A candidate for the Tarrant Appraisal District board alleges County Judge Tim O’Hare tried to pressure him into dropping out of the race.
Colleyville City Council member Chuck Kelley, who is running for Place 3, said O’Hare first counseled him to not run against Callie Rigney, another Colleyville council member running for Place 2. O’Hare, who has since endorsed Rigney, did not respond to questions about Kelley’s allegations but offered a statement about his involvement in the race generally.
Kelley said O’Hare told him having two Colleyville residents running might draw too much attention to the race and result in more candidate filings.
“That seems counterintuitive to the idea of free and fair elections,” Kelley said.
Ultimately, Kelley opted to run in Place 3. After filing with O’Hare’s office, he said he received two phone calls from the county judge — one immediately after filing, and another several days later. Phone records reviewed by the Fort Worth Report show two calls from O’Hare’s cell phone, on Feb. 1 and Feb. 5, to Kelley’s phone.
Kelley alleged O’Hare suggested he run for another place or drop out and that, if he didn’t, it could get ugly.
“I went home and I thought about it some more and said, ‘You know what? I don’t like it when people put their thumb on the scale,’” Kelley said.
Thanks to legislation passed during the 2023 session, this is the first time in state history that voters can elect people to the appraisal board. Traditionally, board members have been elected by the taxing entities such as Tarrant County or Fort Worth ISD.
Reforming the Tarrant Appraisal District following a series of scandals, including a ransomware attack and inflammatory comments from the district’s IT executive, has become a rallying cry for Republican elected officials and candidates alike.
Though the appraisal board positions are nonpartisan, seven of the eight candidates who have filed to run identify as Republicans. The legislation enabling the elections specified county judges such as O’Hare, who run on political platforms, are responsible for receiving and filing candidate applications.
Brandon Rottinghaus, a University of Houston political science professor, said placing that responsibility in the hands of a county judge is an unusual structure, and there’s nothing similar in Texas government. City election filings are generally accepted by city secretaries or clerks.
“It has the potential to return to the old party boss system in the counties, where every county had the political, important player that was the person who ran the county,” Rottinghaus said. “So that bossism is a throwback to Texas politics of old, and this role potentially has a conflict here.”
Kelley is the only candidate who said he has been contacted directly by O’Hare and asked to bow out. But several others interviewed by the Fort Worth Report took issue with the county judge’s decision to endorse in the appraisal district races. O’Hare endorsed Eric Morris for Place 1, Rigney for Place 2, and Matt Bryant for Place 3.
Eric Crile, who is running for Place 2, said he was disappointed that O’Hare endorsed his opponent without speaking to him to learn about his ideas for the position.
“I honestly don’t understand the politics that are coming in from that level of the county,” Crile said. “For what essentially is a position to appoint appraisal review board members, set a budget, and make sure that the district is operating according to the laws prescribed by the legislature and the Texas comptroller.”
Morris, the O’Hare-endorsed candidate for Place 1, said candidates who are criticizing O’Hare’s endorsements are only doing so because they need a way to discredit them. O’Hare is among several elected officials pushing for appraisal district reforms, Morris said, and his endorsement is a sign O’Hare trusts him to handle those issues. Morris has also netted endorsements from the Keller and Southlake mayors.
“I believe it is political rhetoric, there is no merit to that complaint,” he said of concerns about the endorsements.
It would be different, Morris said, if O’Hare was both accepting campaign filings and administering the election. The Tarrant County Elections Administration, not the county judge’s office, has been contracted to administer the election for the appraisal district.
O’Hare said in a written statement that it is common practice for elected officials to endorse candidates within their own political subdivisions. The appraisal district is independent, and not managed by his office.
“You don’t lose your 1st Amendment rights when your office is the filing authority for 30 days,” O’Hare wrote. “We’ve never seen our local media question endorsements for candidates from persons holding office within the same political subdivision. This isn’t even a subdivision the County Judge oversees. County Judges all over the state of Texas endorse in races each election cycle, and I will continue to.”
Trae Fowler, who is running for Place 1 on the board, said he disagrees with O’Hare’s decision to endorse in the race because he’s not into kingmaking, and believes endorsements don't make sense in this kind of nonpartisan race.
“This is not about endorsements, this is about fixing problems,” Fowler said.
Lowering property taxes has become a hot-button political issue in Texas over the last several years. The legislation that enabled the new positions is just one example of how lawmakers are working to fix the issue — and local politicians are also working to put their stamp on it.
Rottinghaus said given the political responsibilities of county judges, there is a clear incentive for them to try and control appraisal boards as much as possible. Whether the legislature intended this when they authorized the positions, he said, is unclear.
“But given that they imbued so much power in the county judge in this process, it’s unavoidable,” Rottinghaus said.
Emily Wolf is a government accountability reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at emily.wolf@fortworthreport.org or via Twitter.
This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.