Tarrant County residents have less time to speak and won\u2019t hear presentations about potential legal issues, such as in-custody jail deaths, during the commissioners court\u2019s public meetings.<\/p>\n
Commissioners voted 3-2 to approve new meeting and agenda-setting rules Feb. 10 after about two dozen residents urged them not to do so, describing the changes as an \u201cauthoritarian\u201d attempt to silence and exclude the public from government decision making.<\/p>\n
\u201cRespectfully, I don\u2019t think anybody truly believes that we\u2019re all here to do this to increase the public\u2019s access to their government or to free up their rights to speech,\u201d said Elizabeth Miller, policy director for the Republican Liberty Caucus of Texas<\/a>, a nonprofit focused on promoting individual rights and limited government.<\/p>\n During Tuesday\u2019s meeting, commissioners adopted a policy that prohibits public briefings<\/a> concerning \u201congoing law enforcement investigations, active criminal prosecutions or contemplated civil litigation.\u201d They also amended the court\u2019s rules of decorum to reduce residents\u2019 speaking time and how long commissioners spend listening to those comments.<\/p>\n Residents now will get three minutes to address the court regardless of how many agenda items they have signed up to speak on. Previously, residents could speak for up to three minutes for each item they signed up to address.<\/p>\n The rules also give County Judge Tim O\u2019Hare authority to further reduce speaking time to two minutes if 30-49 people sign up to speak at a meeting. The time shrinks to one minute if there are 50 or more speakers.<\/p>\n O\u2019Hare, who championed the changes, said \u201cmany, many citizens and multiple staff members\u201d have asked him to \u201cdo something\u201d about decorum in the commissioners\u2019 courtroom. His hope is that the courtroom becomes \u201ca place of civility and problem-solving,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we\u2019ve seen in commissioners court lately is not fair to all the people who are interested in the issues,\u201d O\u2019Hare said. \u201cThe more civility and order we have, the better this court can serve all Tarrant County residents and every person in this courtroom right now.\u201d<\/p>\n O\u2019Hare and Republican commissioners Matt Krause and Manny Ramirez approved the changes, while Democratic commissioners Roderick Miles and Alisa Simmons voted against. <\/p>\n The longer than seven-hour meeting saw commissioners repeatedly clash, marshals remove three attendees and several speakers accuse the court\u2019s GOP majority of \u201cfascism.\u201d<\/p>\n Simmons, who is seeking the Democratic nomination<\/a> in the March primary election to challenge O\u2019Hare for the county judge seat in November, said court meetings should empower residents to get information and learn about policymaking that impacts their lives. The adopted rules go against that goal, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is just a basic responsibility that we have to communicate, educate, be responsive to those who put us in this position,\u201d Simmons said.<\/p>\n Latoya Lane, a paralegal with the Texas Civil Rights Project<\/a>, urged commissioners to reject the changes, saying they \u201cseverely implicate\u201d the First Amendment, Texas free speech provisions and the Texas Open Meetings Act, which governs what elected officials must discuss publicly.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not just about the legal risk. It\u2019s about the appearance of a commissioners court that has continued to consolidate power at the expense of its own constituents,\u201d Lane said, before listing off policy changes such as the county\u2019s mid-decade redistricting effort<\/a> last year that resulted in a new precinct map intended to favor GOP candidates in Simmons\u2019 precinct.<\/p>\n The Rev. Dr. Michael Bell, of Greater St. Stephen First Church, said the new rules will incrementally erase public feedback. To him, that\u2019s a violation of the U.S. Constitution.<\/p>\n \u201cThe First Amendment doesn’t say you may speak but only briefly, occasionally and narrowly. It affirms that the people have the right to be heard,\u201d Bell said.<\/p>\n Krause reminded the audience that many of them described Tarrant’s redistricting as unconstitutional, noting that both state and federal courts sided with the county on lawsuits seeking to bar the map\u2019s implementation.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s going to be a little harder for me this time when you\u2019re saying how unconstitutional it is, knowing that you were wrong previously,\u201d Krause said. \u201cMaybe the same kind of error in your reasoning is going to come along today.\u201d<\/p>\n He and Ramirez stressed that commissioner meetings are for government business, not political grandstanding.<\/p>\n \u201cThe bottom line is we speak to hundreds of citizens every single week \u2014 not just on Tuesdays,\u201d Ramirez said. \u201cThe work doesn\u2019t start and stop, and the input doesn\u2019t start and stop here. Every single day, we\u2019re listening to our residents.\u201d<\/p>\n The new rules come about six months after commissioners voted 3-2 to reduce their public meeting schedule<\/a> from twice-monthly meetings to once a month.<\/p>\n During the meeting, Jacqualyne Johnson and Anthony Johnson Jr. asked their commissioner, Ramirez, who was absent at the time, for information about their son, Anthony Johnson Jr. The Marine veteran died in Tarrant County jail custody in 2024. The couple is in the midst of a federal lawsuit against the county over his death.<\/p>\n Including Johnson Jr., more than 70 people have died in Tarrant County\u2019s jail since 2017.<\/p>\n \u201cI was hurt and stunned because this is our only way to fight for our son,\u201d Jacqualyne Johnson told the Fort Worth Report about the new policy. \u201cYou\u2019re cutting our voice.\u201d<\/p>\n Under the adopted agenda creation policy, commissioners may not request public briefings related to Johnson\u2019s death until the statute of limitations has passed.<\/p>\n Having public briefings about her son\u2019s death in the jail demands accountability, Jacqualyne Johnson said. It also informs residents about who they\u2019re voting for in local elections and why, she said.<\/p>\n In a court filing earlier this month, the county\u2019s attorneys argued that the county is not responsible<\/a> for Johnson\u2019s death. Last month, commissioners approved an additional $60,000<\/a> to retain attorneys for two detention officers named in the suit.<\/p>\n Cecilia Lenzen is a government accountability reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at cecilia.lenzen@fortworthreport.org<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n This article<\/a> first appeared on Fort Worth Report<\/a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tarrant County residents have less time to speak and won\u2019t hear presentations about potential legal issues, such as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159903,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":{"0":"post-159902","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-worth","8":"tag-fort-worth","9":"tag-fort-worth-headlines","10":"tag-fort-worth-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159902\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}