“It makes me upset. Our taxes are going up so much as it is,” Maggie Martinez said.
FORT WORTH, Texas — The conservative law firm hired to redraw Tarrant County voting precincts will now defend the county’s redistricting process in court.
The commissioners voted 3-2 Tuesday to approve the up-to $250,000 contract with Public Interest Legal Foundation, a conservative law firm based in Virginia, to defend the county in court in the lawsuit over its redistricting process. The foundation’s president, J. Christian Adams, is a prominent conservative who served on President Donald Trump’s election integrity commission in 2017.
Tarrant County Commissioners initially voted to hire Public Interest Legal Foundation to redraw the county’s voting precincts in April, and the foundation drew up seven maps. The Tarrant County Commissioners approved map option 7, which creates three districts with a Republican majority, in a 3-2 vote along party lines June 3.
The next day, a group of residents filed a lawsuit, alleging the new map is racially discriminatory. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Texas, names Tarrant County, the Tarrant County Commissioners Court, and Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare. It calls on the court to stop the county from adopting the new map and to require the county to submit future redistricting plans to the court for review.
During the commissioners court meeting in Downtown Fort Worth Tuesday, county elected officials got an earful from residents.
“We already knew that they weren’t going to vote in our favor,” said Maggie Martinez, a Tarrant County resident who spoke out Tuesday during Commissioners Court.
Martinez is among several residents upset over the contract with Public Interest Legal Foundation to defend the county in the lawsuit.
“It makes me upset. Our taxes are going up so much as it is, to want to use our funds to pay for their legal counsel,” she said.
O’Hare has publicly said the redrawing of district lines is part of an effort to help Republicans secure another seat on the commissioners court.
“Tarrant County has consistently elected Republicans to judicial seats, state legislative positions and other countywide offices,” O’Hare posted in a statement after the vote on the map. “The Commissioners Court precincts will now mirror this political majority.”
“Mid-decade redistricting is nothing new in Texas. It happened back in 2003,” added Republican strategist Alfredo Rodriguez. “I believe this lawsuit is false from the claims from a legal standpoint and a precedent standpoint. I think it’s just a frivolous lawsuit for them to make haste for a decision they disagree with,”
Commissioners Alisa Simmons and Roderick Miles, though, say they oppose the contract and support the ongoing lawsuit, which claims the redistricting plan violates the Voting Rights Act.
“This is essentially hiring the arsonist to put out the fire,” Simmons said.