participation, there will be more clarity, and ultimately that’s what we wanted."
Officials finalized their list of proposed charter amendments, starting with a Proposition C, in July. An election will be called by mid-August for ballot items including:
- Proposition C: Clarifying that the Independent Citizens' Redistricting Commission—the volunteer board formed to oversee the city's redistricting process every decade—is independent of council influence; can review district boundaries; and can solicit more applicants when it's created
- Proposition D: Removing a charter requirement for City Council to hold weekly meetings, instead of biweekly
- Proposition E: Removing a charter requirement for City Council to adopt its rules and meeting procedures by ordinance. The ordinance requirement was among the issues raised in a successful lawsuit over council meeting policies this year
- Proposition F: Moving the calculation of political donations limits to January, rather than during the city's summer budget process, to keep them through the calendar year. Limits are adjusted annually based on the federal Consumer Price Index.
- Proposition G: Moving all petition elections to general elections—Novembers of even-numbered years—rather than as soon as possible after a petition is certified
- Proposition H: Increasing the signature limit for recall petitions—campaigns to remove City Council members from office—from 10% to 15% of voters in the member's council district. The limit for a citywide mayoral recall would remain at 10%.
- Proposition I: Giving City Council the power to confirm and remove the city attorney. The position is currently appointed by the city manager without council involvement.
- Proposition J: Matching Austin's "resign-to-run" policy for municipal judges with state-level rules. Municipal court judges who seek public office would automatically have to resign if they have more than one year and one month remaining in their term.
- Proposition K: Updating city financial policies in line with "industry best practices," according to city staff.
- Proposition L: Removing city auditor staff and appointees from Austin's classified civil service. Staff said the change would help maintain the office's integrity and independence.
- Proposition M: Adjusting the city's policy on the timeline for notices of legal claims
- Proposition N: Adjusting several charter provisions in what staff called a language "clean-up" to align with state law and court orders.
- Proposition O: Updating city campaign rules to allow candidates to take donations for unpaid campaign expenses before they leave office
Some of the changes were the result of months of work by the Charter Review Commission.
The board was formed by council to publicly evaluate topics like upping the signature threshold for resident petitions and adopting new transparency measures for elections. The commission's work was partially inspired by Austin's numerous petition contests, as well as the controversy surrounding last year's election between rival campaigns over police oversight.
While voters must sign off on all charter amendments, some of the commission's final proposals won't need to be decided in an election. For example, council members made one recommended change already: moving the city's proposition lettering system to cycle through the entire alphabet, rather than starting each election with "Proposition A," to avoid confusion.
Other changes, like new disclosure requirements for petition campaigns, will be worked out by city officials and legal staff in the future "as appropriate," according to a city spokesperson.
What else?
Council declined to take up one notable item that was up for consideration: an increased signature threshold for any direct policy changes forwarded by residents.
The change would've tied initiative petition requirements to Austin's population, replacing the flat 20,000-signature floor with a new requirement for 3.5% of qualified registered voters to sign on in support.
A 3.5% requirement would mean petitions need closer to 24,000 signatures to be certified, based on voter totals as of this January.
The 3.5% proposal narrowly passed through the Charter Review Commission 6-5, after initially failing 5-5. Alter said its divisiveness and overall lack of buy-in led it to be dropped from the final plan.
Alter and commissioners also noted that raising the signature limit for initiative petitions could unintentionally force more consequential elections around the charter.
While Austin can change its own petition rules, the benchmark for charter elections remains at the 20,000-signature limit under state law. Making initiative petition campaigns harder could have encouraged the use of more charter amendments instead.
"Looking at the potential effects of moving that threshold, groups were saying, ‘Well now we’re just going to do a bunch of charter amendments.’ Which, same problem but potentially even worse because now when it’s in the charter you can’t touch it, maybe ever," Alter said. "It just seemed more appropriate to focus on some of the other fixes that might help address these challenges and see if that’s enough, and if it’s not maybe in the future we’ll come back and have this conversation again.”
More information on Austin's petition processes and requirements is available online.
