Texans had finally felt some certainty about hitting the polls May 29, but controversy over Congressional District 25 is threatening to delay the primary for a third time.
The San Antonio federal court set the long-awaited primary election schedule March 1, two days after releasing its final interim maps.
A federal court in Washington, D.C.—charged with approving those maps—requested more information March 6 from the Texas Latino Redistricting Task Force, which claimed that "Anglo voters dominate the Democratic primary" in District 25, the current district of U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin.
The San Antonio Court's congressional map—as in the original Republican-led state Legislature's map—divides Travis County into five districts. Further, it cuts at Doggett's support base by reconfiguring District 25 and creating a new district out of his old one, District 35, that would connect southeast Austin with San Antonio. After the release of the San Antonio maps, Doggett stated he would run in District 35.
Most minority advocacy groups, however, have maintained that District 25 is a coalition district and is protected under the Voting Rights Act.
Margaret Moran, League of United Latin American Citizens national president, issued a statement March 1 expressing concern over the maps, including the changes in Travis County.
"Obviously the interim maps need more work. We hope that the D.C. Court will deny Texas preclearance," Moran said. "LULAC will continue to fight for a redistricting map that fully reflects the growth of the Texas Latino population."
According to Steve Bickerstaff, an election law expert and an adjunct law professor at The University of Texas School of Law, the primary would be delayed if the D.C. court agrees that District 25 does need to be redrawn and that procedure does not allow enough time to uphold the May 29 date.
New maps would be needed by March 31 in order to keep the May 29 primary date. A delay would mean pushing the primary back to at least late June. Federal lawsuits had already delayed the primary elections from March 6 to April 3.
However, Bickerstaff said there are several scenarios that would keep the May date. He said the D.C. court could rule that the map should not be changed, or if the court decides it needs to be redrawn, the U.S. Supreme Court could become involved.
"If the D.C. court concludes that CD 25 is protected, I think the state would seek a stay from the Supreme Court to leave the plan in place," Bickerstaff said.
A third possibility, which he believes may be most likely in the event that the D.C. court has objections, would be the decision by the San Antonio court under what is called "the expediency of circumstances" to decide the district dispute is too disruptive to the current process and move forward with the schedule and maps as planned for the 2012 elections.
"The San Antonio court might plead it will make the changes in some time frame, but not necessarily for this election," he explained.
The D.C. court has given TLRTF until March 13 to provide the evidence that District 25 is dominated by white voters and therefore does not need to be protected.
