Arlington opposes redistricting, wants Tarrant County to wait until 2030 census
Arlington City Council passed a resolution, 8-1, Tuesday to oppose the Tarrant County redistricting efforts, urging the county to delay any decision to adopt a new map.
In April, Tarrant County Commissioners began an uncommon mid-decade redistricting process, hiring the Public Interest Legal Foundation to assist. The legal firm then subcontracted map drawer Adam Kincaid from the National Republican Redistricting Trust, an organization that coordinates “the GOP’s 50-state redistricting effort.”
Five weeks later, the commissioners court was presented with five maps that favor Republicans, according to voter trend data. The commissioners plan to vote on implementing a new map at their June 3 meeting.
The resolution urges the county to wait until there is up-to-date census data to use in redrawing the maps, or to at least elongate the redistricting process to hear the public’s feedback and conduct further analysis. It also asks the commissioners court to ensure the process abides by all the federal guidelines for redistricting.
Arlington Mayor Jim Ross told the Star-Telegram that the resolution may not have any impact but hopes the commissioners court sees the number of cities and mayors speaking out.
“I hope they listen to it and they heed the advice,” Ross said, “because I’m afraid what will end up happening is it’s going to cost taxpayers a great deal of money in litigation trying to defend an illegal process.”
Ross led a group of 10 mayors in filing a letter of opposition to the redistricting after Arlington’s legal counsel found “a whole gamut” of legal issues with the county’s process. The letter outlined the issues and requested the vote be pulled from the June 3 agenda. If the court did not, the 10 mayors promised to speak out at the meeting.
In a call with Ross, County Judge Tim O’Hare said, “We’re not pulling anything. I guess I’ll see you on June 3.”
The only vote against the resolution came from councilmember Bowie Hogg, who said as elected officials in non-partisan seats, the city council needs to stay out of the partisan fight over redistricting.
“The city’s done a really good job, led by our mayor many times, of staying out of this partisan chaos,” Hogg said. “And when we get into redistricting, it is partisan chaos, and I don’t think there’s any other way to describe it than that. We also know no matter who’s elected to any of these county commissioner seats, we have to work with them, whether they’re red, blue, independent, whatever they are.”
Three members of the public spoke at the meeting, all in favor of the resolution.
“We live in a place where we respect the rules, where we respect each other and we respect each other’s right to exist and respect each other’s right to have a voice,” Paul Hissin said. “I would love to go home and tell (my) daughter that her elected officials here stood up in one loud voice and said, ‘We are going to respect the laws. We’re not going to bow down to cronyism.’”