Redrawing Tarrant political maps will hurt minority voters, no matter what GOP says | Opinion

Redistricting is always political. And politics is a combat sport.

So, it’s not surprising that Republican Tarrant County commissioners are making a naked political argument for their plan to redraw precincts. They want to create another Republican seat to solidify their control of county government, and they’re proud of it.

Even a rough-and-tumble game such as politics must have a sense of fair play, though. And that’s where the brazen GOP effort, set for a June 3 vote, is unacceptable.

There are two significant problems. The most serious is that the maps Republicans favor will dilute the voting power of two minority groups, Black and Hispanic residents.

GOP commissioners have said that they have no discriminatory intent, that they haven’t even considered race in deciding how to redraw maps. They’re leaning heavily into a Supreme Court ruling that partisan gerrymandering is constitutionally allowed, whereas plans that deliberately target minority communities are not.

It’s clear, though, that whatever the intention, Black and Hispanic voting power would be diminished. The Republicans’ preferred plan cuts up Mansfield and segments of Arlington in ways that put more of these constituents, who vote heavily Democratic, into Commissioner Roderick Miles’ precinct, drawing them from Commissioner Alisa Simmons’ area.

With those two Democrats, the Commissioners Court is split 2-2. The almost inevitable result of the new map would be three Republican commissioners and one Democrat. The county judge, who presides over the court, is elected county-wide, and Republicans have held that position for decades.

Republicans Manny Ramirez and Matt Krause have said they are considering only partisan politics and haven’t looked at racial impact. If they think that bulletproofs the case, they are mistaken. At a minimum, the maps could be tied up in expensive litigation for years.

Of course, Republicans could win in court. And if the maps are in use for the next couple election cycles while civil suits drag on, that’s at least a partial victory.

When it comes to race and politics, ignorance doesn’t justify a wrong-headed decision. If Ramirez, Krause and County Judge Tim O’Hare truly haven’t considered the impact of their plans, they should.

There’s also the brute-force nature of the plan. Changing districts in the middle of the decade is abusive of the process. Hiring an outside legal firm to craft maps is wasteful. And opening up the county to expensive lawsuits violates the fiscal conservatism the Republicans say they’re trying to protect.

One argument is that because the Commissioners Court largely left precincts the same in 2020, this mid-decade effort is necessary to balance districts. But it would be based on outdated data. If accurate division of the population is the goal, why not wait until the 2030 Census is complete?

Republicans have another option, too: Win an election in Precinct 2. They did so for decades, until 2018 and 2022. But the precinct is not impossibly Democratic. With a better candidate and smarter tactics, the GOP could flip it back. The county party could contribute resources toward winning, too, if its leaders weren’t so busy forming a circular firing squad against legislators who dare to vote as they, not the extremists in control of the party, think they should.

Republicans like to brag — rightly so — that the party under Donald Trump is drawing more Black and Hispanic voters, especially men and the working class. Republicans were about 4,100 votes short of victory in Precinct 2. Rather than shoveling minority voters into a packed Democratic precinct, they should work to win more over. Frankly, that’s what Trump would do.

It’s hard work, however, and requires a sustained effort. It’s so much easier to just alter the game board. We fully expect that’s how commissioners will vote June 3. But it’s unnecessarily divisive and wrong.