Have Republicans here turned their back on women? Few gains, big losses in Texas primary | Opinion

No question who the loser was in Fort Worth and Tarrant County on Super Tuesday:

Women.

Republican women were purged from three state judgeships, a state school board seat, a local Texas House seat and a countywide office Tuesday, and one of the staunchest Republican women in the Texas House was pushed into a May 28 runoff.

Let’s look at the names of incumbents on local ballots who lost Tuesday night: Wendy Burgess, Pat Hardy, Barbara Hervey, Sharon Keller, Michelle Slaughter, Kronda Thimesch.

Five of the six were defeated by men.

In a party where belligerence, aggressiveness and testosterone are now prized, women have become disposable.

I’m not talking about Nikki Haley losing the presidential race. Or about U.S. Sen. Katie Britt, talking doom and gloom Thursday night in a State of the Union response from her kitchen in Montgomery, Alabama.

I’m talking about Texas and Tarrant County.

I’m talking about a party that needs women voters to win elections but instead has systematically purged women from local and county office for the last two elections.

Republican women here won’t talk publicly about this. They’ve been told to shut up.

But their own party doesn’t support women having an equal role or say.

Republicans claim diversity, inclusion or anti-discrimination policies that have helped women for years now need to be wiped out along with racial affirmative action.

Men claim the policies aren’t fair ... to men.

Hey — as far as I can tell, men are not victims around here.

Five of the six statewide elected executive officials are men.

With the ouster of Burgess, the county tax office chief, five of the six executives elected countywide will be men.

Burgess was defeated Tuesday by Rick Barnes, a North Richland Hills Republican. He is supported by County Judge Tim O’Hare and will face Democrat KC Chowdhury in November.

In the months after O’Hare, a lawyer from Southlake, and Commissioner Manny Ramirez took office in 2023, county commissioners made 11 prominent hires or appointments.

All 11 were men.

Commissioners also stopped requiring anti-discrimination and anti-harassment training.

At the state level, Hardy lost her State Board of Education seat after 22 years.

She was defeated by Weatherford Republican Brandon Hall, an independent fundamentalist Baptist pastor.

That is an entire profession where women are not hired or paid fairly compared to men.

Hall will face Fort Worth Democrat Rayna Glasser in the fall in that mostly Republican district.

Statewide, Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton certainly showed they support women. Abbott supported three Republican women in winning Texas House races to oust incumbent men who opposed school vouchers, and Paxton supported another. Abbott also is supporting Glen Rose Republican Helen Kerwin in a May 29 runoff against Rep. DeWayne Burns.

But Abbott campaigned for Thimesch, and she still lost her seat representing far north Fort Worth and much of Denton County. The winner was one of Paxton’s defense attorneys, Frisco lawyer Mitch Little. He will face Democrat Detrick Deburr in November.

It was only last year when another Denton County Republican House candidate said openly that America must do away with democracy because women are just too strong.

Flower Mound Republican Jeff Younger wrote that laws and the Constitution should be changed so America is only led only by “good, strong ... Godly men.”

He came within 2,000 votes of winning a seat in the Texas House.

Paxton and former President Donald Trump also wiped three women judges off the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

Trump’s endorsement for challengers spurred the defeat of Hervey, Keller and Slaughter. All had joined in ruling that Paxton, primarily a civil lawyer under the Texas Constitution, could not prosecute local criminal cases of election fraud.

(A woman will remain in Hervey’s seat. Trump and Paxton supported Republican Gina Parker and she will face Democrat Nancy Mulder in November.)

In a House seat in Tarrant County, state Rep. Stephanie Klick, staunchly conservative and pro-life in line with Republican orthodoxy, was pushed into her second runoff election.

She again faces challenger David Lowe.

Lowe is known for praising a bill to punish abortion as a capital crime subject to the death penalty.

He is supported by two West Texas oil billionaire men. They fund PACs to pour money into candidates, pay campaign consultants and finance political sites that are faked to look like news.

It should not come as a surprise that all are run by men.

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