Austin’s New True Congressman

Greg Casar with fellow Austin City Council Members Vanessa Fuentes and Chito Vela after his victory in the 2022 primaries (Photo by Jana Birchum)

Redistricting in 2021 had as its main goal locking into place the partisan status quo in new Texas suburban battlefields like Hays County, but Texas' continued growth gave the state two new congressional seats that had to go somewhere, and one of them came to Austin to be a vote sink for all the Democrats who had tried to unseat their GOP congressmen in the five years prior. That new TX-37 was claimed by veteran Rep. Lloyd Doggett, leaving his old TX-35 open as another solidly blue (Biden +46!) pickup opportunity, and after seven years on Council, Casar decided to jump. So did state Rep. Eddie Rodriguez, D-Austin, who gave up a 20-year career in the Texas House to end up finishing a distant second, 36 points behind Casar. Former San Antonio Council Member Rebecca Viagran took third place (the district stretches to the Alamo, although most of its voters are in Travis and Hays counties).

Casar's controversial career as Council's leading progressive activist included persuading his colleagues to reject the proposed police contract in 2017, decriminalize homelessness in 2019, and actually defund the Austin Police Department in 2020 after its violent response to peaceful protest. All of these measures were overturned by powerful Republicans, and Rodriguez went negative against Casar using similar language and images as Save Austin Now, which proved a disastrous strategy for the Capitol veteran. Meanwhile, Casar used his race to bring attention to local unionization efforts and got the rock stars of the Democratic left – AOC, Bernie, Warren – to bring attention to him, a pattern we expect to continue in Congress.