Government and politics
The city of Houston has a strong mayoral form of municipal government. Houston is a home rule city and all municipal elections in the state of Texas are nonpartisan. The City's elected officials are the mayor, city controller and 14 members of the city council. As of 2007, the mayor of Houston is William "Bill" White, a Democrat elected on a nonpartisan ballot who is serving his second term. Houston's mayor serves as the city's chief administrator, executive officer, and official representative. He is responsible for the general management of the city and for seeing that all laws and ordinances are enforced. As the result of a 1991 referendum in Houston, a mayor is elected for a two-year term, and can be elected to as many as three consecutive terms.
The current city council line-up of nine district based and five at large positions was based on a U.S. Justice Department mandate which took effect in 1979 At-large council members represent the entire city. Under the current city charter, if the population in the city limits goes past 2.1 million residents, the current nine-member city council districts will be expanded with the addition of two city council districts.
Criminal Law is enforced by the Houston Police Department. Houston's murder rate ranked 18th of U.S. cities with a population over 250,000 in 2005. Despite the rise in homicides of 23.5 percent, nonviolent crime in the city dropped by 2 percent in 2005 compared to 2004. Since 2005, Houston has been experiencing a spike in crime, which is due in part to an influx of people from New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. After Katrina, Houston's murder rate increased 70 percent in November and December 2005 compared to levels in 2004. The city recorded 336 murders in 2005, compared to 272 in 2004.
Houston's homicide rate per 100,000 residents increased from 16.33 in 2005 to 17.24 in 2006. The number of murders in the city increased to 379 in 2006, although this increase was smaller than in 2005; Houston, like other cities, faces crime related to gang activities: in 1996, there were about 380 gangs with 8,000 members, of which 2,500 were juveniles.
(Source: Wikipedia.org)
