About | Kathie Tovo

The Progressive Choice for Mayor

EXPERIENCED LEADERSHIP

City Council Member, 2011–2023

Mayor Pro Tem, 2015–2019

Kathie Tovo is a dedicated advocate for working families and everyday Austinites, with a long career in public service, both as a community leader and an elected official where she championed progressive values at City Hall.

Kathie is well-known for her commitment to honest, transparent, and community-driven government. First elected to City Council in 2011, Kathie has a proven record of standing up for women, workers, immigrants, and the LGBTQIA+ community.

While on City Council, she received the "Champion of Working Families" award from Workers Defense Fund and served as the Ally Grand Marshal in the 2022 Austin Pride Parade.

Kathie was elected by her colleagues to serve as Mayor Pro Tem from 2015 to 2019, providing leadership and institutional knowledge during the historic transition to geographic representation (10-1). She was re-elected to her District 9 Council seat in 2018 and served a third term on the Council, ending in January 2023.

As the daughter of a public school teacher and an educator herself, Kathie understands the value of education and is committed to investing in young people.

Kathie is running for Mayor on her proven, progressive record of effective leadership. If elected, she would be only the second woman to serve as Austin Mayor, and the first in more than 40 years.

Kathie is an inexhaustible fighter for the folks in Austin who can’t afford high-paid lobbyists to advance their interests. She believes in an Austin where every person has the right to succeed. She knows that Austin can be a city where the workers and families who have built this community, who keep the lights on, who keep the gears turning, and who show up every day in the hopes of a better life for their loved ones can remain and thrive.

AFFORDABILITY

A PROGRESSIVE LEADER

Kathie has a proven record of supporting working families.

In 2014, Tovo created the first-ever homestead exemption, and several years later, initiated action against the Travis Central Appraisal District to help lower the tax burden on residential homeowners.

She has been a consistent voice arguing for lower utility rates and fees, and she helped ensure that electricity rate reviews would include a consumer advocate to represent the needs of ratepayers.

She helped pass more than $600 million in affordable housing bonds and championed

policies that emphasize building generational wealth and expanding access to affordable and family-sized housing. Among these, she passed the "right to return" policy, which gives preference in city affordable housing developments to families with generational ties to Austin who are at risk of displacement or have been displaced.

Kathie has championed efforts to invest in childcare – not only to help childcare facilities re-open after the pandemic, but to help strengthen them so that the childcare industry could emerge stronger. She also successfully called for the inclusion of childcare centers where feasible in all newly constructed city buildings. Kathie remains committed to stabilizing and expanding our childcare ecosystem so all parents and caregivers can participate in our workforce with access to high-quality, affordable childcare for their children.

She holds a clear vision for a community that is safe, affordable, and resilient. It is under these three pillars that Kathie has pursued policies with a goal of improving the social and economic well-being of all Austinites.

RESILIENCY

During a pandemic that resulted in widespread job losses and economic and health crises for so many, Kathie worked with her colleagues to invest dollars and create policies that helped keep people housed and fed and supported our arts and music communities.

Among the initiatives she supported or championed, Kathie led on an innovative program that paired area school districts with local restaurants and provided more than 1 million healthy free meals to parents and caregivers of area students. Participating restaurants were able to retain an estimated 100 employees at a living-wage rate. In response to the pandemic food shortages and ongoing food insecurity among Austinites, she initiated the process to create the Austin-Travis County Food Plan, which the City Council just passed in October 2024.

CLIMATE

Following the devastation of Winter Storm Uri in February 2021, Kathie introduced a strategy to create neighborhood resilience hubs to provide shelter during extreme weather events and to be trusted community places on "blue sky" days. The City is currently creating this network today.

Kathie recognizes that climate shocks will occur with greater frequency and intensity and supports moving forward with urgency to implement recommendations from the Climate Equity Plan and foster community preparedness to save lives and reduce recovery costs. On that score, Kathie’s foresight on climate issues led to the creation of Water Forward – a far-reaching plan that will ensure Austin’s water future for the next 100 years, focusing most heavily on water conservation strategies.

Austin has much more to do to navigate the storms on the horizon and come out stronger—and Kathie is committed to advancing this work with the urgency our planet requires.

ENVIRONMENT

Endorsed by the Austin Sierra Club on the basis of her strong environmental track record, Kathie has prioritized protecting water quality, from supporting the expansion of watershed and creek protections to the eastern watershed in 2012 to bringing forward the current initiative to prioritize green stormwater methods and regularly test creeks located downstream of industrial sites.

When chemicals used to extinguish a fire in her Council district ran downhill and caused fish to die in Shoal Creek, she passed policy that the fire department notify the city’s environmental team about incidents impacting waterways. She required that Samsung immediately begin paying a surcharge when their discharge was determined to have very high levels of ammonia and sulfates (costing ratepayers $3.2 million to treat) and met with AWU and Samsung staff to ensure that they had a plan to minimize these issues in the future.

She has been a consistent advocate for water and energy conservation and for shifting from fossil fuels to clean energy, supporting passage of the Climate Equity, Zero Waste, and Generation plans. And she stood steadfast against turning the governance of Austin Energy over to an independent board, a proposed change that Kirk Watson supported.

INNOVATION

Anyone who has followed Kathie’s work knows that she believes in taking bold action. In 2016, she led the City in creating the Sobering Center to provide a safe place for individuals to sober up and, if appropriate, to be connected to supportive services. The Sobering Center serves as a diversion from jail or the emergency room and assists a wide range of individuals, from festivalgoers to individuals experiencing homelessness.

On Council, Kathie championed negotiations to bring professional soccer to Austin. She also ensured that the team would provide development academies to support Austin’s youth—boys and girls—and required that free tickets be distributed to youth throughout the city who wouldn't otherwise be able to attend. Today, legions of soccer fans flock to Q2 Stadium in North Austin to cheer on Austin FC during home games.

COMMUNITY LEADERSHIP

Prior to her service on City Council, Kathie had a long history as a community leader, serving as president of her local neighborhood association and vice president of the Austin Neighborhoods Council. She also was a volunteer member of several boards and task forces at the City and the Austin Independent School District, where she fought for the interests of working families.

Before becoming a Council Member she led a successful grassroots effort to stop AISD from closing Becker Elementary. The unpopular proposal galvanized parents, students, and community members to join in opposition to the closures. Kathie was also successful in proposing the creation of a tuition-based pre-kindergarten program to help working parents while enhancing children’s readiness—a model that is now in place at multiple elementary schools throughout the district.

On the City Council, Kathie chaired the Public Health, Audit and Finance, and Austin Energy Utility Oversight Committees and served on the Austin Police Retirement System and as chair of the Membership Council of the Ending Community Homelessness Coalition.

After leaving City Council in 2023, she joined the Austin History Center Association board and, having previously served on the Community Advisory Board of the Settlement Home, became a member of the Settlement Club.

Kathie is a mom to two daughters, one a freshman at UMass Amherst, and the other a senior at the Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders. She is an active fan and volunteer in their activities, which include color guard, marching band, orchestra, and ballet.

She is super excited about watching her eldest daughter march in the 2024 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and her youngest daughter dance Clara in Ballet Austin's 2024 Nutcracker.

Prior to joining the City Council, Kathie taught writing and interdisciplinary studies and worked at Humanities Texas, the state partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities. She holds a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin and a B.A. with honors from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Since leaving City Council in 2023, she has taught "Urban Politics and Planning," and "Community Engagement and Public Participation" to graduate students in the Community Regional Planning program at the University of Texas at Austin.