On January 27, a 3-judge U.S. District Court in San Antonio that is hearing the redistricting lawsuit held a status conference that lasted seven hours. At the conclusion, the judges said that if the plaintiffs and the defendants can agree on new district boundaries for U.S. House and legislature by February 6, then the April 3 primary can proceed. Otherwise, it will be postponed.
In the meantime, the deadline for candidates to file for the primary will be re-opened, but when it will be re-opened is not determined. Previously there had been an agreement that it would re-open February 1, but that date is now defunct and the new date will be settled later.
The judges are delusional. There wasn’t enough time with a February 1 deadline to hold an April 3 primary, particularly if the legislative and congressional maps were different than the previous two maps. And even then they were talking about a filing period lasting hours. They have forgotten that elections are for the voters, not to have short deadlines that only professional politicians are likely to meet.
The best solution would be to simply let the presidential, senatorial, 8 other statewide offices, SBOE, and 100s of judicial and county races go on April 3, with a runoff for June 5.
This would let the Democrats and Republicans hold their state conventions in June, and let minor parties hold their precinct conventions, and new parties begin their petition gathering.
If the congressional and legislative boundaries are ready by late March, then the primaries for those offices could be added to the June runoff, which will almost certainly have statewide senatorial runoffs.
36% of congressional and legislative primaries have ZERO candidates, and 42% have only 1. Since Texas does not have write-ins in primaries, the sole-filers can be declared as being nominated.
This means that only 22% (95 of 434) races would have to be added to the ballot of an election that would already be held, and would like attract more voters.
If the legislative and congressional districts were delayed further, they could simply be contested as special elections concurrent with the November general election.