According to this story, it is possible Texas will move its primary for U.S. House and state legislative seats to May, even though the state would presumably holds its presidential primary, and its primary for statewide offices (such as U.S. Senate, and partisan judicial races) in March. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
How many date machinations can there be — gerrymander and non-gerrymander related ???
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
ONE election day.
Great. More wasted money by the taxpayers for an additional election because of the greedy Republicans wanting a totally gerrymandered map.
The State of Texas has filed with the SCOTUS for an emergency stay of the interim maps (congressional and legislature) drawn by the federal district court (or rather the 2-1 majority). Filing under the court maps has started for Republicans and Democrats and independents (declaration of candidacy). The candidate filing deadline for Libertarian and Green and new parties (America Elects, Constitution, Reform, Socialist Workers, etc. is in early January.
If there is a stay of the interim maps, the district court would presumably be directed to draw new maps, and to adjust the election schedule for congressional, and legislative elections. They simply might not have the authority to change the calendar for presidential, senatorial, judicial, board of education, and county elections, all of which are partisan office. But they could order a special primary for congress and the legislature to be conducted coincident with the primary runoff for other offices. This might also result in a special primary runoff in July.
A better alternative would be to simply have a special election for Congress and the legislature next November (with a runoff in December), as was done in 1996 and 2006. In both years, the primaries had already been conducted – on different boundaries, and the results were tossed.
In Texas, the Republicans apportion national convention delegates based on congressional districts, while the Democrats use senate districts. So even if the presidential primary happens in March, there could be issues about how to apportion delegates (party rules in this matter may be subject to preclearance).
Precinct conventions for minor and new parties are coincident with the primaries, and county and district conventions where nominations for most offices are made soon afterward. So the follow on conventions might have to be delayed, if the districts are not set.
The supplemental petition for new parties is due 75 days after the primary. Signers are not eligible affiliate with another political party, so this would mean that AE signers could not vote in a congressional primary (if the regular schedule is used voters in congressional primaries can’t sign AE petitions, but that is easier to check since there are marked voting rolls from the primary). So conceivably, there could be challenges to AE signers, but a court might find that it was their vote in the primary that was illegal.
A delayed primary would also change the filing deadline for independent candidate petitions, which is 30 days after the primary runoff. So this could push the deadline into August.
In 1991, a federal district court drew legislative boundaries in December. Ann Richards called a special session in January 1992 to redraw the boundaries, and also to modify the primary date to April. The boundaries and primary date weren’t precleared, and the House had the good sense not to put them into place until 1994. The senate districts were precleared by late summer, and Texas tried to use the primary results from March on different boundaries as nominations for the new districts. That scheme was blocked. So the Senate districts weren’t used until 1994.
By 1996, the legislative districts were found to be unconstitutional, so another set of districts was used in 1996 (and 1998). They didn’t change for 2000.
# 2 TX gerrymander Elephant districts are trying to offset the CA gerrymander Donkey districts to CONTROL the U.S.A. gerrymander House of Reps.
i.e. one more minority rule U.S.A. House of Reps. — going back to 1789.
1/2 votes x 1/2 gerrymander districts = 1/4 CONTROL — much worse before 1964 with rural control of the gerrymander district systems in the larger States
— NO or minimal updates in gerrymander districts in 1788 to 1962 in many States.
i.e. 5-15 percent control in 1960-1962 elections. Worse with primary math. BAD old days.