Redrawing Tarrant County districts isn’t political? Give me a break | Opinion

A confession

Tarrant County Commissioner Manny R. Ramirez would do well to edit his opinions for consistency. Although he states plainly in his recent guest commentary that the process of redistricting is inevitably political, he also claims that the court’s current redistricting effort “isn’t about denying anyone representation, gaining power or stacking the deck.” That is just plain political whitewashing. (May 21, 13A, “Conservative policy has made Tarrant strong. Let’s stay on track by redistricting”)

By his own admission, this mid-census effort to redraw Tarrant County’s district lines is precisely about denying representation and stacking the deck in favor of the Republican Party.

- Caryl Sherman-Gonzalez, Fort Worth

By the people?

Republican Judge Tim O’Hare insists the justification for redrawing Tarrant County lines is to even the distribution among the precincts. In 2021, commissioners hired a law firm to redistrict, but because the decennial census showed the precincts were still in balance, they kept the same lines.

Now, faced with the likelihood that his smart, Democratic, female, Black adversary on the court will win reelection in 2026, O’Hare wants to gerrymander her precinct to dilute or even eliminate her Black and brown constituents. The method chosen to achieve his goal by using a controversial activist law firm is especially devious: to flip Precincts 1 and 2 so the candidates would be seeking election by a constituency that does not know them, and in the case of Precinct 2, no longer identifies with them.

This ploy clearly reveals Judge O’Hare’s racist intent.

- Reed Bilz, Fort Worth

Street demand

The Star-Telegram Editorial Board wrote: “1 million and growing: How to be ready for the next million in Fort Worth” (May 18, 7C) The Alliance and North Fort Worth area is booming all right: All kinds of housing projects being approved — lots of rentals, townhomes and so on. But where are the streets to support all the extra cars that are coming?

Fort Worth needs to adjust its priorities. Traffic is crazy. How many on the zoning commission who are approving these new developments actually live and drive in North Fort Worth? They need to take a drive around 7:30 in the morning and between 5:30 and 6:30 at night.

We need more lanes before more homes — please!

- Teresa Smith, Haslet

Not above

Question: Which political party repeatedly asserts the principle that no one is above the law?

Answer: Both Democrats and Republicans.

That “no one is above the law” is understood, right?

Maybe not. We have eyes, and we see that presidents have immunity from some official acts — and if you are older and sympathetic, you can be reckless with classified material without prosecution.

Yes, Virginia, some are above the law.

Dragline from “Cool Hand Luke” got it right when he said, “When it comes to the law, nothing is understood.”

- Elmo Collins, Mansfield

Need to know

There are many unanswered questions about Joe Biden’s presidency.

Members of Biden’s White House staff scripted Cabinet meetings and tried to cover up his incoherent ramblings, according to a new book co-authored by Jake Tapper.

Excerpts from “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,” by Tapper and Axios’ Alex Thompson, reveal that Biden’s inner circle hid his cognitive decline. To be clear, the mainstream media had a large hand in this sham, as did Tapper himself.

One of the primary unanswered questions is why then-Vice President Kamala Harris and the Biden Cabinet failed to exercise their constitutional authority under the 25th Amendment to ensure competent leadership for the United States. Tapper and his co-author did not broach the subject of this disgraceful inaction.

Only a few months after he left office, we are now told Biden was also physically capped, and this condition was also kept secret for many years. Experts say prostate cancer at the stage he has takes nearly a decade to develop.

Who really had the keys to the president’s signature wheel and thus exercised the powers of the presidency? Did Biden’s progressive chief of staff, Ron Klain, in essence kidnap and hold hostage the president in full view of us all?

The American public deserves answers to these, and many more, questions. Who will champion the cause?

- Bob Pavelko, Arlington