| Today, the Texas Democratic Party filed an advisory with the San Antonio court in response to Friday's opinion from the Supreme Court that threw out the interim redistricting maps. SCOTUS basically said it wasn't right for the San Antonio panel to draw maps based on the districts we used in the 2010 elections, rather than the racist gerrymander drawn by the Legislature in 2011. Now, we all wait for the DC Circuit to rule on whether the Legislature's maps do indeed fail to garner pre-clearance. If so, the San Antonio panel will likely get instructions on how to revise their interim maps. Long story short, we may still be weeks away from actually knowing what our 2012 maps look like. Thanks, Republican legislature and your desperate attempt to disenfranchise minority voters!
In any case, an April 3rd primary looks less and less likely--at least for Congressional and Legislative races--which brings us back to the issue of one primary or two. TDP weighed in today in support of one primary through an advisory submitted to the San Antonio panel.
The advisory reads as follows:
The Texas Democratic Party has and continues to support a unified primary insofar as is possible. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court ruling in this case seems to require substantial additional work from counsel to this case and from this Court, in particular. The members of the Court are best able to determine what and when they can accomplish in terms of reviewing the evidence, preparing interim maps and issuing opinions to support each interim map. TDP is prepared to work with all parties with respect to the preparation of an election schedule once it is known when districts maps will be available.
The Democratic party is doing everything they can to keep one primary date. That's what's best for our county governments in terms of saving money and minimizing confusion. It's also what's best for maintaining high turnout -- a second, later primary for districts impacted by the redistricting process would have lower turnout, not to mention the increased confusion of potential new precinct lines.
None of this would have happened if Republicans hadn't decided to blatantly stifle minority populations' voting power through their partisan, racist gerrymander. |
