Free Republic

TX Redistricting Deal Rejected - NO Apr 3 Primary - Apr 17 Unlikely – Split Election Likely – TX Should Stand Up to Feds & RNC Monday, February 6th, was the deadline for a Texas Redistricting agreement to be made in order to have a one 2012 Primary Election in Texas on April 3rd. There was an agreement made between Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott and some of the minority groups who are plaintiffs in the Redistricting Lawsuit, but then a Federal US District Judge, Orlando Garcia, in San Antonio struck down the deal. Yep, this is the same...

Madison - Republicans in the state Senate did not use talking points that told lawmakers to ignore public comments about new election maps, their leader said Tuesday. "I've never seen that and no other member of my caucus has seen that," Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) said Tuesday when shown a copy of the talking points. "It wasn't put together for me." The talking points appear to have been produced in June by Adam Foltz, an aide to Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald (R-Horicon) who helped draw new election maps. The talking points said Republican lawmakers should ignore comments other...

Allen West has decided to switch to the newly proposed 18th district in Florida for reelection. Here is his statement below: “After much prayer, reflection and discussion with my close friends and family, I am announcing today my decision to seek reelection in Florida’s proposed 18th Congressional district. I have always believed the state of Florida would be best served by having both Congressman Tom Rooney and myself in the House of Representatives working to solve our nation’s most pressing problems. I have never waivered from my vision; to work to create jobs, restrain federal government spending, reduce America’s ever...

Jacksonville,FL- After last night’s Republican Presidential debate, the candidates’ respective spinmeisters made their cases to the media as to why their guy won the debate. One of Governor Mitt Romney’s spokesmen was Florida Representative Will Weatherford, and during the course of his remarks in the “Spin Room”, he shed a very dim light on the ongoing redistricting process in the Florida Legislature. Over the past several weeks, many Republicans have voiced their disappointment towards the Republican legislature after the release of the preliminary redistricting maps. Much of the ire concerns the proposed boundaries of Congressman Allen West’s 22nd Congressional District...

A California Supreme Court ruling Friday significantly raised Democratic Party prospects of gaining the supermajority needed in the state Senate to pass tax or fee increases. The high court decided that Senate maps drawn recently by a 14-member citizens commission will be used for this year's legislative elections, even if a pending referendum qualifies for the ballot. The decision brought certainty for dozens of prospective Senate candidates awaiting final adoption of the maps as they begin their campaigns. And it offered the commission at least temporary validation that it performed its job as the voters intended. Political analysts of both...

The Texas state attorneys defending the state’s GOP-drawn redistricting plans from court challenges have reached out to settle litigation, according to sources in the state. The settlement would give minority groups and Democrats what they’ve been demanding from the start: more heavily minority, Democratic-leaning House seats. The result would likely mean at least four more Texas Democrats in Congress as of next year, a good start on the 25 or so seats Democrats need to win to retake control of the House.

Breaking News: U.S. Rep. Brad Miller said Thursday in a statement released to his supporters that he will not seek another term in Congress. ...Miller said his decision comes in the wake of the voting map redistricting battle...

The Supreme Court on Friday rejected elections maps drawn by a federal court in Texas that had favored Democratic candidates there. The unanimous decision said that redistricting is primarily a job for elected state officials and that the lower court had not paid enough deference to maps drawn by the State Legislature, which is controlled by Republicans. The justices sent the case back to the lower court, extending the uncertainty surrounding this major voting-rights case.

WASHINGTON — Rep. Maurice Hinchey, a senior House Democrat from the Catskills, is retiring at the end of this year — a move that could end up saving the congressional seat of either Rep. Kathleen C. Hochul, D-Amherst, or Rep. Brian Higgins, D-Buffalo. Hinchey’s spokesman, Mike Morosi, told the Poughkeepsie Journal on Wednesday that the 10-term lawmaker will announce his retirement today in Kingston. Hinchey, 73, had surgery last week for colon cancer, and Morosi said the lawmaker is now cancer-free. Because New York will lose two congressional seats in a reapportionment that the State Legislature must approve this year,...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has thrown out electoral maps drawn by federal judges in Texas that favored minorities. The unsigned opinion Friday left the fate of Texas' April primaries unclear.</p>

The Republican-led Senate on Wednesday approved its version of the congressional district lines, setting up negotiations with Democratic House leaders over how to rectify the two different approaches to those six districts. (snip) The upper chamber also approved the new 38 state Senate districts that essentially drew at least three Democrats out of jobs, including Sen. Kathy Stein, D-Lexington. It passed the Senate, 21-14 with Democratic Sen. Joey Pendleton of Hopkinsville joining the Republicans...(snip) The map placed together Democratic Sens. Dorsey Ridley of Henderson who represents the 4th Senate District and Jerry Rhoads of Madisonville who represents the 6th District....

U.S. Rep. Todd Platts, R-York, announced this afternoon he will not seek a seventh term in office. During his time in office, Platts developed a reputation as a political moderate, who strongly supported the military and veterans. He routinely advocated more transparent government. In 2010, Esquire magazine named him one of the top-10 members of Congress. In the last year, Platts has drawn fire from the York 912 Patriots, a Tea Party group that criticized Platts for supporting the bank bailouts and the stimulus program. Platts, 49, is stepping away before a new district map for the state goes into...

Madison - A Democratic group suing election officials over new election maps asked a federal court Monday to sanction the state for not telling it about inaccuracies with the maps. Once a decade, states must draw new boundaries for legislative and congressional districts to account for population changes recorded by the U.S. Census. Republicans who control Wisconsin's government were able to draw those lines last year to favor themselves. Even before the GOP maps were revealed, a group of Democratic citizens sued over them, arguing they violate the U.S. Constitution and federal Voting Rights Act. On Monday, the group said...

The Wisconsin State Journal is reporting that a glitch in the state elections database is causing some Wisconsin voters to be listed in the wrong wards, municipalities, or school districts following the switch to the new, Republican-drawn maps in the state voter registration system. The GAB has known about the potential for error since at least Nov. 18, when the board sent a memo to county clerks saying it was related to the Census Bureau data by which voters’ locations were tracked. Previously, districts were assigned based on ranges of street addresses, which could be a problem if communities had...

The three-pronged battle over which state Senate districts will be used for this year's elections is reaching a climax that will determine whether Democrats can achieve a two-thirds majority in the upper legislative house. The state redistricting commission released maps for Senate, Assembly and congressional districts last August. It immediately became evident that with a little luck, Democrats could gain two seats in the 40-member Senate, thus reaching the two-thirds threshold and empowering them to pass tax bills without Republican support. Republicans filed suit to block the Senate maps, only to be rebuffed by the state Supreme Court, but also...

Former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement told U.S. Supreme Court justices Monday that lower federal courts cannot redraw state-approved election district maps unless they can point to concrete "identifying specific statutory or constitutional violations." Instead, Clement said during oral arguments on Perry v. Perez, two federal district judges have nullified the will of the people in Texas. The evident frustration of at least some of the Supreme Court justices suggests they agree with Gov. Rick Perry that state sovereignty must be restored. Clement represented Perry and the state of Texas in an appeal of lower court decisions throwing out new...

U.S. Congressman Allen West responds to the statement " I just can't believe a Republican State Senate is stabbing you in the back" made by an audience member at the Boca Raton Chapter Palm Beach County Tea Party meeting. (VIDEO)

TALLAHASSEE — Florida's new redistricting standards, coupled with the 10-year shift in population, have forced Republicans to do what is rarely done in politics — sacrifice incumbents — and that is not going over well with some Republicans. The possible casualties include U.S. Rep. Allen West, whose Broward to Palm Beach-based district would become more Democratic in every map proposed by both the state House and Senate. Broward Republicans have launched a website — "saveallenwest.com." — and are mounting a campaign to pressure legislators to revamp the maps to make them more in line with what they believe are the...

GOP Sen. Sam Blakeslee has started publicly signaling that he might not run for re-election this year. The San Luis Obispo Republican told Bee sister paper The San Luis Obispo Tribune that his decision is tied to the fate of the new district maps drawn by the independent Citizens Redistricting Commission. Democrats now hold a 16-point registration edge over Republicans in the central coast swing seat Blakeslee won in a 2010 special election. But critics of the new Senate maps have collected hundreds of thousands of voter signatures in an attempt to ask voters to reject the districts next fall....

Sacramento – Over the summer, the website I edit, CalWatchdog, published a series of articles documenting the way that the political Left exploited the redistricting process in California to assure strong gains for the Democratic Party. The report included an exclusive interview with a redistricting commission member who alleged partisan behavior by his supposedly nonpartisan commission colleagues. The series didn't cause attract attention in the media, the Capitol or among the public. Apparently, no one was surprised that a commission formed with the best of intentions – i.e., taking backroom political deal-making out of the process by which political boundaries...