Fort Worth, which is on the cusp of being one of the 10 largest cities in the nation, is also the state’s biggest city without a resident serving in the 31-member Texas Senate.
As early voting starts in a special election to replace former Tarrant County Sen. Kelly Hancock, the prospect of erasing that distinction appears uncertain at best with only one of three candidates a resident of the city.
It’s been a decade since Wendy Davis, a former Fort Worth City Council member, served in the Senate. Beverly Powell was largely identified as being from Burleson, where she previously served on the school board. She lived in an unincorporated part of Fort Worth during her time in the Senate, which ended in 2023.
The absence of a Fort Worth resident in the Senate has been a source of at least behind-the-scenes grousing among some business leaders and policymakers across the city, political insiders say. A resident of Panther City could understand its history and growth, offering that nuanced perspective when policy comes forward.
“It was a concern when I was mayor,” said Betsy Price, who oversaw the city from 2011-21. “I hear it mentioned repeatedly, particularly among some of the downtown crowd and other business leaders.”
However, Price and others note that Fort Worth has long had elected leaders looking out for the city’s interests no matter their home addresses.
“We’ve had public servants who were big enough to serve the whole area,” she said.
Hancock, a Republican who held the Senate District 9 seat before resigning this year to become acting Texas comptroller, is from nearby North Richland Hills. Sen. Phil King, who represents part of Fort Worth in the neighboring multicounty Senate District 10, lives in Weatherford though the GOP senator has Cowtown roots and was a former Fort Worth policeman.
The senate seat is on the Nov. 5 ballot for a special election to fill the remainder of Hancock’s term, coinciding with other local races and an election to decide 17 proposed constitutional amendments. Early voting has started and runs until Oct. 31.
District 9 includes downtown Fort Worth and more than 500,000 of the city’s residents, according to state data. It also includes all or parts of Azle, White Settlement, Bedford, Benbrook, Keller, North Richland Hills, Southlake, Lake Worth and Westlake as well as a slice of Arlington.
The only Fort Worth candidate in the race — Democrat Taylor Rehmet — is considered an underdog in the Republican-dominated district. Political odds-makers favor either of the two GOP candidates, John Huffman or Leigh Wambsganss, who are both from Southlake.
The contenders acknowledge Fort Worth’s stature as one of the nation’s fastest-growing cities while pledging to represent all the communities in the district, many of which are also experiencing growth spurts.
Rehmet said his core goal is ensuring every community in Senate District 9 has a seat at the table. “I do live in Fort Worth near downtown, but I’ll represent every Texan in this district, from Southlake, Haltom City, Bedford to Fort Worth. What unites us is far greater than our ZIP codes.”
Fort Worth is critically important to both the district and the state at large, Huffman said. “I want to make sure I’m representing the interests of all SD 9 but … making sure that the great things that Fort Worth has going for it continues in the future.”
Wambsganss, noting that her husband is a Fort Worth attorney who offices downtown, also pledges a districtwide reach that will encompass Fort Worth and more than two dozen other cities. She said, “Fort Worth is really important to Tarrant County. Tarrant County is really important to the state.”
While Fort Worth civic, business and political leaders tout King, Hancock and other senators with pieces of Tarrant County for representing the city’s interests in Austin, some at least privately lament the absence of a Fort Worth-based state senator.
“A city of this size should have its own state senator from the city,” Fort Worth lawyer Dee Kelly Jr. said.
Years of Republican-led redistricting, coinciding with surging population growth, have continually transformed legislative representation in North Texas as well as the rest of the state.
Pete Geren, president of the Sid W. Richardson Foundation who represented Fort Worth in Congress as a Democrat, said redistricting has had the effect of carving up Fort Worth representation, leaving the city without its own Senate seat.
“We don’t really occupy enough of any Senate seat, and we’ve sat back and let that happen with redistricting,” he said. “Residency really doesn’t matter as much as the percentage of the Senate district that the city occupies, and are we that person’s highest priority.”
Five state senators, four Republicans and a Democrat, represent pieces of Tarrant County, though only two have a double-digit percentage of Fort Worth — 55% of District 9 and 41% of District 10.
“It’s really absurd that the largest city in that Senate district doesn’t have a resident representative,” said Davis, a Democrat who served as District 10 state senator from 2009 until 2015.
District 10 seat was one alternately occupied by Democrats and Republicans before it was transformed into a heavily rural, multicounty district under a redistricting plan enacted by the 2021 Legislature.
That redistricting of District 10 remains under scrutiny in an ongoing federal trial in El Paso after plaintiffs, including the former senator Powell, alleged violations of the Voting Rights Acts on the grounds that the lawmakers ignored surging Latino population growth and sharply diluted the electoral power of Blacks and Hispanics in that adopted map. The El Paso judicial panel is also reviewing this year’s Texas congressional redistricting.
Powell, who represented District 10 in the senate from 2019 from 2023, did not seek reelection after 2021’s redistricting efforts. She now lives on the west side of Fort Worth.
“A city of our size and socio-diversity deserves to have representation by a Fort Worthian,” she said.
Winning the city was important in securing a senate seat for District 10, said Matt Angle, founder and director of the Democratic-aligned Lone Star Project and a longtime political strategist.
“You had to campaign, and you had to win Fort Worth in order to get elected,” he said. “The way they’ve drawn these districts, Fort Worth doesn’t really matter.”
The 2021 Texas redistricting diluted the city’s influence for that race while strengthening the Republican hold in nearby District 9, Angle said. Hancock served in the Senate from 2013 until being appointed in June to replace outgoing comptroller Glenn Hegar.
Area leaders have heard concerns that the absence of a Fort Worth resident in the chamber means that the city may wind up represented by someone with a single-issue focus rather than interested in the region as a whole.
Council member Michael Crain, a Republican, said Fort Worth is assured of strong support in the Senate.
“Whoever is representing Fort Worth, whether they’re from Fort Worth, we’ve always had a good working relationship with them and that’s where we will turn to make sure the priorities for Fort Worth are heard and addressed in Austin,” Crain said.
Hancock and King, who were both House members before becoming senators, have been considered Fort Worth’s leading go-to Senate members, local officials say. Hancock, a Fort Worth native, maintained his local Senate office in the downtown Fort Worth Club and worked closely with the city leadership.
King began serving in the Legislature as a House member in 1999 before winning the Senate seat for District 10, which stretches close to Abilene.
King grew up in Fort Worth “from the time I was a toddler,” attended Fort Worth schools and was in the city’s police department for 15 years, ultimately serving as a Captain and East Division commander. He’s been vocal at the Capitol about various Fort Worth concerns, particularly on education as the school district faces a potential state takeover.
Texas’ three largest cities — Houston, Dallas and San Antonio — all field at least one resident in the upper chamber. Houston lists five, two Republicans and three Democrats, as Senate representatives of the state’s biggest city, though not all the members live within the city limits.
Houston’s Sen. Carol Alvarado, who served on that city’s council before the Legislature, said residency in the district is very important because “you’re closer to the people.”
“It’s nice because you see your constituents when you go to places in the district,” she said. “You go to the grocery store, you see your constituents. You eat lunch or dinner at local restaurants, you see your constituents. And a lot of times, they’ve got things on their mind they want to unload.”
The lifelong Houston resident said she has relationships with constituents that date back to her school days, which deepen her feel for an issue.
“You know people that will be impacted and, hopefully, that has some weight on your decision,” she said.
Dave Montgomery is an Austin-based freelance reporter for the Fort Worth Report.
The Fort Worth Report’s Texas legislative coverage is supported by Kelly Hart.
Disclosure: The Sid W. Richardson Foundation is a financial supporter of the Fort Worth Report. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
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