When I first saw the ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, I thought about home.

Not Washington. Not some far-off legal fight. Tarrant County. Because we are ground-zero for this redistricting scam in Texas and apparently, modern voter suppression now comes with a signed confession.

I warned that Tarrant County’s recent redistricting maps were a calculated attempt to strip representation from the communities that elected me. The plan targeted the only two commissioner precincts where majority-minority populations could elect candidates that represent their needs, wants, and values. 

MAGA County Judge Tim O’Hare hired a law firm and map drawer with a documented record of attacking voting rights, and they used that process to pack and crack Black and Hispanic neighborhoods.

And what happened when my colleagues voted to redistrict and go after my Precinct 2 seat?

A lawsuit.

Do not mistake this for normal politics. Do not call it hardball. Do not call it a simple power grab. That lets them off the hook.

They already have the power. And I am sorry to say, they will keep it unless we get more reasonable voters to the polls.

Call it what it is: racism.

This was a planned and calculated attack on the fundamental voting rights of people of color.

And to add insult to injury, the Republican Commissioners voted to close over 150 polling places in Tarrant County to make it harder for certain communities to make it to the polls.

Politicians should not be allowed to choose their voters.

An appeals court even acknowledged that nearly 10 percent of voters will be moved from 2026 to 2028 elections, disproportionately affecting minority voters. Then the court still found no intentional discrimination. 

That was our first wake-up call. 

Louisiana v. Callais was the second alarm. 

Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act was meant to protect minority voting power. The Supreme Court just weakened it by making maps harder to challenge, allowing states to claim their actions are "partisan" rather than racial. This creates a standard even harsher than the one Congress rejected in 1982. Now, instead of looking at the harm caused, the Court demands proof of current-day intent. Justice Kagan warned this change effectively "eviscerates the law."

This is a rollback of hard-won power. 

Think Reconstruction when Black men first won the right to vote. States elected thousands of Black officials and sent dozens to Congress. But after Reconstruction, white supremacists violently snuffed out that progress. They passed Jim Crow laws, purged Black voters, and splintered communities of color. The lynch mob may be gone, but the agenda lives on in the legislature and courts. Lawmakers draw the lines, judges bless them, and each step chips away at the power we fought to build.

Congressional District 33 offers a clear example. It has historically brought together Black, Latino, and other communities and once had an electorate that is 44% Hispanic, 25% Black, 23% White, and 6% Asian. The revised map reduces the Hispanic and Black shares, increases the white share, and moves much of the district out of its historic base. 

In the historic Stop Six neighborhood, for example, voters would be placed in a rural district held by Congressman Roger Williams (spoiler alert: he’s a Republican).

They call it “race-neutral.” But neutrality here is a trap. Colorblind line-drawing ignores history. It assumes everyone started at the same place. 

No. 

Jim Crow, urban renewal, mass incarceration, unequal education, all of these exacerbated the gaps we have now. Callais locks in inequality and then tells our communities to prove the obvious in court. It takes the burden off the people drawing harmful maps and puts it on the people whose power was taken.

While the Republicans want you to think this is just about numbers, it's hitting us in the streets and impacting real people. Look at Crystal Mason, a Tarrant County single mother and Black voter who thought she was doing her civic duty. In 2016, she showed up, filled out a provisional ballot, and was thrown into prison for illegal voting. She didn’t know she was still on supervised release, and for six brutal years she fought this injustice. 

Or think of the resident that called my office who attempted to vote with a U.S. passport and was wrongly turned away at the polling place. Or the former LULAC president in Dallas, a man who votes every year, who got a letter saying he was dead and had been canceled from the rolls. These are not one-offs. Texas tried a tool to flag noncitizens in the voter database, and it misidentified at least 87 legitimate voters across 29 counties.  Here in Tarrant County, our own  Elections Administrator has admitted that 214 voters received notices and verified  that they were indeed alive. Those people were suddenly told to prove their citizenship or be purged.

This is corruption, anti-democratic, and an attack on Texans. Do not let anyone tell you this is just a legal fight. It is a fight over power in our own communities. It’s about whether our neighbors’ voices count.

W.E.B. Du Bois once observed, “The slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery.” He meant we have seen glimpses of justice, only to have the promise snatched away.

Well, not this time. We have heard the warnings from history, and we are not blind. 

This decision is a modern-day Redemption, a second wave of disenfranchisement happening under the cloak of law. Under this new rulebook, our community organizing is on trial, our votes are seen as threats, and government work like mapping is suspect. 

Because the stakes are not abstract. They are about whether that brief moment in the sun becomes something lasting, or something taken away again.

The goal is always the same — keep those currently in power in control. 

They will not stop on their own. We have to stop them.

This time, in Tarrant County, we are not going back. And we are not going to let power be taken from us again.

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