Cries against ‘blatant, racist power grab’ voiced at Arlington redistricting hearing
A boisterous audience overwhelmingly opposed mid-decade redistricting as elected officials and community members took their turns addressing a panel of Texas House lawmakers in Arlington.
The crowd packed an auditorium at UT-Arlington Monday night, overflowing into the foyer as attendees of a congressional redistricting hearing waited for their two minutes to speak.
No maps have been formally proposed, but the North Texans were there to weigh in during the final scheduled redistricting hearings focused on specific regions of the state. The two prior hearings were in Austin and Houston and were similarly attended.
President Donald Trump has said he’d like Texas to pick up five Republican congressional districts. Lawmakers are considering possible new congressional districts as part of a special session called by Gov. Greg Abbott.
Several hundred people signed up to testify at the committee hearing. The vast majority spoke out against the redistricting effort, with just a few speakers supporting new lines mid-decade.
Speaker after speaker, attendees decried what they described as a power grab by Trump and warned that the voices of Texans will be silenced. Some said they fully support a quorum break by state Democrats in order to block new maps.
“In Texas, the right to vote, a right paid for in blood and sweat and lives, is once again under siege,” said U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey, a Fort Worth Democrat. “Only now, the weapon is not a billy club or a literacy test, but a partisan pen wielded by those who would rig the system to preserve power rather than earn it.”
The North Texas district represented by Veasey, Congressional District 33, was among four singled out in a July 7 U.S. Department of Justice letter preceding the special session call.The letter said the Fort Worth-area district and three Houston area districts were racially gerrymandered “coalition districts,” and thus unconstitutional. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said the districts are not race-based in a July 11 response.
Veasey told the Star-Telegram he is concerned that the people who will be elected into the newly-redistricted seats will be “smiling and grinning and subservient towards Trump.” Veasey said that once Trump’s four years are over, these people would have no objection to Trump’s efforts to stay in office.
Veasey and several other Democratic elected officials testified before the panel on Monday, including Sen. Royce West of Dallas, U.S. Rep. Julie Johnson of Farmers Branch and Tarrant County Commissioners Alisa Simmons and Roderick Miles, Jr.
“This is not just unconstitutional, it’s unjust,” Miles said, when his time came to address the state lawmakers.
Ebony Turner, who founded the group Black Mansfield Moms and lives in Tarrant County, said Texans do not want or need redistricting.
“I oppose targeting Black and brown districts to accomplish Trump’s goal of gaining five new seats,” Turner said. “I oppose racial gerrymandering and any cracking or packing that will surely be the center of this effort.”
Armed with a pinata resembling Trump while waiting for his turn to speak to the committee, former State Rep. Lon Burnam said Republicans have “been cheating for a quarter of a century now in order to win elections, and this is just the most recent round of that effort.”
Mendi Tackett, an outspoken Tarrant County Democrat, called mid-decade redistricting a “blatant, racist powergrab” while addressing the panel of lawmakers.
“It undermines fair representation and rigs the rules to erase the voices of Black and brown communities in order to keep politicians who support white Christian nationalism in power,” Tackett said.
Among the most spirited moments of the night was when Chaplain Rich Stoglin, president of the Frederick Douglass Republicans of Tarrant County, spoke in favor of redistricting.
The crowd, which regularly clapped and cheered for those it supports, booed and interrupted Stoglin as he spoke.
“This is America — we hear from everyone whether they agree with them or not,” Committee Chair Cody Vasut of Angleton told attendees.
Stoglin, a Black man, told the Star-Telegram that he disapproves of the notion that all people of color are better represented by Democrats.
One of the biggest embraces from the crowd came during remarks by Frederick Douglass Haynes III, the pastor of Friendship-West Baptist Church in Dallas.
“With this particular dictate coming down from Washington D.C., our voices will not be heard,” he said.
The hearing stretched well into Monday night, ending after 11 p.m. Five hours were set aside for public testimony.
The time lapsed before some had the chance to address lawmakers in person. Around 20 attendees and a handful of Democratic lawmakers huddled outside the university building, asking questions about what’s next for the redistricting process before heading home for the the night.
Local leaders rally redistricting opponents
Ahead of the hearing, nearly a hundred North Texans gathered around a stage on the asphalt parking lot to hear from their representatives and political organizers. In 96-degree weather, the redistricting opponents gathered with signs reading “fight the Trump takeover,” “put Texas lives over party lines” and “hands off our maps.”
Precinct 2 County Commissioner Alisa Simmons said Tarrant County was the proving ground for mid-decade racial gerrymandering and now the Trump administration is going after the whole state.
“Don’t mistakenly call this a power grab, a political play. It is racism,” Simmons said. “It is diluting the voting strength of people that look like me and who are Hispanic, Asian and other so let’s organize. Let’s go over here and tell these people in this damn hearing what they need to hear.”
Rep. Chris Turner, a Grand Prairie Democrat who serves on the congressional redistricting committee, said throughout the first two hearings, not one person was in favor of redistricting. Turner said he doesn’t think the Republicans in Austin will listen but to keep making noise anyways.
“We got to make this so loud that everyone from coast to coast hears what’s happening right here in Texas, and y’all are a critical part of that,” Turner said. “So thank you all for being out here today. Let’s fight back against this discriminatory redistricting.”
Turner was one of three state lawmakers who visited California Gov. Gavin Newsom asking him to join Texas in the fight against redistricting. Another group of Democrats went to Chicago to meet with Gov. JB Pritzker to ask the same of him.
Veasey said he hopes governors of blue states will redistrict in response to the Texas redistricting.
“Look, I’m not a big fan of mid-decade redistricting at all, but I also think that if Trump is going to do this, then democratic states should do the same thing,” Veasey told the Star-Telegram.
The U.S. Rep. said Democratic leaders have to match Trump’s energy, or they will lose and consequently cede their power to the Republican Party and Trump, Veasey said.
“The next call that (Speaker Mike) Johnson needs to get, or the next call that Trump needs to get is from a MAGA member of Congress from California, Illinois, New York or New Jersey, saying, ‘Knock this ... off, or I’m next,’” Veasey said. “That’s the call that is going to get their attention.”
Set to a backdrop that read “end gerrymandering, save democracy,” other local political organizers came to the stage to lead chants, kindle anger and mobilize the crowd to speak out and vote.
Among those were former Tarrant County Democratic Party Chair Crystal Gayden, Dallas Rev. Frederick D. Haynes III and Sunrise Movement leaders Stacy Melo and Rogelio Meixueiro.
“I often tell people that it’s not just political, because for us, it was politics when they took away our rights, it was politics when they took away our land,” Meixueiro said. “It was politics every time that they put a nice, pretty building for new residents, but what happens with us? So I think this becomes a moment of clarity, one where every single Texan looks at the mirror and reflects and realizes that if you don’t fight for your own nobody’s gonna come and fight for it.”
Lawmakers have invited the Department of Justice to testify before the House and Senate committees. As of Monday, Vasut said he hadn’t received a formal reply.
“I received an out of office notification, so I know the email went through,” Vasut said to laughs from the audience.
In a July 11 letter obtained through court records, Paxton said Texas’s congressional districts are not race-based, citing a pending court challenge to the constitutionality of Texas’s state legislative and congressional maps.
Paxton said he supports Abbott calling a special session on congressional redistricting “to take advantage of recent changes to the legal and political landscape.”
There have been “substantial changes” in the law since Texas drew its congressional districts in 2021 and changes in voting patterns,” Paxton said.
The maps were drawn on a partisan basis, as allowed by law Paxton said.
“For these reasons, I welcome continued dialogue about how Texas’s electoral districts can best serve Texas voters without regard to outdated and unconstitutional racial considerations,” the letter reads. “My office stands ready to support President Trump, Governor Abbott, and the Texas Legislature in their redistricting goals and will defend any new maps passed from challenges by the radical Left.”
This story was originally published July 28, 2025 at 11:22 PM.
