Austin Voters Reinstate Street Camping Ban

Austin has for some time been regarded as a liberal island in a conservative state, a bit of Berkeley in the heart of Texas. Consistently with that reputation, the city council in 2019 repealed the ban on camping in the streets. Inconsistently with that reputation, the people reinstated the ban last Saturday.

The vote was 57-43, according to this report for KVUE. That is a reasonably healthy majority.

Apparently the city council took too seriously the half-joking slogan “Keep Austin Weird.” Not that weird, the people replied.

As the 2019 story on the repeal noted, police rarely cited anyone under the old ordinance. But the fact they could enabled them to get people to move along rather than squatting long term on a piece of public property, making it unusable for its intended use. This informal enforcement is an important part of policing, and it is important to prevent the downhill slide of a city into disorder.

Boise’s camping ordinance was overturned by the Ninth Circuit. See this post on the archive blog. Regrettably, the Supreme Court did not take the case up. But Austin is in the Fifth Circuit. Perhaps this case will produce the circuit split needed to convince the high court to settle the issue.

Oh, and you 57%, please vote in some people with sense next time.