Former Democratic state Rep. Lon Burnam, who was arrested Tuesday during a heated Tarrant County Commissioners Court meeting about a plan to slash polling locations for the midterm elections, was released from jail around midnight.
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“I didn’t get home until after midnight, and I’m old,” he said Wednesday. “I’m 73 years old and I’m tired, but the show must go on.”
Burnam was booked on a charge of disrupting a meeting or procession, according to Tarrant County Jail records. The offense is a Class B misdemeanor with a maximum of 180 days in jail, a fine of up to $2,000, or both.
The Tarrant County district attorney’s office prosecutes this type of misdemeanor. A spokesperson told The Texas Tribune that no case regarding Burnam had been submitted to the office for review as of 11:30 a.m.
In a statement, the sheriff’s office said: “As an agency we have procedures requiring us to file charges within 5 days for a misdemeanor and 10 days for a felony. A charge will be filed and the case assigned to a Detective within that timeframe.”
Beyond the criminal case, Burnam also told the Tribune that he was in the “very early stages” of consulting with lawyers about a potential lawsuit against Republican County Judge Tim O’Hare over his arrest. O’Hare’s office didn’t immediately respond to a comment request.
Burnam’s arrest came hours into the North Texas county commissioners’ meeting to consider the removal of nearly half of the voting sites available for Election Day on Nov. 3, as well as several early voting locations. Proponents said the goal is to cut costs, while critics like Democratic Commissioner Alisa Simons — who is challenging O’Hare in November — said “this is the GOP’s plan to hold on to their seats.”
This plan also followed recent changes that affect Black and Latino representation in the largest purple county in Texas, including last year’s controversial mid-decade congressional redistricting push as well as the redrawing of the county commission’s district map. And while many elected positions are held by Republicans, Democrat Taylor Rehmet pulled off a major upset in a special election earlier this year to take a Texas Senate seat.
At the Tuesday meeting, the proposal drew dozens of people who opposed the closures as a voter suppression tactic that lacked transparency. Burnam, who represented part of the county in the Texas House from 1997 to 2015 and now frequently speaks at county meetings, was among them.
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“I was a big fan of all the legislation that Lyndon Johnson signed into law, and they’ve been chipping away at the Voting Rights Act,” he told the Tribune Wednesday. “This was just something that I had to act on.”
Wearing a pin that says “Protect Voter Rights” and a black shirt that references the 1960 nonviolent sit-in movement to desegregate lunch counters, Burnam spoke out against the proposed cuts. While speaking, he also picked up the microphone in support of a previous speaker, Base Mego, who was removed for doing the same thing. Mego told The Dallas Morning News that he has autism and had previously gotten an accommodation to lift the mic.
“Set the microphone down,” O’Hare said from the dais.
Burnam ignored him while continuing to speak.
“Please remove him,” O’Hare said. “We will go into recess because you’re disrupting the meeting again.”
Burnam then refused to leave, prompting four sheriff deputies to haul him off the floor and out of the room by his arms and legs.
After hours of testimony, county commissioners delayed a vote on the closure plan to September, with O’Hare saying that the proposed cut was “too large.”
Meanwhile, Burnam said he was already planning to attend the Texas Commission on Jail Standards’ quarterly meeting on Thursday to speak about the Tarrant County Jail, which has faced heightened scrutiny due to reports of medical neglect as well as dozens of in-custody deaths over the past few years.
“Ironically, I was going to talk about jail conditions,” he said, “and now I know more on a personal basis.”
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