The race is on to get new maps in hand in time to keep the April 3 primary date, since all the options for after that date are distinctly unpalatable in one way or another. On Friday, the State of Texas asked the San Antonio court to get its work done by January 30. The court asked for responses to that request; the plaintiffs said it wasn’t realistic while the state said they’d work late and by phone to make it happen. They also suggested moving the second filing deadline to February 6 and shortening the period for mailing military ballots to 25 days. The court responded with some requests of its own.
Lines, lines, everywhere are lines...
Federal redistricting judges in San Antonio want to see if they can get agreement from the parties on political maps in time for an April 3 primary and said they are “giving serious consideration” to split primaries if no agreement can be reached by the first week of February.
The three federal judges said in an order issued this afternoon that they will meet with the parties on Friday instead of waiting until Feb. 1.
The five-page order is full of dates and deadlines:
- The judges say they will almost certainly move a candidate filing deadline now set for Feb. 1.
- They said the parties should confer and submit agreed-upon interim maps for legislative and congressional elections by Feb. 6 if they “wish to maintain the current election schedule.” If they can’t agree, the judges want a list of districts in the Legislature’s maps that each party no longer objects to.
- The parties are involved in hearings in Washington, D.C., where a separate panel of three federal judges is deciding whether the Legislature’s maps violate preclearance provisions of the federal Voting Rights Act. Ideally, the San Antonio judges would have that court’s ruling in hand before it approves redistricting maps. It’s asking the lawyers to give the Washington court a nudge: “With high respect for the importance of that proceeding and the prerogatives of that court, this Court hereby requests both sides in the San Antonio proceedings to request, on behalf of this Court, that the D.C. Court attempt to rule on the Section 5 issues in time for this court to incorporate those decisions into its ultimate decision on the redistricting plans for the 2012 elections for the Texas House of Representatives, the Texas Senate, and the U.S. Congress.”
- The Texas judges say they are giving “serious consideration to whether a so-called ‘split primary’ will be required” for this year’s elections, and asked the lawyers to be ready to talk about it at the end of the week. They also want lawyers for the state to be ready to say whether the state would be prepared to reimburse counties and the political parties for the “substantial additional expense of a split primary.”
- The judges asked for comments on the idea of a presidential primary on April 3 with most or all other elections held later. The earlier presidential primary would relieve the Republican and Democratic political parties, which hope to have the primary elections well before their state conventions in June. The Republican Party of Texas has suggested the split primary on several occasions; the Democratic Party, in filings this week, said it would prefer a unified primary if possible.
You can see the court’s order here. We’ll know more this Friday, but a split primary is definitely a possibility. If that happens, I dearly hope the court orders the state to pay for it, as that seems to me to be the only fair solution. It’s clear that the San Antonio court wants the DC court to rule on the preclearance lawsuit first rather than have to guess what it will find in violation of Section 5. If the San Antonio court is left to its own devices, the “not insubstantial” standard for deciding what to remediate may give them a fair amount of leeway, though again I’m sure they’d prefer to have a clear roadmap. It’s going to be an exciting week. PDiddie has more.
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