What's happening in District 8?

Council Member Paige Ellis is considering running for a third term in Southwest Austin District 8. She is hosting a fundraiser later this month, although the office she is seeking is not specified.

Time out. Aren't Council members limited to two four-year terms? Sort of.

The city charter limits the mayor and City Council members to two terms but allows them to run again if they get signatures from 5% of the qualified voters in their district.

The only person to do that so far is former CM Kathie Tovo, who in 2018 easily cleared the required 2,800 signatures and was elected to a third term. It wasn't actually clear if Tovo even needed to gather the signatures, since her first three years in office had been under the previous at-large Council.

Ellis, who was first elected in 2018 and reelected in 2022, would be the first to run for three full four-year terms if she is a candidate again in 2026. In a text message, she said she was "strongly considering" running for reelection.

"There is still work to do in this city for housing and mobility," she said, citing her efforts to bring affordable housing to the ACC Pinnacle campus and building out the Oak Hill MetroRapid, a proposed bus route that is a part of Project Connect. "The pandemic was a hurdle that halted a lot of projects in my first term, in addition to two winter storms. Now we’re finally seeing movement on things like dog parks, shared use paths, and managed speed limits in front of schools."

Ellis, who led the push for the $460 million ped/bike bond in 2020, has focused above all else on neighborhood-level quality of life improvements. She has recently become more vocal about her frustrations with the city's failure to deliver promised capital projects, particularly in her district. It was through that lens that she opposed the most ambitious versions of the I-35 Cap & Stitch program, instead joining with a bloc of other skeptics in proposing a more modest package.

That Ellis is considering a third term certainly makes things more complicated for Selena Xie, the former head of the Austin EMS Association who is considered a top prospect for that seat.

I reached out to Xie, who said she is still "strongly considering" running.

"In the past month, the City has shut down 10% of the ambulances in the city each day, which means slower response times during critical emergencies, and more strain on our paramedics. I want change now," she said. "I see how city policy impacts our city workers and our community in our houses and on our streets. As an EMS Commander, I see how our policies on homelessness, housing and transportation, and climate change, translate into real effects on the ground in our neighborhoods and streets. This daily experience has shaped my ideas on how we respond proactively and prevent harm in our community."

Based on what Xie said when I interviewed her on my podcast, she is likely to the left of Ellis, but probably not to the point that would be noticeable to the average voter. She has described herself as a "leftist" but has operated pragmatically as the leader of a union that is politically and culturally diverse.

Her platform is unlikely to be very different from Ellis, at least at the brochure level. Nor would it likely make sense to try to attack Ellis from the left –– District 8 has become solidly blue in response to Trump, but it is still to the right of Austin overall.

So a head-to-head with Ellis will be a challenge for Xie and anybody else. There's no evidence of deep dissatisfaction with the incumbent in her district. She easily fended off a very weak conservative challenger in 2022. And she'll have no problem raising money; the strategic donors will be firmly in her corner. The power of incumbency is even greater in nonpartisan local races, where most voters who even make it down to that part of the ballot simply opt for the name they're familiar with.

But things can change, of course.

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