Win or lose, Fort Worth City Council candidate’s redemption story is worth your time
In a crowded election, City Council candidates don’t often get a solo story in the paper — unless the news is bad.
And there isn’t news much worse than being declared ineligible to run three days before early voting starts.
When I first spoke to Erik Richerson, a candidate in Fort Worth’s District 9, just after the city secretary declared he could not run, he was undeterred.
More than a decade after completing a prison sentence of more than seven years for a crime committed in 1999, when he was 17, Richerson insisted that his “full civil rights had been restored.” He could vote, serve on a jury and even run for office in Everett, Washington, before moving to Fort Worth.
He would prove his eligibility and once again secure his eligibility.
It turns out that he wasn’t just bloviating.
On April 27, 11 days after being informed of his ineligibility, the city confirmed it received documentation from a Washington court confirming that his race was back on. Just in time for the end of early voting.
No doubt, local politicking played a role in Richerson’s ordeal. The District 9 race has had more than its share of drama, back-stabbing and nastiness, and knocking a fellow candidate out of a large field could only help.
But Richerson’s case also isn’t novel because the Texas law that pertains to a felon’s ability to seek public office is frustratingly obscure.
Section 141 of the Texas Election Code states that an eligible candidate must “have not been finally convicted of a felony from which the person has not been pardoned or otherwise released from the resulting disabilities.”
That last bit about “resulting disabilities” has been interpreted differently by various jurisdictions, allowing some candidates to run and disqualifying others.
And because municipalities don’t necessarily check criminal records, convictions often come to light only when an opponent highlights them.
Candidates should be transparent about anything in their past that might affect their eligibility to run for office. But the law also needs clarifying, especially as the number of local cases in which eligibility has become an issue — including the race for Arlington mayor — has rapidly grown.
House Bill 1316, currently under consideration, would make it so that if a person can vote, they can also seek public office. It’s a more generous proposal than a 2019 bill that would have allowed only pardoned felons to run.
But all felonies are not equal. A drunken robbery by a 17-year-old is not the same thing as a sex crime committed by an adult against a child. Laws generally aren’t written to account for idiosyncrasies, but as the Legislature looks to amend the code, the circumstances of the crime should matter.
Of course, candidate transparency matters, too.
Richerson says he has never run from his past. (It’s worth noting that he mentioned his conviction in his response to the Star-Telegram Voter Guide.)
“Many people along the way know my story,” he told me, “but I don’t always lead with that.”
Still, his story is worth telling.
It begins with a broken home — a child with potential as a high school athlete who got caught up with the wrong crowd, sought refuge in drugs and alcohol, was in and out of juvenile hall, and was tried as an adult for an armed robbery at 17. But it ends with a committed marriage, a successful small business and a run for City Council.
Richerson credits a gracious God and a devoted father (who sent him more than 1,000 letters while he was in prison), both of whom inspired him to learn from his misdeeds and come to “live righteously”.
Richerson’s candidacy is unique for other reasons, too.
He is Black, unabashedly Christian, conservative and running in what is perhaps the most progressive district in the city, making many of its intersectionality-obsessed residents’ heads explode.
And just as Richerson embraces his past, he recognizes that being a person of color in a racially charged era, and in a community where the “ghosts of the past” still live among us, his role — whether as a council member or community leader — must be that of a unifier.
“I’m excited to come to the table and talk about how we can heal our land and come together again,” he said.
Yes, he’s a long-shot in a crowded field of more experienced candidates.
And while you may disagree with his politics or question his qualifications, Richerson’s story of perseverance and redemption is the kind that needs to be part of Fort Worth’s future.
