Texas Politics - A Couple Of Changes

The last couple of days has seen a couple of changes on the Texas political scene. The first regards the date for the state's primary. The second has a new candidate entering the race to replace outgoing senator, Kay Bailey Hutchison. We can only guess at this point whether either of them will work out.

Texas originally had its primary scheduled for early March. But that date was no longer viable after the Republicans appealed a federal court's tossing out of their redistricting plan, which ignored the influx of minorities into the state and gerrymandered the new districts to optimize the election of white Republicans. Both the Justice Department and the federal court said the new districts violated the Voting Rights Act by trying to reduce the possibility of minority representation. It was true, but the Republicans appealed the decision anyway, and the Supreme Court set January 9th as the day they will hear arguments in the redistricting case.

With the Supreme Court not hearing the case until January 9th, the March date for the primary  became untenable (at least for all races except the presidency). There simply wouldn't have been time to get the districts sorted out, for candidates to decide if they wanted to run in the new districts, and for the ballots to get printed and mailed out to absentee voters. Republicans had floated the idea of having two primaries (one in March for the presidency and another in May for everything else), but Democrats opposed that and wanted a single delayed primary.


The single primary idea finally won out, probably because two separate primaries would have doubled the cost. Holding a primary in a state as big as Texas is not cheap to begin with, and doubling the cost (with the current financial problems the state has) was probably not going to be real popular with the voters (who are already unhappy over massive cuts to education made in the last legislative session).

Both parties have agreed to hold the primary on April 3rd. The county and senatorial district conventions would be held on either April 14th or 21st, and then the state conventions would be held in early June (June 7th for Republicans and June 8th for Democrats). The federal court must still approve that schedule, but that shouldn't be a problem. The only thing that could mess it up is if the Supreme Court doesn't make a quick decision after hearing the case.

The other political change for Texas is the entrance of another candidate in the already crowded senate race on the Republican side. There are already seven declared candidates, but word is that former SMU and NFL football player and current ESPN analyst Craig James will toss his hat in the ring no later than Monday. James is obviously planning on his famous name to get him the nomination, since his stated issues are no different than those of the other candidates -- less taxes and fewer regulations (the Republican mantra). Sadly like the others, he means the tax cuts only for the rich.

James had better not need any help from voters in West Texas and the Panhandle though, because his name is mud out here. He is responsible for the firing of Texas Tech coach Mike Leach, who was getting the Tech football program to respectability. Since James got Leach fired, the program has sunk back into irrelevance -- and football fans have long memories.

Personally, I don't think James can beat Lt. Governor David Dewhurst. He's the odds-on favorite and has the money to keep it that way.