Political Cliques in Austin, Texas, and the US Congress

We voted early in the Austin city council election today. The city's taxpayers paid for an additional election because a majority of council members thought that Brigid Shea had a better chance of unseating incumbent Mayor Lee Leffingwell if the election was not moved to November, at which time the election costs would be shared. This is a non-trivial waste of money. There is no party affiliation in city elections, but you can see that there are presently cliques on the city council that work in their own interest and in this instance waste taxpayer dollars instead of sharing election costs with other governmental entities by scheduling county and city elections together, for example.

No doubt every council member could be labeled a liberal, given that this is Austin, Texas, but the polarization on the council which led to this waste of taxpayer dollars brought to mind this video of the spectrum from liberal to conservative in the 1st through 112th US Congress. Enjoy!