Democratic politicians and some community members called Tarrant County’s redistricting process a racist power-grab by Republicans at a public hearing on Saturday — while Republicans defended the process as legal, necessary and long overdue.
In April, Tarrant County Republican commissioners outvoted Democrats 3-2 to start the redistricting process, hiring a conservative law firm to redraw the lines of the four commissioners court precincts. Each Tarrant County commissioner represents one geographic precinct, except for the county judge, who represents the whole county.
Local Democrats are up in arms, accusing Republicans of trying to draw Democratic County Commissioner Alisa Simmons out of her seat before she’s up for reelection next year. All five proposed maps would largely reshape the Democratic-led Precincts 1 and 2, making Simmons’ Precinct 2 more conservative, according to data shared by the county.
More than 150 people packed a meeting room at the Tarrant County Subcourthouse in Arlington on Saturday for the third of four public hearings about redistricting. Plenty of supporters and opponents — including current and former elected officials — took the microphone.
Congressman Marc Veasey, D-Fort Worth, said the proposed maps violate the Voting Rights Act, which bans discrimination in mapmaking. The proposals shave areas with larger Black populations out of Precinct 2 and put them in Precinct 1, maps compiled from 2020 Census data show.
“What is happening right now, I think it’s wrong, I think it’s racist, and I think that it’s completely unnecessary,” Veasey said.
Critics of the maps say Republicans are trying to pack people of color into Precinct 1, diluting their voting power in other precincts.
Republicans at Saturday’s meeting denied that redistricting has to do with race, including former Precinct 2 commissioner Andy Nguyen. Nguyen held the seat until he lost to Democrat Devan Allen in 2018.
“The assumption that all minorities support one party over the other is false. I know many Blacks, Hispanics, Asians who regularly support conservative policies,” he said. “To me, this isn’t about race. It’s about equal and fair political representation.”
Republicans argue that a redrawn map is overdue. Usually, redistricting happens after the U.S. Census every 10 years. After the 2020 Census, a previous set of commissioners voted to keep the map the same because the precincts were in balance by population.
The law firm that led Tarrant County’s last redistricting process found that in 2020, the precincts had an overall population deviation of about 2%.
Still, several redistricting supporters said Tarrant County’s population boom means the precincts are out of balance and must be changed.
Lucila Seri, a Republican, said she can’t support redistricting because of the data. The proposed maps seem to use 2020 Census data, which doesn’t reflect the new population growth that redistricting supporters say they’re worried about, she said.
“Are we sure we’re not making things worse by redistricting?” Seri said.
Vanessa Nunn, another speaker who attended the hearing, said Republicans’ partisan efforts are obvious.
“We know what they are doing, and they know we know, and don’t care,” she said.
State Rep. Tony Tinderholt, R-Arlington, said the map needs to be changed to reflect Republican voting power.
"I think it’s important for the county to be represented. Trump won this county, and he won it overwhelmingly, and I think that the county should be represented that way,” Tinderholt said.
Political watchers look at Tarrant County as a "mini battleground state.”
President Donald Trump won Tarrant County in 2024 with 52% of the vote, according to official election results, but Biden narrowly beat him in 2020. Biden was the first Democrat to win Tarrant County’s presidential vote since Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1960s.
Republican Senator Ted Cruz has won reelection statewide but lost Tarrant County in both of his last races, in 2024 and in 2018.
Tarrant County GOP Chair Bo French wants to prevent that from happening again, he said in a statement to CBS News Texas.
"My promise to my constituents is to make Tarrant County more red. There is a lot that goes into that, but one important step is to redraw the Commissioner Precinct lines,” he said.
The commissioners court already has a Republican majority, and all countywide offices are held by Republicans.
On Tuesday, Arlington Mayor Jim Ross directed his staff to study whether this redistricting process is legal. He expects the results early next week, he told the crowd Saturday.
“All of these processes have to abide by the law, and they have to be transparent regarding the intent,” he said. “If they are not, it’s bull [expletive].”
State Rep. Chris Turner, D-Grand Prairie, criticized Tarrant County's mapmaking process as opaque. When state legislators redistrict, they hold public hearings before drawing any maps, which Tarrant County did not do, he said.
State legislators also have access to data about each proposed map, Turner said.
“We could see, what is the racial makeup of this proposed district? How many residents, Texans, are being shifted from one district to another district? What is the population deviation between districts, and how does it impact school districts and cities and counties?” he said. “There is none of that, apparently, with this Tarrant County map.”
The county’s redistricting website shows the proposed maps, population data for the proposed precincts, and the Democrat vs. Republican voter breakdowns from recent state and national races.
Representatives from the Public Interest Legal Foundation, the law firm hired to run the redistricting process, have declined to speak to reporters at the last two public hearings.
Former State Rep. Joseph Nixon, now an attorney with the Public Interest Legal Foundation, was supposed to attend the meeting, Simmons said. She shared a printed-out email, apparently from Nixon, where he said he planned to attend but would not speak or answer questions.
Democratic officials noted and criticized Nixon's absence at the meeting. KERA News reached out to Nixon to ask about his attendance and whether PILF will answer the public’s questions at some point during the redistricting process.
There is a briefing about redistricting on the agenda for Tuesday’s Tarrant County Commissioners Court meeting. A vote on the new proposed maps is expected June 3, according to Simmons.
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