An unusual mid-decade redistricting that McLennan County commissioners quietly approved this past week appears to transfer thousands of Republican voters to the historically Democrat-friendly Precinct 2 of the Commissioners Court.
Precinct 2 was drawn in the 1980s as a majority-minority precinct that includes much of inner-city Waco and has been a Democratic stronghold for most of the time since.
The commissioner seat was held by Black Democrats from 1990 until November 2024, when Republican D.L. Wilson narrowly defeated Democrat Jeremy Davis in a special election. That left the court with five Republicans, including four commissioners and County Judge Scott Felton.
Davis says he still plans to challenge Wilson in the November 2026 general election, but it appears he will now face much steeper odds.
The decision to pursue mid-decade redistricting, announced on the county’s website Oct. 7, may be a first for McLennan County. The last redistricting was in 2021, following the 2020 census.
The county website says the latest redistricting is based on the need to balance road work and population growth evenly across the county’s four precincts.
Elected commissioners oversee road and bridge maintenance operations in their precincts in addition to voting on general county business.
“The Court’s goal is to ensure that McLennan County’s precinct structure remains equitable, effective, and responsive to the county’s growth and administrative needs,” the redistricting notice states.
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In their two meetings this month on redistricting, McLennan County commissioners made no mention of how redistricting might dilute minority representation or affect future elections.
“The issue has been imbalance in road miles, population, which affects the budget,” Felton said during the commissioners’ Oct. 21 meeting, shortly before approving the new map.
“This move really balances out the county and will give one-man-one-vote a more equal chance in the community.”
The Waco Bridge was unable Friday to reach Felton, Wilson or commissioners Ben Perry or Will Jones for comment.
Precinct 1 Commissioner Jim Smith, a Republican, told The Waco Bridge on Friday that his motives were practical, not political.
“We’ve had a lot of growth in the county and it’s not all been distributed equally across the precincts, so we’ve got some precincts representing north of 40,000 (people) and another representing 20,000 or so,” he said.
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Hays, the Democratic chair, said he took some responsibility for not noticing the redistricting agenda sooner, but added that county officials usually made “an overt effort to make sure that we, our party, and the Republican Party and the public, were able to know that these things (are) happening.”
“None of that happened this time,” Hays said. “So (redistricting) was done kind of quietly in such a way that the public would not find out about it until after it had already happened.”
Hays said a legal challenge to the redistricting is not off the table, while Davis, the Precinct 2 challenger, felt the lack of community consultation underscored the need for new faces on the court.
“I think (this is) why we need leadership on the commissioners court who are knowledgeable of the precincts and who are thoughtful when making major decisions like this, and who also include the community,” Davis said.
There’s more in the story about the history of that precinct and the changes that were made to it, so read the whole thing. I know little about McLennan County and knew nothing about any of this before reading the story, but I do know self-serving baloney when I see it. The Republicans had a 4-1 advantage on the Court before narrowly winning a special election last November, which means they’ll have a 5-0 Court through the end of next year. They can do anything they want with that margin, which includes building or planning to build whatever roads and bridges they think they need wherever they’re needed. None of that is dependent on the political boundaries of their precincts. Redistricting, certainly the kind that is being done these days, is about partisanship and power. The least these guys could do is own that.
So add McLennan to the list that includes Tarrant and Fort Bend. I don’t know how many other counties out there might try this – at this point, I would assume anyplace where it could be done it will at least be considered. Unless some kind of legislation passes to ban or at least discourage this – a new Voting Rights Act that restores preclearance would be one way to do that – I won’t be surprised if this becomes a regular occurrence pretty much everywhere. What’s to stop it from happening after every election, if a county – or the Lege, here or in any other state – sees an advantage in it? The seal has been broken. No one is going to turn back voluntarily.