If the Courts Take More Time, So Will Texas Primaries
It takes at least two months to put a primary election together once political maps are finally drawn, and if the federal courts don't spit out a final Texas map within the next three weeks, the state's primary elections probably can't be held on April 3.
During Monday's oral arguments in the Texas redistricting case, the justices on the high court asked about holding elections on time in April or as late as June. At one point, they were working backward from the general election date next November as they tried to sort out the complexities ...
Comments (4)
Audrey Fisher via Texas Tribune on Facebook
In a hilarious: we want to be relevant: SAExpress News has already posted their candidate de jour. And it isn't Perry!
WUSRPH
A few points:
• Split conventions--one to elect presidential convention delegates and one for party affairs--was just what Texas did until the 80s....With the earlier primary the first "presidential" convention was not supposed to be necessary any more...but we could easily go back to that format.
• We have only been holding the primaries in March since the mid-70s to early 80s....It was supposed to help Lloyd Bentsen become president (in 1976 when he had our first presidential primary--which it did not)...Then in 1984 it was supposed to help John Connally--which it again did not...Since then we have kept them in March in the faint hope of having some affect on how gets nominated. Of course that has not turned out to be true either.
• Before the move to the March primary, we held them on the first Saturday in May with the first Saturday in June as the runoff....They were moved to those dates in 1960 because it was supposed to help Lyndon Johnson become president--which again, it did not.
• Prior to 1960 the primaries were late July and August....They were moved to May and June for the Johnson campaign.
There is no reason why March is special other than incumbents like to get it all over early so they will have time to heal any inter-party wounds before the General Election....Plus they like to limit the amount of time anyone will pay attention to their primary opponents...That is why the filing deadline is so late.
So nothing being talked about for this year is that new.
WUSRPH
Make that "1980" to help Connally.....
Peter Stern
So, who would that really hurt? It will hurt the GOP since it is trying to get more seats in Texas and around the nation. It will hurt the GOP because it is trying to beat Obama in November. It will further hurt Rick Perry but he really doesn't need any more help in hurting himself, he's doing fine on his own. Maybe it would actually help Texas if we can't vote this year.