After a two-hour hearing this morning, the Senate redistricting committee voted out bills that would make the three interim legislative and congressional maps permanent.
The votes on the bills were all on party lines 8-6.
Greg has the long form version of the amendment debates; he also liveblogged the House hearing, along with PDiddie. The full Senate will debate the bills Friday morning, with additional amendments to come though likely not to be adopted. Which is pretty much as I expected. The House Redistricting Committee will meet on Monday, and I don’t think they’re any more likely to pass amendments than the Senate was. Basically, sometime next week the Lege will pass all the bills, almost certainly intact, and thus accomplish in three weeks what they originally expected to accomplish in three days. Then they can get to the wingnut stuff, which was the plan all along as well. It just took longer than planned. The Statesman, Texas Politics, Trail Blazers, and Texas Redistricting, who compiles an impressive list of Things Greg Abbott Got Wrong – a subject Burka also addresses – have more.