In Tarrant County, a Grassroots Coalition Pushes Back on Christian Nationalists

Around people in recent days gathered at a Fort Worth co-working space to discuss procedures to build a more inclusive public for all of Tarrant County s residents Welcome to the one-year anniversary of the Gather Nydia Cardenas the event organizer narrated the crowd Whether it s your first time or your th time you are welcome here The monthly meetings held every third Sunday and organized by the Podcast a weekly morning show focused on local politics have become a hub for collective action to combat the influence of right-wing extremism and latest efforts by Tarrant County s three GOP commissioners to consolidate power through precinct-level redistricting On June county commissioners Matt Krause and Manny Ramirez joined fellow Republican Tim O Hare the county judge in approving one of seven proposed redistricting maps overriding strong inhabitants opposition and the dissenting votes of Democratic commissioners Roderick Miles Jr and Alisa Simmons That decision weakens minority representation into Precinct which is currently held by Simmons while packing minority groups into Miles Precinct ahead of the March primary Those elections will determine the party nominees for the county judge race and the commissioner seats in Precincts and The effort to redraw Tarrant County along partisan lines has galvanized several progressive-minded groups to organize and collaborate like never before Chris Tackett a Tarrant County activist who founded See It Name It Fight It to combat local right-wing extremism was at the up-to-date grassroots gathering and narrated the Texas Observer that county Republicans fear losing the county judge seat Flipping control of a more favorably drawn Precinct could serve as a buffer that allows Republicans to retain a majority on the Commissioners Court even if Republicans lose the top county position in the November general electoral process There are enough voters out there who can absolutely turn an poll and blow up what they are trying to do he mentioned Cardenas who has worked for over a decade as a consultant and mentor with minority-owned businesses and startups used the latest Gather meeting to announce her candidacy for Precinct commissioner It s a decision she reported the Observer that was spurred in part by the latest months-long battle to prevent gerrymandering in Tarrant County which is the top battleground county in Texas Republican incumbent Manny Ramirez won that seat in part of a conservative wave voting in Tarrant by points giving Republicans a majority on the court O Hare was also elected that year by percentage points For years she s been a key society organizer for progressive causes that have sought to push back on the influence of right-wing churches and Christian Nationalists in local politics Cardenas pointed to the Fort Worth City Council s vote in late allowing Mercy Values Church to move forward with its large trafficking-recovery shelter despite vocal neighborhood opposition as an example of the growing influence of radical Christian groups in local executive Mercy Practices s leaders have openly supported Republicans like O Hare and Krause while characterizing opponents as warlocks Neighborhood meetings including this one organized by the Podcast have galvanized Tarrant County residents in latest months Photo by Marc Arjol Rodr guez Since O Hare Krause and Ramirez took office they ve created an Elections Integrity Unit to prosecute local voter fraud cases even though a state audit exposed no evidence of widespread voting process meddling in Tarrant County The Republican commissioners just now approved funding for a new Law Enforcement Training Center at the request of Sheriff Bill Waybourn at a cost of to million despite widespread condemnation of the sheriff s handling of in-custody deaths at Tarrant County Jail Those Gather meetings have drawn together local activists like Tackett and his wife Mendi along with Tarrant Change director Alexander Montalvo and other grassroots group leaders In the spring of the group learned that the Commissioners Court was preparing to vote on hiring the Citizens Interest Legal Foundation a conservative law group from Virginia to advise on changes to district boundaries for the elections It sounded like it was just going to happen and nobody was paying attention Montalvo recalled Leading up to the April vote the grassroots activists prepared to speak at the commissioners court meeting and to attend one of four population input sessions organized by the county Since O Hare won his ballot in commenting publicly at Commissioners Court meetings has become tough and even dangerous for residents trying to exercise their First Amendment right to petition their county leaders In July both a local pastor and a former lawmaker were banned from the Commissioners Court and issued trespass warnings for expressing concerns about the alarming number of deaths occurring at Tarrant County Jail At one meeting O Hare warned the populace that emerging decorum or speaking beyond the allotted limit may end in arrest and prosecution This year alone multiple speakers have been arrested for yelling or clapping during county meetings that have been reduced from weekly to biweekly and more in recent days to monthly sessions where county budgets are approved and vendors are paid Ann Zadeh a former Fort Worth city councilmember and one of the podcast hosts narrated the Observer that she advises people to prepare one-minute speeches even though they are allowed a full three minutes under the court s own rules O Hare often cuts off speakers well before their three minutes are up she mentioned calling his approach authoritarian Tackett disclosed the setup of grassroots groups spotlighted the voices of community speakers who were opposed to the redistricting Ahead of the June vote Chris stated their effort culminated in views across Facebook Instagram TikTok and Discord When we talked to people who were showing up to the meetings whether at Commissioners Court or the precinct meetings we had people who were saying that they saw the video and requested to show up and speak he commented It became almost contagious for folks to realize their voice had power On June the day after the county Republicans passed their redrawn map five local plaintiffs filed a federal lawsuit in the Northern District of Texas challenging Tarrant County s newly adopted Commissioners Court map The complaint argues that the map violates Section of the Voting Rights Act and infringes on the th and th Amendments by diminishing the voting power of minority communities The lawsuit describes a map drawn with a clear intent stating that the redistricted map gerrymanders the County to eliminate one of the two existing majority-minority precincts and instead packs the bulk of the County s minority voters into a single precinct while cracking others across the remaining three precincts The map surgically moves minority voters from District to District while just as diligently moving Anglo voters from District to District Tarrant County s spokesperson did not respond to the Observer s request for comment O Hare has not hidden his agenda saying in one televised interview in May that he s redistricting Tarrant County to put another Republican on the Commissioners Court Period Commissioner Simmons communicated the Observer that the redistricting was a racially motivated effort to silence the voices of African Americans Hispanics and other minorities She announced it was pivotal to have the help of grassroots activists fight back locally against a national MAGA agenda He is carrying out the edict of Project at the local level she stated referring to the top-down effort by conservatives to roll back civil rights and personal freedoms It is happening right here in your own backyard This is where you have to pay attention Montalvo commented any gerrymandered map bases its protections on up-to-date voting patterns while he predicts that will see a seismic shift in turnout Tarrant County has the prospective to be the electoral contest story of the midterm voting process cycle not only in Texas but in the country he disclosed He noted that percent of voters in state Senate District which has been reliably Republican for decades lately voted for Democrat Taylor Rehmet who now heads into a runoff against Southlake right-winger Leigh Wambsganss Local Republicans Montalvo continued may have analyzed the county s demographics and voting partners but they are misguided in two key areas Human hubris and human ingenuity are two things we can t quantify he disclosed I think the hubris of this racial gerrymandering is going to come back to bite the Republicans because of the human ingenuity of what you re seeing amongst grassroots organizing The post In Tarrant County a Grassroots Coalition Pushes Back on Christian Nationalists appeared first on The Texas Observer