Austin Voters Overwhelmingly Adopt Police Oversight Ordinance

Equity Action's Kathy Mitchell (l) at an election day results watch party at Lustre Pearl (Photo by Jana Birchum)

May 6: Austin voters overwhelmingly approved the Austin Police Oversight Act in May, but the ongoing saga really began this time last year, when advocates for police reform began collecting signatures for a petition that would lead to the APOA ballot measure. Shortly after that, the Austin Police Association began collecting signatures for their own oversight ordinance with the same name, in a thinly veiled attempt to sabotage the APOA campaign. When that effort ended in electoral embarrassment, speculation arose that the APA would sue the city to prohibit it from enforcing the APOA.

As it turns out, an APA lawsuit was unnecessary, because it seems city leadership was never interested in truly implementing the APOA in the first place. Seven months after the ordinance became city law, the city has failed to enact many of its most important provisions – primarily, those that would allow for independent and thorough investigations of police officers accused of misconduct, by investigators who don't work for APD. Last week, APOA proponents filed a lawsuit aimed at forcing the city to obey the will of voters and implement the APOA.