On December 9, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear oral arguments in Perry v Perez, 11A536, the lawsuit over Texas congressional and state legislative district boundaries. The hearing will be January 9, 2012, at 1 p.m. It is very rare for the U.S. Supreme Court to hear arguments in the afternoon, but this case is being expedited, and the Court already had a full hearing schedule in the morning on that day.
This development makes it likely that Texas will postpone its primary, at least for U.S. House and state legislature. The primary had been expected to be held on March 6. If the primary is moved to May, that automatically improves the petition deadline for parties seeking a place on the November ballot, from May to July. It makes a somewhat similar improvement for non-presidential independent candidates.
Candidates expecting to run for office in Texas in 2012 had already started to file.
I guess I was totally wrong when I thought they wouldn’t take the case. They must want to say something new about Section 5.
http://txredistricting.org/post/14015364530/answers-to-some-common-questions-about-the-supreme
The Supreme Court issued its stay at 7 pm on Friday. There is speculation that they were preparing another order, dealing with mundane matters such as when the primaries would occur, and didn’t complete it. In its appeal for the stay, the State had said that they were willing to have a May primary, if necessary to give the court time to consider the case.
Because the state requires majorities for nominations there is also a runoff. And because the federal government requires congressional ballots to be sent overseas 45 days before an election, there has to be about 70 days between elections to provide time for counting, canvassing, recounts, and ballot preparation. Earlier this year, the legislature moved the primary runoff from early April to late May (May 22) to comply with this (they also added the the 45-day requirement for legislative elections).
There are local non-partisan elections on May 12, and these must be independent of the primaries. So May 22 would appear to be the next available date – at least for congressional and legislative primaries. This would put the runoff into late July (21st?). Since petition signing for independent candidates can not begin until after the primary-nominations are decided – the starting date depends on whether there is a runoff for the particular office. So this would put the petitioning period into late August.
Signature requirements for district candidates are relatively modest, so it would only be statewide offices that would be pressed to get counted in time for the general election. For 2012, this is the senate seat and statewide judicial races.
The Section 5 preclearance of the maps drawn by the legislature is still pending in DC Federal District Court (Texas didn’t seek administrative preclearance from the USDOJ). After the DC Court refused to grant summary judgement, they ordered the Texas federal district court to draw the interim maps that are at issue now. Before the Supreme Court stay, the plaintiffs and the USDOJ were then arguing that the interim map should become the baseline for Section 5 retrogression claims, and not the 2000-based maps.
The Texas district court has already held the trial on various VRA and other claims (there is a prison-population claim somewhat underneath that stack of filings). But they can’t issue a ruling until after the plans have been precleared. So in theory, their interim map was drawn without any consideration of whether the legislature-drawn maps were legal or not.
If the legislature-drawn maps had been precleared, any remedy by the district court would have been limited to areas where they then found a VRA or other constitutional violation. If the legislature-drawn maps had not been pre-cleared, any remedy would have been limited to areas not precleared.
The Texas district court (2-1) majority is claiming that their maps were based on the current (2000-based maps); while the 3rd judge, who is assigned to the case from the 5th circuit argued that they had much greater changes than needed, and had exceeded the limited authority of federal courts to draw district maps. It is this dissent which is likely to have caused the Supreme Court to take the case.
Is everybody ready for gerrymander Civil WAR II ???
See the 1860 ANTI-Democracy gerrymanders in ALL States (north, south, east, west) producing Civil WAR I in 1861-1865.
Earlier – the ANTI-Democracy gerrymander in the Brit House of Commons in 1761-1776 — with lots of low population *rotten boroughs* created in the DARK AGE in England (many controlled by KG III and the HL oligarchs) – along with the DARK AGE Brit House of Lords oligarchy.
The ALARM BELLS are ringing (almost off the walls).
Bong !!! Bong !!! Bong !!!
Sound Democracy General Quarters – this is NO drill.
ALL Democracy hands on deck. Democracy Battle Stations.
For NON-morons — compare the language — 14th Amdt, Sec. 2 with 15th Amdt – Sec. 1. ANY connection ??? Duh.
—-
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V. — before it is too late.
# 3 How much NO State shall stuff is in the Const. — starting with 1-10 ???
Perhaps 5 of 9 on SCOTUS can now read English ???
Clue – NO *preclearance* stuff regarding 1-10 and the sovereign nation-States of the *United* States [plural] of America.
Jim or Richard,
In regards to Americans Elect gaining party ballot access, if the runoff dates are pushed back, does this mean that AE’s window of opportunity for gathering petition signatures would be March through July?
I thought the ballot access period was simply a certain # of days from the start of primary voting.
Thanks for your opinion.
Brad
#6 Technically, a new party qualifies based on attendance at its precinct conventions. However, it is permitted to supplement the list of convention participants by petition.
The list or precinct convention participants plus supplemental petitions is due 75 days after the precinct conventions.
Until this year, precinct conventions were required to be on the night of the primary, even though minor parties didn’t have a primary. A bill passed this year, allows the precinct conventions to be up to 5 days later (through the following Sunday).
The law on petition signing is specific that the signing period starts the day after the precinct convention. But each county party may set the date of its precinct conventions.
The reason for having the petition signing starting the day after the primary was to prevent someone voting in the primary, and then affiliating with the new party. But since the petition supplements the roster of convention participants, it also makes sense to set the deadline based on when the convention is held. But that means the deadline could vary by county for a statewide petition.
A party may consolidate election precincts for a primary, and consequently its precinct conventions. And a law passed this year permits consolidated precincts to cross commissioner precinct boundaries. I interpret this to mean that a “precinct convention” can be county-wide.
If I were organizing AE, I would hold a countywide precinct convention, at least in larger counties. I assume they have real addresses so as to be able to prove real identity, and make sure the online voting doesn’t end up being Russian Hackers Elect. They could still contact potential attendees by e-mail, but they probably can figure out who lives in Travis County for example. It could be useful to have a few dozen enthusiasts to show up, who are willing to forgo the Democratic or Republican primaries, even if they do rely on professional signature gatherers for most of the signatures.
Previously, the 75-day period fell after the primary runoff. But with runoff on May 22, the 75-day period falls on the 20th. Someone who votes in a primary is ineligible to sign the petition (remember “save yourselves for Kinky”?), but someone who signs the petition is ineligible to vote in the runoff.
Texas AG Greg Abbott has issued a statement that he will seek a stay of filing for legislative and congressional primaries only. This would mean that the primary would still be on March 6, including the presidential, senatorial, RRC, SBOE, judicial, and county offices. It is still the primary, even if certain offices are not on the ballot.
It is possible that the political parties could ask that the entire primary schedule be delayed, claiming that the primaries belong to them and it would be confusing to their voters.
If the primary remains on March 6, it could be to AE’s advantage, Turnout for the Democratic presidential and senatorial primary could be be fairly low. All non-voters would be eligible to sign the AE petition.
The district court in San Antonio has scheduled a conference for Tuesday to discuss the schedule for elections and ordered the parties to consult with the Democratic and Republican parties and the SOS. They didn’t say they that the Libertarians and Greens couldn’t be consulted.
ALL *area* representation stuff is STONE AGE / DARK AGE — i.e. from the DARK AGE Brits in the formation of the English House of Commons in the 1200s — a mere 700 plus years ago.
The 1787 top secret Fed Convention folks were IGNORANT — like the folks before Newton’s LAW of Gravity.
P.R. came along in the 1840s — repeat 1840s — about 50 years plus after 1787.
NO excuse for the 1861-1865 robot party hacks in keeping the NO compromise area gerrymanders — NO slavery in the north, NO freedom in the south.
Price paid / Victims of the EVL robot party hacks – about 620,000 DEAD Americans in 1861-1865 on both sides.
Way too many 2011 super-IGNORANT know- it- all math MORONS in the U.S.A. — esp. ALL 9 SCOTUS super-math MORONS.