What Happened?

The Tarrant County Commissioners Court voted 3-2 on party lines on June 3, 2025, to adopt a new precinct map that gerrymanders precincts based on racial and partisan makeup, reshaping two Democratically-led areas in Texas’ third largest county. As the only precincts represented by a Democrat and Black commissioner, the new map will concentrate non-White voters into one, single district, diluting their voting power and shifting support to be more White and Republican-leaning in another. Voting rights experts say the Republican-only approved map is racially discriminatory and violates the Voting Rights Act of 1965. 

Progress Texas Board Member and Fort Worth civil rights attorney Jason Smith, who has been advising some of the Democratic players involved, said, “Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare led the racist charge to shove redistricting down the county’s throat in a move that signals MAGA’s fear that they are losing their grip on power.” He continued, this isn’t the last of similar shenanigans we’ll see from desperate Texas Republicans between now and the upcoming elections.

As Tarrant County grows to be more Democratic, the Republican members of this Court hired top GOP national operatives to carry out their gerrymandering scheme and throw fair representation out the window. The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), a prominent Washington D.C.-based anti-voting law firm, and the executive director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust, Adam Kincaid, were brought in to draw seven draft maps. Each of them packed the county’s Black and Hispanic voters into Commissioner Roderick Miles Jr.’s district to boost Republican power at the expense of non-White voters.  

What Would the New Map Do?

This approved map is designed to gerrymander, and they’ll tell you that themselves. Commissioner Matt Krause, a Republican, told constituents at a public hearing, “My entire intention is to allow Tarrant County to go from three Republicans, two Democrats on the commissioners court to four Republicans, one Democrat.”

Dr. Andrea Barreiro, a mathematics professor and researcher at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, shared with Fox 4, that a "randomly unbiased generated map based on the latest census data would have 60 to 65 percent non-White voters in each of those districts… the proposed maps do something very different… they take a lot of those non-White voters in District 2, and they pack them into District 1, leaving District 2 to be majority White."

This shift would limit voting power for voters of color to one seat, instead of the allocated two. One of the impacted Commissioners, Roderick Miles Jr., said, “Redistricting shapes the voice of the people. It defines who has a seat at the table.” For a county with a makeup including more than 50% of non-White voters (according to U.S. Census data), that seat at the table has been stolen.

At the time of this article’s release, at least one federal lawsuit has been filed on behalf of Tarrant County minority citizens, says Lone Star Project’s Matt Angle. Keep an eye out for more legal challenges on this decision—likely to be uphill, and could be replicated for other potential local-level redistricting battles brought on by PILF/Kincaid and similar operatives.

Who Spoke Up?

The approved map was only available for a week, and not previously shared at public hearings. Despite this obfuscation, more than 200 Tarrant residents signed up to speak at the meeting, and the vast majority who spoke during the three-and-a-half hour public comment were against the new maps—with several people ejected from the room by County Judge Tim O’Hare.

That silencing of Black and Hispanic voices included one of the commissioners, Alisa Simmons. County Judge Tim O’Hare and County Commissioners Matt Krause and Manny Ramirez tried to limit her speaking time after pausing the meeting to discuss whether the rules allowed them to do so. 

Other opposition has come from the mayors of ten Tarrant County cities releasing a letter against the proposed map. 

How Does the MAGA Agenda Fit in?

As the Republican Commissioners conspired to draw their own support, they also teed up MAGA State Rep. Tony Tinderholt, R-Arlington, to announce his run for the impacted Precinct 2 seat. This comes only one day after his post-sine-die announcement that he’d be retiring, stepping down from his state House post.

Michelle Davis at Lone Star Left sums it up nicely, saying “This wasn’t a coincidence. It was a coordinated political hit job, plain and simple. A rigged map. A choreographed retirement. A handoff. A handpicked replacement. All timed to disempower the voices of Black and Brown voters in Tarrant County. All orchestrated by Tim O’Hare and the extremist wing of the Republican Party.”

After the vote, Commissioner Alisa Simmons said, “No one is surprised that Tony Tinderholt announced AFTER a new map was adopted. He was terrified of a race under the current lines… it’s cowardly, it’s racist, and it’s sadly what we expect from Tim and Tony.” 

What’s Next

• Read our Twitter thread, where we reported on the story: https://x.com/ProgressTX/status/1930262122522398825
• Check out our Daily Dispatch episode which recaps the story: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3OdPmXva5dpy7EECzn09Ti?si=ah2CWpe7TeSV6omw9VOqzA
• Get involved, and join others who spoke up against racial gerrymandering in Tarrant County: bit.ly/t4cgetinvolved