Redistricting, affordability and immigration enforcement were among the topics covered during an election forum highlighting local Republican primary candidates.
The Fort Worth Report, alongside fellow nonprofit and nonpartisan organizations SteerFW and the League of Women Voters, hosted a sparsely attended candidate forum on Feb. 11 that included Republican candidates for Tarrant County Commissioners Court and the Texas House.
The March 3 primary will decide which Republican and Democratic candidates will advance to the general election in November.
Texas has open primaries, meaning voters can choose to participate in either the Republican or Democratic primary. In November, people may vote for either party’s candidate, regardless of which primary they voted in.
The Report’s forum for local Democratic candidates will take place at 5:30 p.m. Feb. 12 in Texas Wesleyan University’s Baker Building.
Texas House District 91, House District 98 and Tarrant County Commissioners Court Precinct 2
The first panel included candidates for Texas House including Kyle Morris (District 91) and Zdenka "Zee" Wilcox (District 98). Lucila Seri, who is seeking to represent Precinct 2 on the Tarrant County Commissioners Court was also on the panel. Other candidates from the races were invited but did not attend.
Redistricting efforts at the state and local level was not viewed in a positive light by the candidates.
Seri, who currently serves as a Tarrant County precinct chair, said she may have been the only Republican at the county’s redistricting public hearings who spoke against the efforts.
Population data trends didn’t justify a change in the district maps, which impacts her directly as a candidate for the commissioners court, she said.
“If I'm in office, and I'm there by 2030, I will probably push to take it back or do something better,” Seri said.
Wilcox said she hadn’t heard anyone from the public speak positively of the efforts.
Morris, a business owner, did not directly take a stance on redistricting but noted it was important to represent all constituents as a public official.
Concerning immigration, all three indicated they supported legal methods of entering the United States and touted the importance of shutting down illegal immigration.
“We are a nation of immigrants. We truly are,” Morris said. “However, we are also a nation of laws, and you do have to abide by our laws.”
Both Seri and Wilcox mentioned that it was unfair for legal immigrants like themselves to have gone through the proper channels while others forgo the long process.
“Maybe the process needs to be streamlined if we need more people in certain industries, but it's not okay to allow people to come down from the border,” Seri said.
In reference to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the candidates noted the value of state and local authorities collaborating with federal officers.
“We can’t just pick and choose. We either want to work with the federal government or we don't want to work with the federal government,” said Wilcox, who previously served on Carroll ISD’s board. Making it harder for such collaboration “only puts a lot of people in danger in unnecessary conflicts.”
The candidates indicated the value of bipartisan engagement.
For Morris, efforts to promote safety and security “rises above politics.”
“Anyone that wants to work with me on keeping our families safe and keeping our community safe, I'll work with them,” he said.
For Wilcox, the issues that affect everyday citizens don’t recognize a partisan divide.
“We have to feel safe, and we have to feel that financial security,” she said. “But right now, I haven't really seen any of it. I think that should be the focus — on how ordinary people struggle (in) daily life.
Texas House District 94
House District 94 candidates Cheryl Bean and Michael Ingraham participated in the second half of the forum. Other candidates from the race were invited but unable to attend.
They also discussed how immigration impacts North Texas.
Bean said immigration has shifted her work in construction by impacting the industry’s workforce.
“What we experienced in the last four years is an overrun, and a political decision to do what we've done,” Bean said, referring to federal policies and actions that allowed for an influx of immigrants.
Bean did recognize the importance of making legal immigration easier.
Ingraham noted the choices made by immigration enforcement currently are making the lives of legal immigrants more difficult.
“Whatever it is we're doing right now is making people feel alienated and not wanted in this country,” he said. “And maybe that's the purpose, but the country I believe in, that's not how we operate.”
However, he framed the importance of not interfering with ICE enforcement.
“I would say to those people when I’m in office, ‘You need to sit down and calm down before you get thrown down,’” he said.
Addressing Taylor Rehmet’s victory in Senate District 9 — the Democrat flipped a long-held GOP seat in a special election — the two stressed that division within the Republican Party allowed him to get a leg up.
Bean noted the importance of not letting the differences of opinion within the GOP supersede the similarities.
“We as citizens need to start talking to one another and finding those areas of commonality,” she said. “And I think there are a lot. Let's build on those.”
Ingraham, who’s worked for 26 years in the banking and mortgage industry, agreed, adding that the obsession within the party with labels such as RINO — shorthand for Republican In Name Only — or MAGA pushes that divide further.
“I want to unify. I want to bring everybody under one umbrella,” he said.
The candidates had mixed views of Tony Tinderholt’s time in the Texas House. He represented District 94 before deciding to run for Tarrant County Commissioners Court Precinct 2.
They praised his savvy ability to employ “soft power,” or using your influence on others behind the scenes, in Austin to get work done in the Legislature without loosening his morals.
“There's been a softening of the ways, partly because of his negotiation skills, but nonetheless, he kind of had this pattern of, ‘I'm going to be more the obstructor’ (rather) than ‘I'm going to be the work-it-together and build-consensus kind of guy,’” Bean said.
They both criticized Tinderholt’s connection with constituents, which they said slacked off toward the end of his tenure. Tinderholt was invited to participate in the form as a commissioners court candidate but did not attend.
“I don’t think your representative should be someone you have to search out on the internet. I think you should probably know who they are,” Ingraham said, alluding to difficulties in reaching elected officials.
Ismael M. Belkoura is the health reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at ismael.belkoura@fortworthreport.org.
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This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
