Attorneys acting on behalf of an expanded list of citizen plaintiffs have amended claims against MAGA County Judge Tim O’Hare and Tarrant County Texas for the adoption of a mid-decade County Commissioners Precinct map that violates the Voting Rights Act and the 14th and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
O’Hare Confirms His Racism and Intentional Discrimination
The amended brief leads with damning evidence of intentional discrimination in remarks made by MAGA Republican Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare. On the day of the vote, in comments later aired by NBC affiliate KXAS TV, O’Hare reveals that race was top-of-mind. Quoted in Paragraph 1 on Page 1 of the brief, O’Hare says:
“The policies of Democrats continue to fail Black people over and over and over, but many of them keep voting them in. It’s time for people of all races to understand the Democrats are a lost party, they are a radical party, it’s time for them to get on board with us and we’ll welcome them with open arms.”
Pointing out O’Hare’s blunt assessment of race and political behavior, the amended brief states in Paragraph 2 on Page 2:
A government official casting the deciding vote in favor of a map that reduces from two to one the number of majority-minority districts cannot have as even one iota of his purpose the fact that “many of them”—referring to Black voters— choose different candidates than he would prefer. A political subdivision cannot redraw district boundaries along racial lines because the government official casting the deciding vote thinks that “[i]t’s time for people of all races” to start agreeing with his views. And a political subdivision cannot redraw district boundaries along racial lines because “[i]t’s time for them,” i.e., Black voters and voters of “all races,” “to get on board” with his policy views.
Over 150,000 Mostly Minority Citizens Disenfranchised
The amended brief further lays out in great detail how the shifting of over 300,000 citizens between commissioner precincts results in more than 150,000 being denied the right to vote at all in the 2026 county commissioner elections and forced to wait six full years to cast a county commissioner ballot. The number of Black and Hispanic citizens disenfranchised far outnumbers Anglos. The brief reads in Paragraph 7 on Pages 3 and 4:
Map 7 also disenfranchises over 150,000 people of voting age in Tarrant County who were next entitled to vote for a commissioner candidate in the November 2026 election by moving them from an even numbered precinct to an odd-numbered precinct. These voters are denied their right to vote in the 2026 election and their right to vote is abridged by forcing them to wait six years (from 2022 until 2028) to participate in the election of commissioners, who are elected to four-year terms. This disenfranchisement falls starkly along racial lines. Black voters and Latino voters are both disproportionately disenfranchised compared to Anglo voters, who are disproportionately unaffected. While Map 7 disenfranchises just 5% of Tarrant County’s Anglo adults, it disenfranchises 19% of the County’s Black adults and 12% of its Latino adults. Black adults are thus four times more likely than Anglo adults to be disenfranchised under Map 7 and Latino adults are over twice as likely to be disenfranchised as Anglo adults
Background
The redrawn Tarrant County Commissioners’ map was challenged by Tarrant County Texas citizens last week shortly after its passage. The map was adopted despite overwhelming objections of Tarrant County citizens who were forced to endure verbal abuse from O’Hare throughout the hearing and especially during the period of public comment. O’Hare cut off citizens mid-statement, routinely kicked them out of the building for exercising their right to free speech, and he ejected one person for just clapping.
Read the entire amended brief HERE and go to the Lone Star Project’s Tarrant County redistricting page for more background.
See here for the background. I will note, the claim about some voters being disenfranchised because they were moved from a precinct that had an election in the next year to one that would have it in the following two-year cycle was raised by plaintiffs against the Harris County Commissioners Court redraw and was largely disregarded by the Supreme Court in the mandamus that was filed to stop the plan from being enacted. This claim is a little different, partly because of the racial aspect, partly because it’s an off-year redo, and partly because of the six-year gap in voting that some people would endure. (*) Whether that will make any difference in court, I couldn’t say. For a fuller look back at the history of how we got here, see the Star-Telegram.
(*) I suppose this would have been the case in Harris as well – if you’d been in Precinct 4 and voted in 2018 and expected to vote in 2022 but had to wait until 2024 because you were moved into Precinct 3, or something like that. I don’t think this particular claim was raised in Harris, though – the story about the lawsuit cited a just-turned-18 plaintiff who expected to vote for Commissioner for the first time in 2022 but had to wait instead. Kinda sorta the same but not quite. Anyway, my point is I don’t think this particular claim was adjudicated in the Harris County lawsuit, so it’s at least something new to consider.