WASHINGTON — In 2019, Austin repealed a ban on camping in the city. It was a priority championed by the city council’s most progressive members who said the measure would help homeless people access housing by keeping their criminal records clean.
Soon, encampments sprung up across the city. Residents complained about littering and noise. Pandemic social distancing rules pushed more people out of homeless shelters, making the issue even more visible. Conservative opponents of the city council said the city’s lax laws were drawing more people from outside Austin to pitch their tents. Gov. Greg Abbott protested. Conservatives mobilized, and by May 2021, the city’s residents said they had enough. A 57% majority of voters voted to reinstate a ban on camping in the city.
At the center of the initiative was a young city councilmember, whom conservatives delighted in caricaturing as the face of the most progressive policies in one of the most liberal cities in Texas. Greg Casar, who was elected to the Austin City Council in 2014 at the age of 25, had a leading hand in many of the city’s most progressive initiatives…