For the first time, someone says out loud the rumor of a special session on redistricting. Attorney General Greg Abbott let House members know in the Republican caucus meeting on Tuesday that he expects and is hoping for a special session on redistricting — sooner than later. Several lawmakers in the meeting confirmed that Abbott [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Kel Seliger’
Dark money
It’s a small step, if it’s allowed to be taken, but the bill to require donor disclosure on so-called “dark money” is a step in the right direction. Senate Bill 346 takes direct aim at the cloak of anonymity that currently shields so-called “dark money” groups – those tax-exempt organizations whose donors drop big bucks [...]
Senate passes amended HB5
The Senate has passed its version of House Bill 5, which makes sweeping changes to standardized testing and curriculum requirements for high school students. Texas high school students would have new curriculum requirements under legislation unanimously passed by the Senate on Monday — but they won’t be the ones the House envisioned when it approved [...]
Redistricting remains a partisan issue
We’re not surprised by this, right? Amarillo Sen. Kel Seliger offered a redistricting bill to the Senate State Affairs Committee that would formally adopt interim maps drawn by a federal court in San Antonio last year. The maps for Congressional, state Senate and House districts were used for the 2012 election while a federal court [...]
Senate committee to take up interim maps bill
From Texas Redistricting: The Texas Senate’s state affairs committee has scheduled a hearing for Thursday, April 18, at 2 p.m. (or upon adjournment) to consider SB 1524 – State Sen. Kel Seliger’s bill to adopt the court-drawn interim maps as permanent. As drafted, the bill would apply to all three maps that are currently in [...]
Abbott asks for the interim maps
Very interesting. The recently dormant Texas redistricting issue woke up Thursday with a disagreement between the state’s attorney general and a Latino legislators’ group. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has called on the Legislature to make the current — and interim — redistricting maps permanent. Abbott’s letter to Texas House Speaker Joe Straus — which [...]
The redistrictor’s dilemma
Some fascinating news from Texas Redistricting. Friday’s bill filing deadline in the Texas Legislature brought bills by State Rep. Drew Darby (R-San Angelo) – chair of the House redistricting committee – and State Sen. Kel Seliger (R-Amarillo) to make permanent the three interim maps drawn by the San Antonio court last year. The identical bills [...]
More STAAR changes proposed
Everyone’s least favorite standardized test is a fat target these days. State Sen. Kel Seliger, the Amarillo Republican who chairs the Senate Higher Education Committee, filed a bill Tuesday offering broad changes to student assessment and high school graduation requirements in Texas. Senate Bill 225 would significantly reduce the number of state standardized tests students [...]
The split primary blues
Republicans have them. Republican lawmakers turned up the heat on the Texas GOP leadership Wednesday, asking them to keep Texas’ primaries on a single election day while their own party continues to push for two primaries, one in March and a second in May. Most of the Texas congressional delegation signed a letter sent late [...]
Expand the Senate?
I think there’s a lot of merit to this. From state Sen. Kel Seliger, a member of the smaller-government Republican Party and an architect of the Legislature’s redistricting maps that were nixed by federal judges last week, comes this: Consider expanding the Texas Senate from 31 to 37 members. At a public forum at the [...]
Veasey joins in redistricting litigation
Add another redistricting lawsuit to the pile. Brought by state Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Fort Worth, the lawsuit is another attempt to get a three-judge panel hearing redistricting cases to reconsider the entire state map by focusing on how the districts are drawn around the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. “You want to show that, statewide, 90 percent [...]
Opening bids on the next deficit
Do I hear $7 billion? Ten billion? How about $15 billion? Early projections indicate that when the Legislature convenes in 2013 it could face another revenue shortfall. Not as severe as this year’s $27-billion gap, but still problematic. “I think we’re going to have a $10- to $15-billion budget deficit next session,” Sen. Dan Patrick, [...]
Is now the time for the Wentworth redistricting bill?
Postcards says “Maybe”, but I remain skeptical. In both 2005 and 2007, the state Senate approved a bill to establish a Texas Congressional Redistricting Commission, in part to remove the contentious and partisan process from the plate of the state Legislature. “I think the votes are here to get this bill on the floor,” said [...]
Plans from an alternate universe: The Veasey-West plan
Congressional redistricting, which took so long that it couldn’t be done during the regular session, has zipped through the special session, thanks in no small part to the virtual elimination of public testimony. At this point, the full House needs to pass the map that emerged from the House Redistricting Committee last week, then either [...]
Updated Seliger-Solomons numbers
I had previously run the numbers for the new Congressional districts in the Seliger-Solomons plan. Now that we’ve gone from Plan C125 to Plan C130, let’s see what they look like now. Here’s a side-by-side comparison, with the districts grouped as before. First up, the Safe Republican seats: C125 C130 C125 C130 Dist Obama Obama [...]
Senate approves Congressional map
On to the House. A new redistricting map, drawn to promote and protect Republican interests in the U.S. Congress, sailed out of the GOP-led state Senate Monday. The map, predictably approved 18-12 along strict party lines, would give Republicans a decent chance of retaining every congressional seat they now hold. They also would have a [...]
Who’s running for what where?
Chris Cillizza notes an old familiar face who’s back on the scene. Former Rep. Ciro Rodriguez (D-Texas) is running again after losing his seat to businessman Francisco Canseco (R) last fall. Rodriguez won the seat in an 2006 special election, after the Supreme Court found that new lines drawn in 2003 violated the Voting Rights [...]
Seliger-Solomons 2.0
Go to http://gis1.tlc.state.tx.us and have a gander at Plan C130 to see the version of the Seliger-Solomons Congressional plan that was passed last night by the Senate redistricting committee. The biggest changes are in and around Harris County, mostly due to CD36, which Rep. Solomons had admitted was ridiculous. Gone is its bizarre shape, which [...]
Senate committee approves redistricting map
That was quick. A state Senate panel, voting along strict party lines, approved a Texas Congressional redistricting plan designed to increase Republican strength in the U.S. Congress. The Senate redistricting committee voted 8-4 to send the map to the full Senate, which could consider the proposal as early as Monday. The vote came after hours [...]
The Seliger-Solomons Congressional map is out
And it’s a joke. Seriously, I can’t describe it any other way. Look at the following districts – go to http://gis1.tlc.state.tx.us/ and look up Plan C125 – and tell me how they can possibly satisfy any rational legal argument for compactness or communities of interest. Let’s start with CD36, which forms a giant Gateway-style arch [...]
Veasey’s Congressional plan
We didn’t get a Congressional map from the Senate Redistricting Committee, though we may now get one in a special session but that didn’t stop State Rep. Marc Veasey from drawing his own before sine die. In Veasey’s map, thirteen of the state’s 36 districts would be minority districts, all of which would lean Democrat, [...]
Get ready for the special session
Ready or not, here they come back. And with the start of the special session comes a little surprise. Gov. Rick Perry and legislative leaders hope to move through a series of bills quickly during the special session that begins tomorrow, starting with the fiscal issues that forced the session and continuing on through other [...]
House approves Senate redistricting map
Three down, one to go. The Texas House today gave preliminary approval to the Senate redistricting map that would give Travis County four state senators. The sponsor of Senate Bill 31, Rep. Burt Solomons, R-Carrollton, pushed to pass the map without amendments. He got what he asked for. And in what has become the telltale [...]
Senate approves modified Senate map
From the Trib: The Texas Senate approved new political districts that protect all of the Republican and all but one of the Democratic incumbents in that body, but stalled on a House redistricting map already approved in the House. [...] After knocking down two amendments from Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, and approving one by [...]
Senate redistricting map approved by committee
That didn’t take long. Rejecting pleas to keep most of Travis County in a single Senate district, the Senate Select Committee on Redistricting [Friday] morning approved a plan that will divide the capital city into four senatorial districts. The Republican-dominated panel also rejected an amendment to the plan that would have returned Austin-Bergstrom International Airport [...]
Senate redistricting hearing
So the Senate Redistricting Committee hearing was today. See if you can spot a theme here. Sen. Kirk Watson expressed his dissatisfaction with the map that was introduced by Sen. Kel Seliger. At a morning hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Redistricting, Watson blasted the proposed Senate plan as dividing historical minority constituencies in [...]
Senate map is out, controversy precedes it
Before we had a State Senate map, we had a brawl brewing over one proposed district on it. Accusing the state Senate’s Republican leaders of a “shameful partisan attack,” Sen. Wendy Davis said Tuesday that a new redistricting map for her Tarrant County senatorial district violates the federal Voting Rights Act by ripping apart a [...]
Messing with Doggett
I’m sure the Republicans would love to draw Lloyd Doggett out of existence if they can. The question is whether they can do it without causing other problems elsewhere. Republicans have tried to oust Doggett before by drawing a district with a large Hispanic constituency hundreds of miles from Doggett’s hometown. They failed, and key [...]
The redistricting process gets started in the Lege
From the Trib: The public version of drawing new congressional maps for Texas started [Thursday] morning with committee hearings and the unveiling of a proposal from a coalition that insists at least two of the four new districts should have Latino majorities. The chairmen of the Senate and House committees that will draw those and [...]
Can we take a step forward without also taking one back?
From last week’s Texas Tribune on the subject of plastic bag recycling. On Tuesday the Senate’s Committee on Natural Resources heard testimony on a bill sponsored by the committee’s chairman, state Sen. Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay, that would require large retailers like Wal-Mart to have well-labeled bag recycling canisters in their stores. This afternoon the [...]
Census data is on its way
Via Greg, who is predictably jazzed about it, the state of Texas expects its detailed Census data this week, meaning that the redistricting battle is set to begin in earnest. Demographers expect the data to validate projections of surging growth in metropolitan areas, stagnant or declining population in much of rural Texas, and striking gains [...]