Redistricting Process
The 14 commissioners are guided by six documents when deciding on new boundaries for City Council districts. These documents help the Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission (ICRC) ensure its redistricting is an open and transparent process.
Learn more about how we operate and the redistricting timeline.
ICRC History
History was made on Nov. 18, 2012, when Austin became the first city in the country to have council districts drawn through the volunteerism of an independent group of residents. Earlier in 2012, 61% of voters opted for improved geographic and racial representation, replacing Austin’s at-large City Council system with 10 single-member districts plus an at-large mayor. This change not only altered Austin's selection system but also provided a model for cities nationwide. The current 10 City Council Districts we know today were drawn by ICRC.
Before the vote in 2012, Austin's at-large system, common in small towns, had been in place since 1953. Due to population growth in the early 1970s, the City Council expanded from five to seven members, with two additional seats informally reserved for Latino and Black members under a "gentlemen's agreement." Single-member districts were rejected five times before the overwhelming approval of the 10-1 ballot initiative in 2012.
"Backers of 10-1 envisioned a system that would not only accommodate Austin's sustained population growth, but also to rectify the Council's longtime underrepresentation of marginalized communities, particularly in East and Southeast Austin, and overrepresentation of the whiter, more affluent Central and West Austin neighborhoods," according to the Austin Chronicle.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 not only helped establish the ICRC but helped guide commissioners’ efforts in drawing the district boundaries. Additionally, on June 29, 2015, the Supreme Court affirmed that voters have the right to establish independent redistricting commissions (in Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission).
The Austin ICRC also provides an antidote to gerrymandering practices, where districts are drawn for the purpose of politicians getting re-elected. It's the first all-citizen, non-political redistricting commission of its kind in Texas. This body is solely responsible for producing the City Council District map by following the City Charter.
The map created by the 2021 ICRC will be in effect for City Council elections over the next 10 years (2022, 2026, and 2030, including any special elections in the interim).
Staff
George Korbel, mapping specialist, was instrumental in challenging the fairness of at-large elections in Texas in the 1970s. He and the ICRC's legal counsel David Richards litigated the landmark case known as White v. Regester. The case made it all the way to the Supreme Court in 1973 and won. It found that the urban voting district in Dallas and Bexar County reduced Latino representation in the Texas House of Representatives. The case expanded into other counties with large urban districts in the state including Tarrant, Nueces, McLennan, Travis, Galveston, Jefferson, Lubbock, and El Paso. Korbel has been involved in redistricting over 50 jurisdictions including cities, counties, and school districts. Most recently, Korbel and Richards redistricted education institutional boundaries in Houston and for Lone Star College, one of the largest community college districts in the nation. Korbel earned a degree in political science at St. John's, a Catholic college in Collegeville, Minnesota, and graduated in 1968 from the University of Minnesota School of Law. In 1971, he become an attorney for VISTA and was assigned to the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund (MALDEF) in San Antonio. His work in San Antonio helped him gather evidence of patterns of racially polarized voting in Bexar County.
David Richards, legal counsel, has broad experience in civil litigation at trial and appellate levels in state and federal courts. In addition to his 50-plus years of law practice, he has been an adjunct professor of law at the University of Texas Law School and served as an attorney with the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. From 1982 to 1985, he was Executive Assistant Attorney General of Texas supervising the state’s litigation. Before that public service, he was General Counsel for the Texas AFL-CIO. He has developed expertise in the fields of labor and employment law, ERISA issues, civil rights, education law, environmental law, election law/voting rights, constitutional law, and governmental regulation along with a variety of related issues. Richards has handled a number of appellate cases at the U.S. Supreme Court, the Texas Supreme Court, and intermediate federal and state appellate courts. Among the more notable cases was White v. Regester, 412 U.S. 755 (1973) which established single-member legislative districts for the Texas Legislature; Dyson v. Stein, 401 U.S. 200 (1971), declaring the Texas obscenity statute unconstitutional; State v. Durham, 860 S.W. 2d 63 (Tex. 1993), recovering millions in oil royalty for the State of Texas; and Edgewood v. Kirby, 777 S.W. 2d 391 (Tex. 1989), declaring unconstitutional Texas public school funding.
Christine Granados, administrative manager, specializes in writing, layout, and design as well as administrative technology, including mass communication procedures, organizational apps, and website development. She has experience working at national and regional magazines and newspapers, beginning her career as a reporter for the El Paso Times, Long Beach Press Telegram, and Austin American-Statesman. Granados holds a BA in journalism from the University of Texas at El Paso and an MFA from Texas State University. She was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters in 2014 and is co-owner of the Rockdale Reporter. She serves on the board of Hill Country University Center in Fredericksburg and has been a Fredericksburg High School mentor since 2014.