Can Fort Worth redraw its council districts without breaking apart your neighborhood?
Lorraine Miller, a Fort Worth native and a past interim president of the NAACP, has a word to describe how her hometown has picked City Council districts in the past: elitist. “Decisions were made, and you took whatever they came up with,” she said. “Because you had no input.”
Miller, officially, has more say this year and wants to ensure that others do, too. She leads the first of its kind Fort Worth Redistricting Task Force, which will give recommendations to the City Council as it draws districts for 10 City Council seats later this year. The Redistricting Task Force has sought public input at virtual hearings this month, and the last one is scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday. (You can tune in by visiting the redistricting page at fortworthtexas.gov and you can sign up to make a public comment by emailing FWConnection@FWTexas.gov or calling 817-392-6248 before 5 p.m.).
The goal for Miller is to listen and to provide the City Council with districts that neighborhood groups and the general public believe are the best for them. Fort Worth’s districts have been criticized for being gerrymandered in a way that does not reflect the racial and ethnic makeup of the city. (Just one City Council member is Hispanic, despite Hispanic people comprising 35% of Fort Worth’s population.)
The districts spurred controversy when they were redrawn in 2012. For one thing, the city decided to keep eight council seats (not including the mayor), despite calls to increase to 10 because of Fort Worth’s tremendous growth. Some of the districts also span Loop 820, leading advocates to claim the districts “cracked” communities of color and combined them with neighborhoods that have a more suburban feel and more white residents.
“We call it the spokes of the wheel, inside 820 and outside 820,” said Peggy Hendon, the president of the League of Women Voters, Tarrant County. “There was a lot of trying to put a part of downtown Fort Worth into everyone’s district. And that ends up breaking apart neighborhoods.”
But despite local opposition the federal government approved the council’s redistricting map in an act known as preclearance. And no litigation prevented the districts from being set.
To Miller, racial representation isn’t the only problem when like-minded groups are split. She lives in the Historic Southside and notes they lack good grocery options. In an ideal system, neighborhoods with the same interests group together to push for a district where they’ll be able to elect a council person who can best meet their shared needs, whether it’s a grocery store, better health care options or more parks.
“When the residents decide what they want ... that makes a whole difference than the city deciding what you need and then imposing that on you,” Miller said.
Her task force can only offer recommendations. The City Council still makes the final decisions. This, in itself, is an issue for people who closely track the redistricting process. In 2018, the Race and Culture Task Force recommended an independent redistricting commission, which was dismissed by City Council. Other cities, notably Austin, have created independent commissions and ended up with more diverse city councils.
At a virtual public hearing Jan. 11, nearly every public commenter spoke about the need for an independent commission. Fernando Florez, a member of the United Hispanic Council, was one of them. Although he trusts Miller and the task force, he is concerned they don’t have the same powers of an independent commission. “This is not even close to that ... no matter how (City Council members) spin this thing,” he said.
Ann Zadeh, a mayoral candidate who has favored an independent redistricting commission, noticed the continued support for one from the public at least week’s hearing. She said the City Council could still conceivably vote to create an independent commission — although it would take several people to change their minds from just a couple years ago and require fast-tracking a process to vet and appoint members for a commission.
After the last public hearing, the Redistricting Task Force meets to discuss findings and will make a presentation to the City Council in March. Census numbers will be finalized in the summer, and the task force will meet with council again in August for a work session as it prepares to redraw the district lines.
How much council will actually listen remains to be seen. But Miller believes “the more sunshine we bring to this” the more likely the districts will be equitable.
This story was originally published January 21, 2021 at 6:00 AM.
