When last seen, the legislature was in one piece and in one state. The
third Special Session convened on September 15, and the Dems had resigned themselves to fighting in court battles, not on the chamber floors. (There are rumors about a
racial slur being hurled at some of the once-fled, but now returned Democrats, but that's a new story that I don't know much about.) As predicted, the Republicans easily rolled through the Democrats in both houses. Easy as pie, right? We’re done, we can go home and forget about all of this stuff until the next session in 2005.
Sure, after we get through the conference committees and figure out how to reconcile the two maps. See, the House version is the Rowe/Delay version. Good little Republicans doing what they're told. The Senate, they couldn't leave well enough alone, so they tweaked it a bit. No matter, we're all Republicans,
we can meet behind closed doors, and settle this thing by the end of September.
See, there's a problem with District 17. Rowe/Delay/the House, don't like it very much because of Charlie Stenholm, who is a Democrat, so clearly it's a Democratic district and must be destroyed. Problem? Cornyn and Perry got 67% and 72% of the votes in the last statewide election in that district. Not exactly a compelling argument that the Democrats have a stronghold there. They just like Charlie Stenholm, probably because of his fierce protection of the district first and foremost, and because he's pretty high up in the Agriculture Committee, and brings a lot of pork. Anyhow, that particular district is huge, Midland/Odessa and Lubbock are in it, and the House plan would put Abeline (
where the Republicans like their district just fine) with Lubbock, and have Midland be the epicenter of a nice, non-Stenholm, Republican District, which could be perfect for
one of our President's former business partners to step into. Anyhow, that's just one of the fights that the Republicans are fighting among themselves over.
The people in the Valley aren't happy about their district being cut in half. And Arlington, that bastion of libralism, will be split up so as to prevent people like Martin Frost, from being elected again.
Anyhow, this is all very well and good, and should be of no more than mild interest to those outside the Great State, except it has a bit of an impact on the national scene. See,
once a redistricting bill is passed, it would not take effect until 90 days after Perry signs it. The Secretary of State's office then would need enough time to allow candidates to file for the races, print ballots and hold early voting. All of this means that if we didn't have a map out by Monday, then the primary election, originally scheduled for March 2, would have to be pushed back at least to March 9. This means that Texas wouldn't be part of Super-Tuesday, and the state could potentially have little or no impact on the democratic nominee. We didn't have a map signed by the governor on Monday.
DeLay came to Austin to help yesterday, despite the fact that he's not been elected to either House of the Texas Legislature, and, in fact, has a job in Washington. And the
Democrats wrote an amicus brief in a Pennsylvania case that's heading to the Supreme Court.
Word on the street, though, is that the Republicans aren't too happy with the Governor's handling of the whole debacle, and that Senator Hutchinson is looking very closely at his job. Same word says that if she (or State Comptroller Carole Keeton Rylander) decides to run, she'll probably get the party's backing in the primaries. Which may mean that it's a good thing that the primary has been pushed back for Perry.
The lastest, i.e. as of maybe an hour ago, is that
the Republicans have reached a tentative plan, and announcement may come out shortly. Lt. Gov. Dewhurst, another major player in this whole debacle also says that
if the Justice Department doesn't approve of the map, they're probably not going to try and redistrict again.
R(hoping that her tags are correct)T
