Fort Worth council rejects independent commission as it prepares to redraw districts
Fort Worth will move forward with guidelines for redrawing City Council districts that do not include an independent redistricting commission, despite calls from residents for a third party map.
Instead, the council appears willing to move forward with redistricting after the 2020 Census in the same way the body did a decade ago: having the council members seated next year choose the new map. That map will include two new council districts as Fort Worth adjusts to its booming population.
On Tuesday, the council voted 8-1 to adopt a resolution laying out guidelines for how the 10 districts should be drawn and establishing a timeline for the work. Residents interested in drawing maps of their own can receive training on mapping software from the city this month.
Several residents, including half of the panel tasked with making the guidelines, wanted the council to explore independent redistricting.
Fernando Florez, a member of Citizens for Independent Redistricting and the United Hispanic Council, spoke at several recent council meetings including Tuesday night when he called on the council to adopt an amendment to establish an independent redistricting commission.
Fort Worth suffers from unfair representation, Flores argued, noting the city’s large and growing Hispanic population. Poor representation has been the main cause of division in the city, he said.
“It’s at the root of the lack of trust in our municipal government, low voter turnouts and the list goes on,” he said, telling the council to adopt independent redistricting before the 2023 election.
Councilwoman Ann Zadeh, who is running for mayor, made a motion to include language that the council would consider an independent commission after this year’s election and before the next council election. That failed when none of the council colleagues offered to second the motion.
She was the lone “no” vote on approving the guidelines.
Regardless, the adoption of the guidelines does not block the council from choosing to create an independent commission some time later.
This redistricting will be historic for Fort Worth, not just because new council district lines will be drawn. The city of likely well more than 900,000 will have 10 council members (plus the mayor) for the first time.
Redrawing council districts is often controversial, which was the case when Fort Worth last remade the map in 2012. The council decided to keep eight council seats (not including the mayor), despite calls to add two seats 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.
Flores and other speakers Tuesday argued an independent redistricting commission would avoid these conflicts. With a narrated video played for the council, Byrwec Ellison argued such a commission would avoid carving up neighborhoods and the impression council districts were drawn with a political position in mind.
If the council didn’t consider independent redistricting before the 2030 Census, it would be “a slap in the face,” said Jeralynn Cox. She noted that the Race and Culture Task Force recommendations that the council approved in 2018 called for independently drawn council maps.
“Allowing maximum citizen participation in the process of drawing the line that will in large part determine who gets elected is an important part of reestablishing community faith in government,” she said.
Before the vote, Councilman Cary Moon said he didn’t believe a third party panel was needed to draw council maps that took into consideration neighborhoods or school district boundaries.
Redistricting guidelines and timeline
To help develop the guidelines, the council last year appointed an 11-person Fort Worth Redistricting Task Force to take public comment and establish guidelines for redistricting. In March the task force laid out several criteria, but on a split vote declined to make a recommendation on independent redistricting.
Lorraine Miller, chairwoman of the task force, told the City Council during a briefing in March that it wasn’t the place of the Redistricting Task Force to recommend an independent commission. Instead, she said that many task force members believed the council had specifically made it clear they weren’t interested in independent redistricting. Such a commission should be explored by a separate task force charged with looking at the city’s charter, Miller said, though she said she expected the council to take significant input from residents before choosing a new map.
“In my humble opinion it was not the duty of this task force to opine for or against (independent redistricting) even though there was strong, strong to do so,” Miller told the council in March. “Bottom line council members, I believe residents want openness and transparency. The residents have clearly expressed their desire for openness and transparency on redistricting to the task force. I urge the council to take extra steps to help residents feel a part of the process.”
Not everyone on the task force agreed, said Sal Espino, a former councilman who was one of five task force members who wanted to suggest an independent redistricting commission. At the March council briefing, Espino called independent redistricting a “best practice.” With the historic addition of two new council districts, the city ought to consider an independent, unbiased map, he said.
“Let’s not wait another 10 years for the next Census to do an IRC,” he said. “Let’s do it now.”
The resolution approved Tuesday establishes a formula for creating map proposals.
High priority criteria include creating districts that comply with applicable laws, contain similar communities of interest, have contiguous territory, create opportunities for great representation among minority groups and have roughly the same population size. Creating compact districts with identifiable geographic boundaries, whole voting precinct or census blocks was among lower priorities. Not considering an incumbent council member’s residence was also a low priority.
Though the city won’t have an independent redistricting committee, there are opportunities for independent suggestions over the next year.
Between now and September, city staff will provide software training to anyone interested in drawing their own district maps. When complete Census data is released in September, residents and an independent contractor will create and submit suggestions. Those maps can be submitted to the city between October and November.
City staff will work to combine features of the various proposed maps and present a briefing to the council in December. A month later the council will vote on an “initial map” that can be tweaked.
Several public hearings will be scheduled before April 2022, when the council is set to vote on a new map.
Councilman Carlos Flores said he anticipated significant public input.
“I don’t agree that this body cannot be trusted to make good and honest decisions,” Flores said of the council choosing new district maps. “I also agree with getting the necessary public input into this process.”
This story was originally published April 6, 2021 at 9:21 PM.
