Mattie Parker
Mattie Parker (born November 9, 1983) is an American politician serving as the Mayor of Fort Worth, Texas since 2021. After coming in second place in the first round of voting in May, Parker faced off against Deborah Peoples, the Tarrant County Democratic Party chair, in the run-off election on June 5, 2021. Parker received 53.5% of the vote in the nominally non-partisan election. In Fort Worth, mayors are elected to two-year terms. Parker succeeded Betsy Price, who was elected to five consecutive terms as mayor, including the 2019 election, in which Price also defeated  Peoples. Price opted to not run for a sixth term in 2021 and endorsed Parker, her former chief of staff. Early life and education. Parker was born Mattie Jean Pearcy in Hico, Texas, about 80 miles southwest of Fort Worth. She graduated from Hico High School in 2002 before heading to the University of Texas at Austin, where she graduated in 2006 with a bachelor's degree in government. In 2012, Parker graduated from the Texas Wesleyan School of Law with a Juris Doctor degree and, in 2013, was admitted to the State Bar of Texas. Parker was in Texas  Wesleyan's final graduating class before the law school was sold and became the Texas A&M University School of Law in 2013. Career. During her junior year at the University of Texas, Parker became a press assistant in then-Texas House of Representatives Speaker Tom Craddick's office. She later became Craddick's deputy press secretary and served as his executive assistant after graduating from college. Between 2007 and 2010, Parker worked as legislative director and chief of staff to Texas Rep. Phil King, a Republican from Weatherford. While attending law school, Parker served as campaign manager for U.S. Rep  Kay Granger, the first Republican woman to represent Texas in the U.S. House and Fort Worth's first female mayor. In 2012, she became Granger's district director before leaving in 2014 to work as an associate attorney at Harris, Finley & Bogle, P.C. Parker was appointed chief of staff for Fort Worth's mayor and city council in 2015, where she remained until April 2020. Parker then became the founding chief executive officer of Fort Worth Cradle to Career, a nonprofit organization, and the Tarrant To & Through (T3) Partnership, a coalition of organizations focused on increasing the number of Tarrant  County students who obtain a postsecondary credential before entering the workforce. She left the position in July 2021 following her victory in the mayor's race, but remains on the board of directors. In January 2021, shortly after Price announced her decision not to run for another term, Parker went public with her campaign for mayor. She received endorsements from Price and other prominent members of Fort Worth's business and philanthropic communities, including billionaire Sid Bass. In the May 1 election, Parker earned 30.82% of the vote, finishing second behind Peoples, the outgoing Tarrant County Democratic Party chair. The  two candidates competed in a June 5 runoff, which attracted the highest early voter turnout in a Fort Worth mayor's race in at least a decade. Prior to Election Day, Parker received an endorsement from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. Parker won the runoff with 53.5%, becoming Fort Worth's first millennial mayor and the youngest mayor among the 25 largest cities in the U.S. Parker raised and spent more than $1.98 million during the general election and runoff, a figure that surpassed any previous expenditures in Fort Worth mayoral races. She was sworn in alongside four new city  council members on June 14, 2021. Personal life. Parker and her husband, lobbyist David Parker, have a daughter and two sons.