Republicans in Tarrant County, Texas, are quickly pushing a redistricting plan that would dilute the voting power of Black people in this north central region of the state that includes Fort Worth and Arlington.
The Tarrant County Commissioners Court is scheduled to vote on the controversial political map that would change district boundary lines on June 3 after just nine weeks of study. The process usually takes months to assess the impact of redrawing voting districts.
The top Republican judge on the Commissioners Court, Tim O’Hare, has boldly declared the move is most definitely political in nature.
“Give me a map that guarantees three Republican commissioners’ seats,” he said, according to CBS News Texas. “That’s what I’ve asked for.”
Two Democratic commissioners and two Republican commissioners currently sit on the Commissioners Court with O’Hare in the court’s top position. County officials, civil rights and voting rights advocates and voters have all criticized the move, accusing O’Hare and Republicans of racial gerrymandering.
O’Hare isn’t making any effort at hiding his intentions and even agrees with critics, CBS reported. “This is about partisan politics. You can legally in this country, according to the U.S. Supreme Court, draw maps for partisan purposes. So, for me, it’s 100% about partisan politics,” O’Hare acknowledged.
The four commissioners on the court each represent one precinct, with Judge O’Hare representing the whole county. The new redistricting maps would essentially reshape the two Democratic districts, creating a more Republican district out of one of them by packing the other with more non-white voters. That would make it harder for one of the Democratic commissioners to win re-election.
And that’s exactly what the Republicans on the court want. “My entire goal, my entire purpose, my entire intention, is to allow Tarrant County to go from three Republicans, two Democrats on the commissioners court, to four Republicans, one Democrat,” KERA News reported Commissioner Matt Krause said at a public hearing last month.
The mayors of Tarrant County’s 10 largest cities are opposed to the plan. The top officials from Fort Worth, Arlington, Grand Prairie, South Lake and others have signed a letter asking the court to wait until the 2030 census to consider redistricting plans, KERA News reported.
But O’Hare says he won’t wait, that he’s following through on a campaign promise. “This is something that I campaigned on dating back to 2021 — that this would be the time where we would look at redistricting,” he told CBS News Texas.
“I think two months has been plenty of time,” O’Hare said. “If you don’t want it to change, I understand why you say that. But people have had plenty of opportunity to weigh in, look at it, become aware and participate. And we’ve had hundreds of people submit emails, comments, show up in person. I think the word is out.”
A post by an opponent on the social media platform Reddit summed it up this way: “If we move all the black people to this weird-shaped blob thing, they’ll stop electing democrats.”
Democratic Commissioner Alissa Simmons of Precinct 2 would have a tough time winning re-election if the plan goes through because it impacts her district.
“This is not just a minority issue, it’s a community issue,” Simmons told the news outlet The Short Horn. “It’s an attack on our values, on good governance and on the wallets of hardworking families across our county.”
State Rep. Chris Turner says the redistricting map is illegal, that it violates the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
“A mid-decade redistricting is a completely unnecessary, foolish endeavor that will undoubtedly expose Tarrant County taxpayers to costly litigation,” he said.
