| Today the San Antonio panel meets to discuss the most pressing issues in the ongoing redistricting battle pertaining to primary election dates. The main question is what date we'll be able to hold our primaries, and if we will need two dates. Floated proposals include a split primary with President and whole-county offices (and precinct chairs, possibly) on the April 3 primary date, holding a primary with all stateide and county-wide races plus non-controversial districts on the April 3rd date, or moving the whole thing to late May.
The State of Texas must also tell the court today if they can afford to reimburse counties and political parties for the cost of holding two primaries. That figure has been estimated at approximately $13 million, which obviously our cash-strapped state doesn't have just lying around.
The Texas Democratic Party supports one unified primary. Republican State Senators and Congressmen largely support one unified primary. Now that Perry's out, it's unclear if Perry loyalists still support a split primary with the Presidential primary held ASAP and legislative and Congressional races held later. A split primary would result in much lower, more-partisan turnout in the second primary, which could benefit Tea Party supported candidates.
Michael Li, redistricting expert extraordinaire, will be liveblogging from San Antonio today so we can keep abreast of all of the happenings.
Follow Michael on twitter: @mcpli
Follow his liveblog, which will compile his tweets: txredistricting.org
Read all of our redistricting coverage here: Redistricting Coverage
Update 1:25 pm: The Austin Chronicle has a good primer on how we got here. |
