From Round Rock’s school board to City Hall, District 6 newcomer Krista Laine gives conservatives a run for their money

If, in the days leading up to 2020, you had asked Krista Laine where she saw herself halfway through the decade, she likely would have told you she’d be back in the world of commercial real estate, where she’d made a name for herself as an appraiser handling land development projects across Central Texas.

But the universe had other plans for Laine, who is now gearing up to take Mackenzie Kelly’s seat on the dais as District 6’s newest City Council member.

Laine’s venture into politics began inadvertently. On sabbatical from a demanding career, she had been planning her next moves when the Covid-19 pandemic threw her a curveball. Stuck at home and wanting answers, Laine found herself among the many concerned parents glued to Round Rock ISD Board meetings.

Laine watched as debates over mask policies and social distancing escalated into a partisan bloodbath of harassment, litigation and even arrests. Come election season, when a slate of five candidates bankrolled by public school reformists and evangelicals threatened to oust dissenting trustees, Laine channeled her outrage into a campaign of her own, forming the advocacy group and political action committee Access Education RRISD.

As its inaugural president, Laine led the PAC’s group of grassroots candidates to a stunning victory over the right-wing coup attempt, defeating challengers in all five races by margins of 15 percent to 25 percent. With the crisis averted, Laine stepped down from the helm, though she’d soon be back in politics’ thrall.

Laine says she has always felt comfortable in the role of neighborhood steward. Years of wrestling with the logistics of land development, from pulling sewer lines out of creeks to widening major thoroughfares, had armed her with the expertise to ask the right questions.

Laine had also long been wary of her neighborhood’s utility services, enduring frequent power outages that became increasingly disruptive as her husband and neighbors pivoted to working from home. So when Winter Storm Uri forced a statewide reckoning with neglected infrastructure, she started making phone calls.

Among Laine’s concerns were large stains she observed descending the hill above her son’s middle school, just beneath a wastewater lift station she had learned about while on assignment years prior. On runs through her neighborhood woods, she began to notice intermittent smells of sewage. She would come to find out that power outages and freezing water had caused the station to fail and burst, leaking thousands of gallons of wastewater into the Bull Creek watershed.

Laine took her concerns to the office of Alison Alter, who at the time was her representative at Council. Though eager to resolve her issues with power service, staff explained that the lift station was beyond their jurisdiction, laying just within the district served by Mackenzie Kelly.

This marked a first taste of frustration with her future opponent – as Laine saw Alter’s office yield tangible results for her electric service, she was astonished at Kelly’s lack of urgency. By talking with maintenance crews, Laine discovered that basic repairs had remained unfinished for well over a year. The smells persisted.

When Council’s redistricting placed her under Kelly’s jurisdiction in 2022, Laine already felt her new representative was not cut out to serve her neighborhood’s many needs. But in the aftermath of the Round Rock ISD election circus, one particular encounter sparked her decision to run.

Bitter from his defeat in the school board race, former Council Member Don Zimmerman, who gained national attention for his campaign slogan “ABC’s and 123’s, not CRT’s and LGBT’s,” took to protesting on campuses, dodging parents and staff to bring his message directly to middle school students at dismissal time. When Zimmerman arrived at her son’s middle school, Laine was shocked to find none other than Mackenzie Kelly appearing to cheer him on as she picked up her daughter.

“It’s captured on video. She rolls up to Don in the car line, has a friendly conversation and gives him two thumbs up before pulling away,” Laine told the Austin Monitor. “So you’re endorsing a level of active disruption I’ve never seen in my life, and now you’re my City Council member? That’s not going to work.”

Two years later, Laine is on her way to City Hall, winning over just enough of District 6 with promises to prioritize affordable housing, land code reform, utilities resilience and 911 response times. Laine has also become passionate about transportation, with a vision for expanding bus routes at underutilized stations along Lakeline Boulevard and U.S. Highway 183 to transit hubs like the Domain. Laine says these networks could be a game changer in making affordable housing outside the city’s center viable for working-class Austinites.

“I bring a breadth of experience working on the infrastructure that supports our housing market, and it’s showed me where I think Austin falls short in serving its residents the full potential use of their landholdings,” Laine said. “I’m really excited to be joining the conversation at a point when housing is such a big issue for our city.”

On the dais, the new Council member hopes to hone her newfound sense for politics to do right by her constituents. For Laine, the stakes are existential. 

“District 6 is uniquely positioned within multiple jurisdictions, but it is center to none, and that has led to a lot of gaps in services,” Laine said. “When their problems go unresolved, it breeds instability and insecurity, and that’s how de-annexation happens. This is my home, these are my friends and neighbors, and I refuse to risk that chaos.”

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Posted In: City Council, District 6