On Sunday, May 29, the Texas legislature passed SB 100. It leaves the date of the primary in March, but moves the runoff primary from April to the fourth Tuesday in May. Because the current law says independent candidate petitions (for office other than President) are due 30 days after the runoff primary, this moves the independent candidate petition deadline from May to June. In 2012 the petition deadline will be June 24.
Oddly, though, the independent presidential petition deadline will be May 14, because the code section governing that deadline is in a separate place and it not tied to the date of any primary or runoff primary. Assuming the bill is signed into law, it will be very likely that an independent presidential candidate will win a lawsuit against the May 14 deadline. There is no state interest in requiring an independent presidential candidate to submit a petition forty days before the petition for other independent candidates. Even without this discriminatory aspect, the presidential deadline is so early that it appears to violate the U.S. Supreme Court decision Anderson v Celebrezze.
SB 100 also moves the deadline for non-presidential candidates to file a declaration of candidacy from early January of the election year, to the second Monday in December of the odd year before the election year. That deadline applies to independent candidates, minor party candidates, and major party candidates. No other state has anything remotely similar, as applied to independent candidates. The whole point of having procedures for independent candidates is to give voters an alternative if the primaries produce unsatisfactory nominees. But the filing requirement makes the emergence of a new candidate legally impossible.