HURST — A Republican-driven plan to redraw Tarrant County’s legislative boundaries would give the GOP a supermajority on the Commissioners Court by moving vast numbers of Black voters from one majority-minority district into another predominantly Black district.

Opponents say the plan is brazenly discriminatory and would dilute minority voting strength through the familiar but legally questionable “cracking” and “packing” of voter groups. ers say it’s partisan politics, not racism, and that Tarrant County officials should take steps to assure the county remains under conservative leadership.

The prospect that the redistricting plan is discriminatory is a concern of nine of the county’s mayors, who on Friday sent a letter to Tarrant County Commissioners to delay redistricting until after the 2030 census.

“There is significant concern that the five proposed maps are not only contrary to provisions in state law but could be subject to a legal challenge in the form of a lawsuit brought under the non-discrimination standard of Section 2 of the U.S. Voting Rights Act,” the mayors wrote.

“The instability created by such a challenge is not only detrimental for Tarrant County but for all cities of Tarrant County,” the letter added.

The clash over redistricting reflects the continuing struggle for control of Tarrant County, the largest county in the nation led by Republicans. The county, however, is an emerging battleground where Democrats have made gains.

The redistricting plan also tests the modern-day strength of the federal Voting Rights Act, which outlaws racial gerrymandering and discrimination but has lost much of its enforcement mechanism. In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court removed provisions in the Voting Rights Act that mandated federal approval up front, known as pre-clearance, of any election law changes in states with a history of discrimination.

If approved by the Commissioners Court, the Tarrant County redistricting proposal could face legal challenges that could take years to adjudicate and cost taxpayers millions of dollars. Win or lose in court, Republicans would enjoy nearly half a decade, if not more, of elections under the proposed electoral boundaries. A vote on the proposal is scheduled at the June 3 County Commissioners Court meeting.

“Prior to 2013, the districts could not go into force until Tarrant County could demonstrate that their map was not going to adversely affect the ability of represented minorities to elect their candidate of choice,” said Rice political scientist Mark Jones. “The burden of proof now falls on the plaintiffs. … Unlike before, the challenged districts go into force and remain in force until such time that the legal case is resolved.”

Democrats decry the redistricting plan put in motion by Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare. Critics include Alisa Simmons, who holds the Precinct 2 seat Democrats flipped in 2018. Under any of the five new proposals, her district would be difficult for a Democrat to hold.

Simmons said there is evidence of racial gerrymandering just looking at the proposed maps.

“Judge O’Hare wants to destroy the voting strength of minority citizens in District 2 and illegally throw the racial and political makeup of the court far out of balance,” said Simmons, who is seeking reelection in 2026. “The maps are an expression of intentional discrimination, which is still illegal under the Voting Rights Act and the U.S. Constitution.”

O’Hare, a staunchly conservative firebrand, was elected in 2022. And he’s said part of his mission is to keep Tarrant County under conservative leadership. He’s been quiet about the redistricting effort. O’Hare did not respond to a text message or telephone calls about the redistricting plan.

Matt Krause, a former Texas state representative who is now commissioner of Precinct 3, told a large crowd at his public hearing not to listen to Democrats who claim the plan is “racial gerrymandering.”

Krause said “partisan gerrymandering is constitutional.”

“That’s why you have to allege that racial component, because that’s the only way you can ever get into court to find relief, whether there’s any basis to it at all,” Krause said before presiding over the hearing in Hurst.

Krause made his goal clear.

“My purpose and intention is for a partisan purpose to increase Republican strength in Tarrant County,” he said.

Other Democrats questioned the motive behind the plan, pointing to the proposed uprooting of Black voters in Precinct 2 and their placement into Precinct 1, the heavily Black district that for a generation was the only Democratic seat on the commissioners court.

“It’s wrong, racist, and unnecessary,” said U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Fort Worth, in a text message. “Only communists keep changing rules so they can be re-elected. Not real Americans.”

Veasey, along with Fort Worth Council member Chris Nettles, Tarrant County Commissioner Roderick Miles and Simmons, are planning a news conference on the issue for 1p.m. Tuesday in front of the Tarrant County Courthouse.

Meanwhile, state Rep. Nate Schatzline, R-Fort Worth, said the proposal was about fair representation.

“This process is not racial gerrymandering. That’s a tired and dishonest narrative from the radical left,” he wrote in a statement read at Wednesday’s hearing in Hurst. “Race was not a factor in drawing these maps. What was a factor was population growth, community input and the demand for accurate representation.”

At Krause‘s Precinct 3 hearing, August Shilling, a 40-year Tarrant County resident, pointed out that Tarrant County minorities made up 57% of the county’s population.

“It stinks of partisan gerrymandering,” Shilling said. “Whether intended or not, the approximately 57% of minority residents of this county will almost assuredly be underrepresented going forward.”

Emerging battleground

Tarrant County is one of the biggest political battlegrounds in Texas, if not the country.

Republicans have a 3-2 advantage on the Commissioners Court and majorities in the delegations to the Texas House and Congress. Republicans hold all countywide seats.

Democrats have had some success, particularly at the countywide level. In the 2018 Senate race, Democrat Beto O’Rourke beat Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in Tarrant County. And in 2020, former President Joe Biden beat President Donald Trump countywide. Trump beat Biden here in 2024, but former U.S. Rep. Colin Allred won Tarrant County in his unsuccessful Senate challenge against Cruz.

While those results show there are enough Democratic voters to win the county, they also point to the strength of local GOP candidates. In 2020, Democrats targeted five Tarrant County state House Republicans as part of a statewide effort to win the Texas House. All of the targeted Republicans won.

In 2018, Democrats managed to close the gap on the Commissioners Court when Devan Allen ousted Republican incumbent Andy Nguyen. It was the first time a Democrat held the seat in 34 years. Simmons retained the seat in 2022 with a victory over Nguyen, who tried to make a comeback.

The redistricting proposal offers five options. They all would likely give the GOP a 4-1 advantage on the court. The precincts are currently split 2-2 along partisan lines, with O’Hare, a Republican, elected countywide.

The timing of the redistricting is controversial. The process typically occurs at the beginning of the decade and after census data is released. While mid-decade redistricting is rare, it’s not illegal. In 2021, county commissioners left the maps largely unchanged because there wasn’t a big population variation in the districts.

Though it has released five proposed maps, the county hasn’t provided the data used to develop those maps. County officials hired the Public Interest Legal Foundation of Virginia to develop the plan. Adam Kincaid, executive director and president of the National Republican Redistricting Trust, drew all five maps. The group is widely known for coordinating Republican redistricting efforts across the country.

Leaders of Tarrant County’s largest cities have weighed in.

Arlington Mayor Jim Ross, whose city is entirely in Simmons’ precinct, directed city lawyers to review the process. The proposal would split Arlington into pieces.

“I think it’s incumbent upon us to ensure that, if there is this type of stuff being done, that we protect the residents of Arlington from unnecessary redistricting for whatever other reasons are out there and to ensure that everything is done above board and legal,” Ross said this month during a council meeting.

The Fort Worth City Council voted 6-4 for a resolution opposing the county’s redistricting plan.

Mansfield Mayor Michael Evans told The Dallas Morning News that the plan “appears to be something that’s manufactured.” Mansfield is part of Simmons’ district and would also be split under the new plan.

“We continue to see that uber-partisan overreach,” Evans said.

Ross, Evans and Fort Worth’s Mattie Parker were among the county mayors who sent a letter to O’Hare and commissioners asking them to abandon redistricting until after 2030.

Racial or partisan gerrymandering

In 2021, Tarrant County Commissioners had a largely uneventful redistricting process, opting to leave the county’s electoral boundaries unchanged.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 400,000 people moved into Tarrant County from 2010 to 2020. From 2020 to 2024, the county’s population grew by 5.7%. Most of the growth — about three quarters — has been powered by Black, Hispanic and Asian residents. The population of white residents has dropped since 2010.

With O’Hare at the helm, Republicans are targeting Simmons for defeat. Her district is an example of the population growth and demographic shifts in the area. While she represents some of the county’s poorer communities, a large portion of her district includes middle- to upper-class minority neighborhoods, including in Arlington and Mansfield.

Simmons said “each map surgically removes minority neighborhoods from Commissioner District 2 and packs them into another district for the sole purpose of destroying their voting strength.”

In the map most preferred by Republicans, Simmons’ precinct would drop from 60% minority to 45%. The minority population of Precinct 1 would swell from 66% to 78%.

“District 2 is cracked, and District 1 is packed,” Simmons said in an email. “Minority neighborhoods in the far eastern part of Tarrant County are being attached to predominantly Anglo neighborhoods in the far western part of Tarrant County.”

Simmons said the neighborhoods don’t share a common community interest.

“The ONLY explanation for this bizarre move is the desire to eliminate the ability of minority voters in Arlington, Grand Prairie, and Mansfield to elect their candidate of choice,” Simmons wrote in an email.

County Commissioner Manny Ramirez said he sees it differently and said it was important to expand conservative leadership.

“Conservative leadership has kept taxes low, prioritized responsible spending, upheld the rule of law and maintained the quality of life that makes our county one of the most desirable places to live in Texas,” Ramirez wrote in an opinion piece in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

“At no point have racial, gender or religious demographic data played any role in this process,” he wrote. “Those characteristics do not determine someone’s ability to serve their community. Tarrant County has a long history of electing minority candidates regardless of precinct demographics.”

Some Republicans don’t like the plan.

“These maps, I don’t think that they are racially gerrymandering. It might be a bad coincidence, but they’re very politically gerrymandered,” said Lucila Seri, a Republican precinct leader in Tarrant County. “That’s not illegal. But my problem with these maps is that we and Republicans should have a little more finesse when trying to gerrymander our county.”

Seri pointed out that Simmons won her 2022 race by three percentage points, which doesn’t make her unbeatable.

“We could have done very smooth changes in that map and still accomplish the same result we want,” Seri said. “I’m for gerrymandering, but I’m not for these maps.”

Fran Rhodes, president of the conservative True Texas Project, s the Republican redistricting plan.

“This redistricting puzzle is not about race, as some who could have us believe, it’s not even really about politics,” Rhodes said at the Hurst hearing. “It’s about good governance, and good governance comes from leaders who are dedicated to conservative principles, because conservative works every time it’s tried.”

Matt Angle, director of the Lone Star Project who led redistricting efforts in the Democratic Party strongholds of Dallas and Harris counties, said Tarrant County Republicans and their map drawers “engaged in secret and designed a map that clearly and grossly cracks the critical mass of minority voters in one district and packs them into another in order to diminish their voting strength.”

“If you were creating a checklist to assure that you’re engaging in intentional racial discrimination, you would do what Tim O’Hare and the Republicans are doing right now in Tarrant County,” Angle said. “The process that they’re engaging in and the way that they’re laying it out and the map itself is as blatant a demonstration of intentional discrimination as we’ve seen in a long time.”

Angle added that Republicans could achieve their partisan goals without disenfranchising minority voters.

“You don’t have to be a demographer. You don’t have to be a data analyst,” Angle said. “You just have to have eyes and look at a shade map and see what they’ve done.”

Angle also lamented the Supreme Court decision that took away pre-clearance requirements.

“Since the Voting Rights Act was enforced in Texas in the 1970s, you have the legislature test the boundaries,” Angle said. “They would go to the most extreme position that they could and then have the Justice Department or the court slap them back. The effort every time has been to deny voting rights to the greatest extent that they could. And that’s what this map is about.”

Jones, the political scientist, said Republicans will win the fight, even if they lose.

“They have little to lose,” Jones said. “In the worst-case scenario, they’re likely to be able to enjoy the electoral benefits of those maps for at least two election cycles. In the best-case scenario, they could even win the court case and the maps stay in force until 2032.”