In response to today's ruling from the United State's Supreme Court Supreme Court, 10th district Congressional candidate Dan Grant issued the following statement, emphasis mine:
"With continued uncertainty surrounding primary dates, district lines and a time line for when we will have definite answers, one thing is still clear: Texans deserve a voice in Congress that understands and fights for them. For years Michael McCaul has failed to be that voice. Our campaign will continue to work hard reaching out to Texans who want better than the status quo and who demand more than the self-serving politics of Michael McCaul."
Dan Grant, an Austin-based foreign policy expert, is a candidate for U.S. House of Representatives in Texas' 10th Congressional District against Rep. Michael McCaul.
Michael McCaul is one of the richest individuals in Congress, and represents the 1% more than the people of his Central Texas district. As we've previously reported, McCaul is on the most recent list of biggest water-wasters in the Austin area. McCaul is so out of touch with working people he didn't even seem to notice that his water bill had skyrocketed to almost 20 times that of the average Austin resident. McCaul previous made the list in 2009, ranking seventh of all utility customers for the water consumed by his 1.9-acre mansion. He claimed at the time that it was a leak in his sprinkler system, and that he had it fixed immediately. City records show, however, that the McCaul household water use had averaged around 100,000 gallons a month. The average Austin home uses 10,000 gallons a year.
While McCaul's neighbors continue blame leaky pipes, I don't know too many people who could just passively afford to keep paying so much, let alone squandering our most precious resources.
Dan Grant: won't waste all of our water and watches his own utility bills. Put that on a tee shirt!
Below is a statement from State Senator Wendy Davis on the SCOTUS opinion released today. Davis' district was hacked apart by the Republican gerrymander in an effort to run the Democrat out of office, and in so doing deny Fort Worth a Senate district anchored in the city.
Press release below, emphasis mine:
Sen. Wendy Davis Encouraged By SCOTUS Ruling That Allows For Changes Where "Reasonable Probability" of Violations Exist
WASHINGTON D.C. - Senator Wendy Davis said the opinion by the U.S. Supreme Court provides legitimacy to the prior action of the San Antonio court when it drew the interim Senate map and we are therefore hopeful that we will see them replicate their actions in drawing a new interim map. Davis is hopeful of such an outcome because there is a 'reasonable probability' that the Washington D.C. court will deny preclearance of the Senate map because it is intentionally discriminatory and harms black and Hispanic voters, and it seems likely the San Antonio court will enhance minority voting strength in Senate District 10 to fairly reflect the minority population growth.
"On behalf of the thousands of voters for whom we are fighting, we are delighted that the U.S. Supreme Court ordered that adjustments should be made where the San Antonio court has found the likelihood of Section 2 violations or a "reasonable probability" of Section 5 violations, which was exactly how the San Antonio panel of judges drew the current interim maps," Davis said from a federal courthouse in Washington D.C., where she testified today in the Section 5 trial on Texas' redistricting plans. "The interim Senate map kept districts in place as they were drawn by the Legislature, except in Senate District 10 where the San Antonio court redrew the district I represent because there are likely violations of Sections 2 and 5 of the Voting Rights Act."
Below is a statement from TDP spokesperson Anthony Gutierrez regarding the Supreme Court's decision on redistricting, emphasis mine:
"The Supreme Court did not strike down the interim maps. They issues they had pertained to the process by which the court arrived at new maps, not necessarily the maps themselves.
While it is not clear what the final districts will look like at this point, what is clear is that the state's original maps have been found to be discriminatory in some way by every court which has examined them.
The state's maps completely ignored the demographic realities of Texas. The Supreme Court did not approve the state's maps and we don't expect they ever will."
###
Make no mistake: we're in this mess because of the Republican gerrymander that reached too far in its effort to stifle minority voters' voices. As the ongoing pre-clearance trial makes clear, Texas Republicans deliberately worked to draw lines that diluted Hispanic voting power. While the population growth in our state has been predominantly minority over the past decade, Republicans refuse to recognize that reality and draw districts that let minority Texans select the candidates of their choosing.
SCOTUS issued an opinion today instructing the San Antonio panel that drew the interim maps to toss out those interim maps and draw new interim maps. The SCOTUS logic is based on the fact that since the San Antonio maps where based on the districts used in the 2010 election and not the illegal racist gerrymander of the 2011 legislature. Evidently SCOTUS thinks that the San Antonio panel needs to make a silk purse from a sow's ear and somehow turn the racist maps from the Legislature into something that's not a wild, minority-stifling gerrymander.
In a unanimous, unsigned opinion, SCOTUS writes:
"To the extent the District Court exceeded its mission to draw interim maps that do not violate the Constitution or the Voting Rights Act, and substituted its own concept of "the collective public good" for the Texas Legislature's determination of which policies serve "the interests of the citizens of Texas," the court erred."
Most candidates for Congress and the Texas House and Senate are stalled out right now waiting for the courts to decide on the shape of their districts. But that's not keeping Central Texas Congressman Lloyd Doggett from maintaining a presence in San Antonio.
Fellow Democrats,
As advertised on Facebook, the Bexar County Young Democrats would like to invite you to today's meeting. Congressman Lloyd Doggett will help us kick off the new year as our first guest speaker of 2012. Redistricting will be one topic of discussion. ...
There's a deal on the primary date. Here are the details:
February 1, 2012 - New residency deadline for candidates seeking election to the Texas House and Texas Senate.
February 1, 2012, 6:00 p.m. - New deadline of court-ordered reopened filing period, in which candidates for all offices have the opportunity to amend, withdraw or file a new application for the ballot.
February 3, 2012 - New deadline for County Executive Committees to conduct drawing for candidate order on ballot.
April 3, 2012 - Date of the 2012 General Primary Election.
April 14 or April 21, 2012 - Date of County and Senatorial District Conventions, as determined by the State Chair of each political party.
June 5, 2012 - Date of the 2012 General Primary Runoff Election.
Although there was discussion yesterday about a conditional trigger that would move legislative and congressional primaries to a later date if maps could not be finished in time, the deal announced today does not contain any such provision (although the court presumably could revisit the issue as and if needed).
Here's the proposed order submitted this morning to the San Antonio court:
UPDATE: To answer questions , the filing period is open until 6 p.m. on December 19. It then closes but will be reopened once legislative and congressional maps are settled. It then will re-close on February 1 @ 6 p.m.
Big news: today Dan Grant filed his paperwork to run for CD 10, the Central Texas congressional district currently held by Michael McCaul. Grant filed with the TDP for the iteration of CD 10 drawn by the San Antonio federal court. That district, which no longer includes uber-conservative Tom Ball Tomball in Harris County, is a pick-up opportunity for Democrats, who need to regain only 25 seats nationwide to retake the House of Representatives.
Grant's campaign released a statement today detailing his experience on foreign policy and national security, and his commitment to give working Texans a real voice in Congress. From the statement (reprinted in full below the jump):
Grant said he felt compelled to explore a run for Congress because the people of Central Texas need a Congressman who understands and who will look out for their best interests.
"Central Texans deserve a real voice in Congress. We deserve a voice that speaks up for our needs above the demands of wealthy special interests and Wall Street mega donors. For years it's been clear that millionaire Michael McCaul, the single richest member of Congress, is unable and unwilling to be that voice," Grant said. "I'll make sure the things that matter in Washington are the things that matter to families here in Texas."
They also put together this great video from an emphatic Grant, touching on the populist themes resonating nationwide:
Grant had previously announced that he was forming an exploratory committee for the previous incarnation of CD-25, which stretched from East Austin to Tarrant County, and had drawn 9 Republican primary candidates, including Michael "Bowtie" Williams. Once the San Antonio court redrew the maps, Grant began looking at CD-10, and decided it was worth contesting again, as he did in the 2008 primary.
Clearly, Grant isn't afraid of an uphill fight, and it's great to see the vigor and energy in him as he prepares to take on McCaul. While no one knows what incarnation of CD-10 Grant will be able to contest -- or when the maps will be set or primaries will be held -- the main question is whether a grassroots, citizen-driven effort to take back this seat can trump McCaul's millions of dollars. Michael McCaul's father-in-law is Lowry Mays, founder of Clear Channel Communications. McCaul is worth at least $287 million, and is currently the richest individual in Congress.
The Washington Post has an excellent run-down of the events that brought us to where we are in the current redistricting/election calendar mess.
In particular, Aaron Blake cogitates on which map is likely to be used for the 2012 elections, and the implication of that decision on future redistricting lawsuits focused on pre-clearance. He writes:
It seems very unlikely that the map drawn by Republican state legislators will be used for 2012. The fact that the D.C. district took up the case suggests it sees something objectionable. And even if the state legislature were able to draw a new map to comply with the court's ruling, it would have to go through pre-clearance again and wouldn't be ready in time for the 2012 election.
It's also pretty unlikely that the Supreme Court will sign off on the three-judge panel's interim map. Like the D.C. district court, the Supreme Court's decision to take up the case suggests there is something it doesn't like about the interim map.
Blake suggests that SCOTUS will give the San Antonio court instructions on how to revise their map, likely to bring it into closer alignment with the state's initial Republican gerrymandered map. His logic is as follows:
First, the Supreme Court could tell the three-judge panel in San Antonio that it needs to draw something closer to the map drawn by the state legislature. Or second - and this is the Nuclear Option - it could say that the state should simply use the map drawn by the state legislature.
The former option would set a new standard when it comes to court-drawn maps. Currently, court-drawn maps are drawn with deference to the last constitutionally-approved map available (i.e. the existing map). Changing the standard would give state legislatures greater power over the final product, even in the event that their maps are invalidated.
This, apparently, is what is at center of Abbott's challenge and what SCOTUS is interested in: when adjusting a map that fails to receive pre-clearance (as the Legislature's gerrymandered/minority-quashing maps did) do the courts start with the bad map and make it less-bad? Or do they start with the current districts (i.e. what we used in 2010) and tweak them to reflect population growth and change?
If SCOTUS tells the San Antonio panel to re-do their work and draw a less-bad, non-gerrymandered version of the map the Republicans put forth in the legislature, well, isn't that kind of like putting lipstick on a pig? Every legislature-drawn map was crafted with the explicit intent of denying minority Texans the representation they have earned due to population growth. Oh, and as a side effect they wanted to run folks like Wendy Davis and Lloyd Doggett out of office.
Is it even possible to start with the hack-job the Republicans drew and make it sufficiently less bad so as to not have a CD-25 that starts in African-American East Austin, stretches up through Fort Hood, and peters out in southern Tarrant County?
The latter [telling the state to use the Legislature's map] would be the big one, as some suggest it would essentially invalidate the section of the Voting Rights Act - Section 5 - that requires states like Texas to get pre-clearance. Essentially, the maps would no longer have to be pre-cleared. This would allow these states greater freedom to draw their maps and increase the burden on minority groups and others who may fight the maps in court. These groups would no longer have an avenue to stop the maps before they are enacted.
Some SCOTUS followers have indicated that Chief Justice John Roberts has been wanting to get his hands on Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, the part that sets forth pre-clearance. Pre-clearance requires either the Department of Justice or a three-judge panel of the DC Federal District Court to basically approve map changes and make sure they don't unfairly discriminate against minorities. Here's a map of jurisdictions requiring pre-clearance. As you can see, it's mostly Southern states, in a vestige of the racism of the 1960's that required the VRA in the first place.
If SCOTUS goes this route, then all eyes turn to the pre-clearance case itself, which is set for January 17-26 in DC. Right now, the Legislature's maps have not received pre-clearance, but haven't been denied pre-clearance either. (Clearly, at the very least, there is a problem when the vast majority of a state's population is from minority residents, yet minority representation does not reflect that growth.)
In the scenario where SCOTUS forces the state to use the Legislature's maps, and then those maps fail to gain preclearance, the San Antonio court will then draw remedial maps to address the problems identified in the Legislative maps by the DC Court.
And as always, don't forget that this mess has been brought to you by Republican overreach in the Legislative redistricting process, when their partisan gerrymander deeply disenfranchised minority communities.
Update Wednesday 11:25 a.m.: Redistricting expert Michael Li says that the San Antonio court won't be waiting until January 12 to resolve the primary election calendar quandary. It is supposed to be worked out through mediation this week.
It was busy in San Antonio federal court today as the three-judge panel that redrew the congressional and legislative maps heard from various parties regarding the impact of the ongoing redistricting lawsuit on filing deadlines and election procedures here in Texas. Notably, nothing about actual districts was decided or discussed -- that's up at SCOTUS for now. Instead, today's hearing dealt with the ensuing problems from SCOTUS deciding to stay the maps. With candidate filing originally set to conclude this Thursday, December 15, confusion has reigned supreme over the last few days, since SCOTUS's late Friday decision to stay the maps. However, all of this chaos stems directly from Republicans' gerrymandered maps and overreaching effort to squash the electoral power of minority voters.
The most important things to take away today are as follows:
1) Filing is extended for all candidates, all parties through Monday, December 19 to accommodate the GOP's suspension of filing for two days
2) State Rep, State Senate, and Congressional candidates can file for districts from either map (the Legislative map, which was denied not granted preclearance, or the San Antonio court map, stayed by SCOTUS on Friday). I am not sure if candidates can file for a seat on BOTH maps.
3) Filing will eventually re-open when there are final maps. It's unclear when that will be, but certainly after SCOTUS wraps up their case, which should be mid-to-late January.
4) Candidates can amend or withdraw any filings filed to date. However, it's unclear when the new drop-dead withdraw date is, in part because it's unclear when the election is.
5) It's still unclear if we will have one or two primaries and when it or they might be. That will be decided in a hearing on January 12. Yes, January 12, one month from now. Until then, technically we proceed as if the March 6 primary is still happening. But for which races? Unclear.
So, yeah, chaos and uncertainty, basically. Sucks to be a county chair or county elections administrator right now.
Here's some analysis are some of the highs and lows from today's hearing, drawn primarily from the court record generated by two live-tweeters in the courtroom today, the always-awesome Michael Li (@mcpli) and star Daily Texan alum Nolan Hicks (@ndhapple).
Key to the whole ordeal was a discussion about whether or not the San Antonio Federal court had jurisdiction to extend filing. Abbott had sought a stay over the weekend to halt all filing for office in Texas. The Federal court does have jurisdiction (under the All-Writs Act, apparently, remember that for pub trivia), and extended this first round of filing through Monday the 19th. If they hadn't, there would have been some VERY unhappy candidates who haven't yet filed for office. Yikes.
Update 7:36 p.m.: Other reason for the filing deadline ruling -- the original SOS filing schedule (pre-Fed Court map re-draw) had filing closing yesterday. The Fed Court had extended filing when they announced the new maps.
The Republican Party of Texas initially proposed a split primary schedule, retaining Presidential, statewide, and countywide races only on the March 6 ballot, and moving all races that have map and precinct-boundary implications (Congress, State Senate, State Rep, SBOE, County Commissioner, Constable, etc.) to May 29th.
Moving the GOP Presidential primary election to after April 1 could have an impact on the eventual Republican nominee -- per RNC rules. primaries held before April 1 must award their delegates proportionally. Primaries after April 1 can be winner-take-all.
16 GOP State Senators signed a letter supporting a unified President-to-Precinct-Chair primary. Word is the GOP Congressional caucus also supports the move, worried that a smaller, lower-turnout primary for district seats would give undue influence to Tea Party-aligned voters.
The Texas Democratic Party opposes a bifurcated or split primary. Attorney Chad Dunn stated that the TDP's view was that a split primary was unconstitutional and would file a legal challenge against the split primary.
Interim TDP Chair Executive Director Bill Brannon spoke about the implication in these changes to the Texas Two-Step delegate selection process. Changes to the delegate selection plan would require preclearance to make sure there's no minority disenfranchisement. This is important because both Precinct and Senate District lines may change, and those are the jurisdictions we use to move delegates through the process.
Many of the witnesses--county clerks and election administrators--focused on the costs of holding two primaries.A Bexar County official said that the state provided 60% of the elections costs, and the county the remaining 40%. The county's share increases, however, as the rate of early voting increases. There is no decreased cost with less names on the ballot. Counties would see their expenses double if they had to hold double the primaries.
In smaller counties with lower revenue, the higher election costs could force the county to lay off workers to close the budget hole. It is unclear if the Secretary of State's office or the state in general can reimburse or cover these increased election costs. Lawyers for the state were unable to answer if the state could cover the costs.
Precinct lines are a big issue here, since Commissioners Courts will likely need to re-draw precinct lines if there are any changes to the Congressional or Legislative maps. Changes to precincts will require counties to send revised voter registration cards with the right precinct number on them, which of course costs money! It could also impact the elections for precinct chairs (if you are drawn out of your precinct, you would no longer be chair, though I believe your CEC could still appoint you) as well as precinct conventions. And can you still be a delegate to a County, Senate District, or State Convention if you are drawn out of your precinct after the election but before the convention?
So, while the San Antonio court provided some answers today, the bigger question as to the date(s) of the primary/primaries and run-off(s) and which races might be included in which split primary are yet to be answered. We won't know for sure until January 12 at the earliest when the San Antonio court takes up the election date(s). By then we'll also have had filings, responses, and oral arguments in the SCOTUS redistricting cases as well.
In the meantime, today's hearing leaves us with a few major issues to think about:
Both the Democratic and Republican Parties' state conventions are scheduled for June 8-9. It would be weird/awkward if the primaries for all offices weren't concluded by then. It would probably cut into the whole "unity" theme of party conventions since the intra-party squabbling would be far from over, and we all know nasty local primaries cause the deepest divides. I am pretty sure moving the conventions is out of the question given the logistics and costs involved.
Remember, again, that if the GOP Presidential primary is moved to April 1 or later, it is possible for the delegates to be awarded winner-take-all. In a state like Texas, with 158 total delegates, the second highest in the country, that can have a huge impact on the overall race. This Christian Science Monitor article has more on the process, and why the delegate count will likely be close through the end of March. Imagine if Perry manages to win the Texas primary in April and suddenly becomes a factor in an RNC convention floor-fight over the nomination? Similarly, Ron Paul should do well in caucus and proportional states due to the strength of his ground game. Could he get shut out in Texas, where his support is strong?
Just to push that idea further, can you imagine the uproar amongst Democrats in 2008 if suddenly, just months out from the primary-caucus, the rules -- not to mention the election date itself could be moved. What if that ultimately impacted the math of who became the nominee? And if a delegate was drawn out of one SD and into another, and as a result wasn't able to get voted through to the state or national convention?
Obviously a unified primary will save taxpayer money and result in increased turnout at all levels of the ballot. It's generally agreed that a more partisan electorate will show up in a second primary for just district seats, which could have a variety of ramifications I'll save to discuss later. But it's noteworthy that the larger electorates probably favor incumbents. So it's no big surprise to see the incumbent GOP State Senators and Congressmen trying to avoid Tea Party voters making up a larger share of the electorate, which could well determine the outcome of the elections.
Update 7:39 p.m.: Another thought -- if the primaries are postponed, that too could change the outcome, as either additional candidates decide to file, or campaigns use the added time to better organize. It's an interesting wrinkle that is hypothetical for now, but still a potential impact of this endless litigation.
Above all, throughout this brouhaha we've seen increasing calls for an independent redistricting commission. This process is causing anxiety and difficulty for both incumbents and challengers, political parties and election administrators, and everyone from precinct chair to state party chair. In the next legislative session, it would be great to see leaders from both parties consider whether or not we can improve this process to avoid the Republican overreaching in the form of gerrymandered, minority-stifling maps that got us into this mess in the first place.
With Friday's announcement that SCOTUS stayed the redistricting maps and will review the case, it looks like the primaries for Congress and both houses of the Legislature will move to the May primary run-off date, since the maps won't be set -- and filing may not be extended or resume -- in time to let candidates file for whatever districts we end up with.
From Michael Li's excellent Texas Redistricting blog, here's the election calendar as it looks for the early voting periods for the partisan primary, municipal elections, and partisan run-offs and simultaneous Congressional, legislative primaries. Read the full post here. I added a few additional dates in [brackets].
February 21-March 2: Early voting period (for now) for the March 6 primary.
March 6: Primary election day (for now).
March 6-11: The Democratic and Republican parties hold their precinct conventions to select delegates for senate district and county conventions.
March 24: Democratic and Republican parties hold their senate district and county conventions and select delegates by senate district for their state conventions.
April 7: Deadline for counties to send mail ballots for the May primary runoff to military and overseas voters.
[April 30-May 8: Early voting for Austin City Council elections. added by KH]
May 12: Municipal and local elections in many Texas jurisdictions.
May 14-18: Early voting for primary runoffs and congressional/legislative primaries. (The state has not suggested a period for early voting for legislative and congressional primaries, but the normal primary early voting period is 10 days, which would cause it to overlap with the May 12 municipal elections.)
May 22: Primary runoff election day in Texas. This is also the date the state has suggested for legislative and congressional primaries.
[June 11-June 19, 2012: Early Voting, Austin municipal run-off election, if needed added by KH]
[June 23, 2012: Election Day, Austin municipal run-off election, if needed added by KH]
[Late July or early August: Primary run-offs for congressional and/or legislative primaries, if needed. added by KH]
I'm posting this not only to update y'all on what's happening here, but also to remind everyone that the Austin City Council decided in a 4-3 vote to keep our municipal elections in May, rather than use the state-provided opportunity to move them to November 2012. Laura Morrison, Kathie Tovo, Sheryl Cole, and Bill Spelman were the four votes for May -- just want to make sure all y'alls' Google alerts on your own names catch this!
Their rationale for preserving a May election and its usual abysmal below-10% turnout at a cost of almost $2 million to the City of Austin taxpayers was in the name of "upholding the charter" -- even though SB 100, the State Law that prompted election calendar switches, specifically allowed Austin to move their election without violating the charter. So basically that rationale was false. But, whatever. They also said it should be up to the will of the voters, but grassroots genius Mike Blizzard found a little-known measure approved by the Austin voters decades ago that allows the City Council to move the election if necessary. But, again, whatever -- all of these facts are meaningless in the face of an effort to preserve a no-turnout electorate that guarantees their re-election.
At the time, Travis County Clerk Dana DeBeauvoir said that in her professional opinion, it was best to move the Austin municipal elections to November to save money in contracting fees and purchase of soon-to-be-obsolete voting machines. Now, thanks to Abbott, SCOTUS, and the redistricting lawsuits, it is exceedingly likely that we are going to have a primary run-off / Congressional and Legislative primary election that begins two days after the Austin City Council elections end.
And that's only if the state truncates the Early Voting period for the primary run-off and congressional/legislative primary -- if the state gives the voters the full 10 day period, there would be overlap in early voting for partisan races and the municipal election.
Hey, I'm just glad I'm not going to be running any vote-by-mail programs this cycle. Three to five rounds of applications and ballot chasing? YIKES.
During the debate about whether or not to move the Austin municipal elections, Bill Spelman specifically said that holding non-partisan municipal elections alongside partisan November elections would confuse the voters. Color me crazy, but I am pretty sure that the election calendar we're going to have now -- statewide and county primary, municipal election, statewide and county runoffs and Congressional and legislative primary -- is going to be much more confusing.
It's unclear right now how much more money this election calendar shift might cost Austin taxpayers. Partially that depends on the time frame set for early voting for the statewide/primary run-offs and congressional/legislative primary elections. We won't fully know until March 6 anyways, because if any primary races go to a recount that will put all of our county machines on "lockdown" so none can be used for the May municipals. That means Austin would have to buy even more voting machines. That costs money in an exceedingly tight budget cycle when Council is already struggling to keep our libraries, parks, and pools open.
Oh, and if any of the congressional or legislative primaries go to a run-off, or any of the Austin municipal elections go to a run-off, we'll vote for a potential fourth and fifth time.
Remind me again why it was such a bad idea for a majority of our Council to exercise leadership and save money, increase turnout, and simplify the election calendar?
