Court releases new set of redistricting maps

After a months-long set of legal battles spanning three courtrooms in two cities, Texas may finally have a set of interim redistricting maps that could keep the primary election on May 29.

The new maps, released by the San Antonio federal court today, appear to be nearly identical to the compromise maps negotiated between Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott and the Latino Redistricting Task Force, which were rejected by other minority and Democratic groups.

The best result would be that the State Legislature determine the map, per the law.

This crap of judges legislating is wrong.

/johnny

This map is probably the best that we could hope for in the short term, with filing deadlines looming. After SCOTUS b1tch-slapped that liberal San Antonio judge for ignoring the map drawn by the TX legislature, this plan pretty much adopts what the legislature approves, axcept for the creation of a new Hispanic-influence Democrat district in Dallas-Forth Worth. It protects all of the GOP incumbents (including potentially vulnerable freshmen Quico Canseco and Blake Farenthold), redraws TX-25 so that black conservative superstar Michael Williams will replace ultraliberal Lloyd Doggett (but he has to win the primary first: GO MICHAEL! ), and guarantees that the GOP will have at least a 27-11 edge in the House delegation (it was 22-12 Republican two years ago and 17-13 *Democrat* ten years ago). The TX GOP dropped the ball by not drawing several Hispanic-majority GOP CDs that would have optimized the number of GOP congressmen (and made it harder for lawsuits to prosper), but I'm not going to complain about a 27-11 (or maybe as high as 30-8) GOP delegation.

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