Enlarge Illustration by Anneke Paterson / Todd Wiseman

A week from Monday, lawyers, reporters and other interested parties will herd into a now-familiar federal courthouse in San Antonio as the next phase of the legal fight begins over the electoral maps drawn by the Legislature after the 2010 census.

Three years after the first maps were drawn, the plaintiffs, who allege that lawmakers violated the Voting Rights Act with their work product, have reached the stage where they can ask the judge for remedies.

In this case, that means asking some House districts to be redrawn and that some new districts be created to give minority voters a chance to elect a candidate of their choosing.

And in a development only made possible by last year’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling that knocked down a key legal underpinning of the pre-clearance provision of the Voting Rights Act, the plaintiffs are looking to establish facts that will allow them to ask a judge later that Texas — or parts of the state — should still have to ask for permission to make electoral changes.

That judicial maneuver is known as “bail-in” and has been talked about a lot in civil rights circles as a way to get around the court’s ruling that the formulas that had been used to put states into pre-clearance were unconstitutional.

“The elephant in the room is bail-in,” said Nina Perales of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. “It’s not just whether the maps are discriminatory. We have this new question looming: Does Texas need to be bailed in?”

“If the court rules in our favor, I would expect further action on a bail-in request,” said Jose Garza of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus.

This month’s court action is scheduled to last six days and will address just the Texas House map drawn in 2011. At this point, the plan is to address the 2011 congressional map and the 2013 House and congressional maps in future court dates.

The fact that the parties are still discussing a 2011 map can be reckoned a win of sorts for the plaintiffs. The state has argued that any action on the 2011 plans had become moot after new maps were enacted last year.

The San Antonio court, though, sided with the plaintiffs that much of the 2011 map was carried over into last year’s map. As such, enacting new maps did not moot out the old plans, Garza said.

Perales added that a final conclusion is needed on the 2011 maps to help set a standard for future Legislatures to follow when redistricting in the future.

Any such ruling, though, is subject to appeal. That means it’s likely the fight over the 2011 maps will continue for the foreseeable future.

Enlarge Bob Daemmrich

House Speaker Joe Straus gavels out the 83rd Legislative session at Sine Die 5:03 PM on May 27, 2013.

House Speaker Joe Straus on Wednesday announced the creation of a new panel tasked with keeping an eye on the costs associated with the state's stepped up presence along the Texas-Mexico border.

Straus, along with Gov. Rick Perry and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, recently directed the Department of Public Safety to spend an additional $1.3 million weekly to boost the law enforcement presence along the border in response to a surge in border crossings by unaccompanied children.

According to a statement from the speaker's office, the panel has three main functions:

•    "Monitor the costs of those operations and other services associated with increased border crossings."

•    "Review and evaluate any support that Texas receives from the federal government to address this issue and study the influx’s effect on resources available to local governments."

•    "Determine the long-term budgetary effect of efforts to ensure Texans’ safety."

“It is important for legislators and the public to know the full impact of these operations,” Straus said in the statement. “A comprehensive look at the costs and benefits associated with our investment in border security will be helpful as the House sets priorities for next year’s legislative session.”

Dennis Bonnen, R-Angleton, will chair the panel with Greg Bonnen, R-Friendswood; Myra Crownover, R-Denton; Drew Darby, R-San Angelo; Donna Howard, D-Austin; Oscar Longoria, D-Mission; Marisa Márquez, D-El Paso; Sergio Muñoz Jr., D-Palmview; John Otto, R-Dayton; Sylvester Turner, D-Houston; and John Zerwas, R-Simonton, were also tapped to serve.

*****

These Senate seats are not open (yet), but candidates continue to come forward. Here are the names of a couple of hopefuls already throwing their hat in the ring:

•    Jodey Arrington of Lubbock circulated a release in which he explained why he’s the best person to succeed Robert Duncan in SD-28. Duncan on Thursday officially resigned in order to take over the reins of the Texas Tech University System next week.

State Rep. Charles Perry has already signaled his intent to run as has Eppie Garza of the Lubbock bedroom community of Wolfforth. Others contemplating a run are Tech regent John Steinmetz and Lubbock City Councilman Todd Klein.

•    Charles Gregory has launched a website touting his candidacy for SD-18, the district represented by GOP comptroller candidate Glenn Hegar. Should Hegar win his general election contest, he would have to step down. Another name attached to a run for the seat is Brenham state Rep. Lois Kolkhorst.

****

Our nominee for tweet of the week from former Burt Solomons/Redistricting Committee staffer Bonnie Bruce, who comes up with this gem:

“Members of #txlege who did not run for reelection or who lost in primaries have 329 yrs of combined experience.”

*****

In our reading this week, these two quotes — the first by Democrat Trey Martinez Fischer and the second by Republican Jerry Patterson — got our attention.

“Wait a minute. GOP. That just stands for 'gringos y otros pendejos.'”

“Some of the stuff we're doing now is going to result in . . . well, actually, not a surrender, but a fight to the death, where all of us lose on the Republican side. We just got dumber than a rock. And immigration is one of those issues.”

Now, which of these two parties is facing an outreach challenge? And for which of these two parties is expanding its voting base more important in November?

Or, as state Rep. Eric Johnson put it in his op-ed last week in The Dallas Morning News, Democrats are looking at a couple of strategies that most likely can’t be done simultaneously.

One strategy is registering more African-Americans and Latinos and getting them to turn out in much larger numbers than at any other time in our state’s history. This path would also depend on demographic shifts continuing at a sufficiently rapid rate to make this strategy a winning one.

The other strategy is convincing a significant number of white Texans that it is OK to be a Democrat again.

His conclusion is that the party will focus its efforts on turning out minority voters “and that this work will preclude any serious, organized effort toward reclaiming white voters.”

At the same time, he says it’s important to consider whether the rise of the Tea Party within Republican ranks has given Democrats their first opportunity in many years to win back some white voters this year.

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This week in the Newsreel: Texas Democrats gather in Dallas for their biennial bash, and tired of Gov. Rick Perry fishing for California businesses, Golden State lawmakers fire back.

You can view the video at: https://trib.it/1jOqtIG

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This week, we asked the insiders in politics and government about the state Democratic Party’s convention in Dallas, and the first takeaway is that most of the insiders believe that most of the Democratic candidates got nothing from the gathering. Over half said lieutenant governor candidate Leticia Van de Putte’s prospects were helped by the gathering. For others, including governor nominee Wendy Davis, most of the insiders said the convention had no effect.

More than half said the Democratic Party’s position on immigration is a net positive. About as many — 53 percent — think the party’s position on the federal Affordable Care Act hurts the party’s chances. Asked whether the conventioneers created any political opportunities for Texas Republicans, 52 percent said no. But nearly a third — many of them citing Trey Martinez Fischer’s line about the GOP standing for “gringos y otros pendejos” — said the Republicans should be able to take advantage of that.

We collected verbatim comments along the way and a full set of those is attached. Here’s a sampling:

Enlarge Emily Albracht

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How did the state Democratic convention affect the political prospects of these candidates and officials?

• "Democrats are now openly saying Davis is just a money maker for us, but Leticia can win."

• "By all accounts it appears that the entirety of the convention was the intro to LVP's speech, and the speech itself."

• "Conventions have minimal impact. The same number of people who didn't know Mike Collier's name last week still don't know him."

• "Tiny convention scrum of an event with a left-wing feel to it -- it has always been the Republicans' election to lose -- if the Democratic Convention was the Democrats best shot, then the Republicans probably couldn't lose even if they tried."

• "The Democratic Party continues to fail to speak to a majority of Texans. In fact, it continues, unlike the party in the late 80s and early 90s, to overtly show Texans it stands opposed to their basic ideas."

• "It was a strong convention and helped all of the democratic candidates. By comparison, they seem the rational choice."

Enlarge Emily Albracht

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Does the TDP's position on immigration hurt or help the Party?

• "It helps it in the long term but not in the short."

• "They don't seem to realize how damaging and condescending their rhetoric is. They are essentially willing to de-franchise everyone else in deference to immigrants who come here illegally -- The idea that TMF's thought his 'Gringos and Otros Pendejos' would sell is a clear sign of how out of touch they are."

• "With their base only. It does nothing to expand their appeal. I'm assuming their game plan is to wait for the brown wave."

• "Hispanics' don't vote and the people who do want to deport all illegals anyway."

• "In light of the virtually open borders in south Texas they are on the wrong side of the voters of Texas"

Enlarge Emily Albracht

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Does the TDP's position on the Affordable Care Act hurt or help the party?

• "The Democrats can at least say they are 'for' something. Unfortunately it's not what Texans are 'for'."

• "They take a strong position in their platform endorsing and calling for the expansion of the Affordable Health Care Act, even though polls consistently show that Texas voters don't want Obamacare."

• "Keep moving left on this issue and supporting a failed policy that even those in the middle and some leading Dems are against and it will continue to make the TDP irrelevant. Funny how Davis is running from her big day in the Senate and not talking about so called reproductive rights as it relates to healthcare."

• "Check the Obama approval rating statewide"

Enlarge Emily Albracht

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Did the Texas Democratic conventioneers create any political opportunities for Texas Republicans?

• "State party conventions are irrelevant except for some momentary bad press while the fringe of the party enjoys its moment in the spotlight."

• "If TMF (F3?) qualifies as a conventioneer, then the answer is YES."

• "I don't think anybody is paying attention to anything they are doing. It's doesn't matter what they talk about."

• "Making it all about women is not a winning strategy. Furthermore, not all women in Texas think like the leftist feminazi women in the TDP"

• "What opportunities did the Rs need to be given in a one party state?"

• "By continuing to place itself too far to the left and creating a clear image of that, the Democrats broadly allow a newly fringe Republican Party easily to stay in power. When this group of Ds again only gets in the low 40s, it will once more discourage serious Ds from running for yet another round. Unbelievable."

• "'Gringos and pendejos.' Childish, makes any swing voter who has any sort of R vote history defensive, off-put. Abbott et al have the resources to make that one hurt."

Our thanks to this week's participants: Gene Acuna, Brandon Aghamalian, Brandon Alderete, Clyde Alexander, George Allen, Jay Arnold, Charles Bailey, Andrew Biar, Allen Blakemore, Chris Britton, David Cabrales, Kerry Cammack, Thure Cannon, Snapper Carr, Corbin Casteel, William Chapman, Elna Christopher, Harold Cook, Kevin Cooper, Beth Cubriel, Randy Cubriel, Curtis Culwell, Denise Davis, Hector De Leon, June Deadrick, Nora Del Bosque, Glenn Deshields, Holly DeShields, Tom Duffy, Richard Dyer, Jack Erskine, Norman Garza, Dominic Giarratani, Bruce Gibson, Kinnan Golemon, Daniel Gonzalez, Jim Grace, John Greytok, Clint Hackney, Wayne Hamilton, Bill Hammond, John Heasley, Ken Hodges, Steve Holzheauser, Kathy Hutto, Deborah Ingersoll, Cal Jillson, Mark Jones, Robert Jones, Lisa Kaufman, Robert Kepple, Richard Khouri, Tom Kleinworth, Ramey Ko, Sandy Kress, Dale Laine, Nick Lampson, Pete Laney, Luke Legate, Vilma Luna, Matt Mackowiak, Mike McKinney, Steve Minick, Bee Moorhead, Mike Moses, Steve Murdock, Keats Norfleet, Pat Nugent, Sylvia Nugent, Todd Olsen, Gardner Pate, Jerod Patterson, Robert Peeler, Tom Phillips, Wayne Pierce, Richard Pineda, Gary Polland, Jay Pritchard, Jay Propes, Ted Melina Raab, Patrick Reinhart, David Reynolds, Carl Richie, Grant Ruckel, Jim Sartwelle, Barbara Schlief, Stan Schlueter, Bruce Scott, Ben Sebree, Christopher Shields, Jason Skaggs, Martha Smiley, Larry Soward, Leonard Spearman, Dennis Speight, Jason Stanford, Bob Strauser, Colin Strother, Michael Quinn Sullivan, Sherry Sylvester, Jay Thompson, Gerard Torres, Trey Trainor, Vicki Truitt, Corbin Van Arsdale, Ware Wendell, Ken Whalen, David White, Darren Whitehurst, Woody Widrow, Seth Winick, Peck Young, Angelo Zottarelli.

Enlarge Todd Wiseman

Friday, July 4

• Independence Day holiday

Texas Democrats met in Dallas for their state convention where speeches were dominated by attacks on their GOP counterparts and by calls for unity in support of the party's standard bearers in November — Wendy Davis and Leticia Van de Putte.

Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins made some news at the Democratic convention when he announced his county could house up to 2,000 immigrant children now being held by the Department of Homeland Security on the Texas-Mexico border.

Appearing before a U.S. House field hearing in McAllen on Thursday, Gov. Rick Perry called again for thousands of unaccompanied migrant children to be returned to their respective countries without delay.

A Monday ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court upholding Hobby Lobby's right not to include contraceptive coverage for its employees drew cheers from conservatives as a victory for religious freedom. Critics of the decision called it anti-woman and said it could open the door to more exemptions from requirements of the Affordable Care Act.

State Rep. Joe Pickett, D-El Paso, introduced proposed legislation in an interim hearing that would introduce new regulations for the storage of ammonium nitrate, the substance that caused the devastating explosion in West a year ago. The proposed bill drew quick criticism from Republican lawmakers who viewed it as intrusive on businesses and a "power grab."

State and local water planning agencies in Texas were handed a narrow victory by federal judges on Monday, vindicating decisions to supply more water to cities and industries at potential expense of wildlife. At issue was who would be held responsible for the deaths of 23 whooping cranes near San Antonio Bay.

Sen. Robert Duncan officially resigned his seat representing SD-28 on Thursday. He takes over as chancellor of the Texas Tech Unversity System on Monday.

Former U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison on Tuesday was named president of the Texas Exes, the alumni association of the University of Texas at Austin.

Gov. Rick Perry appointed eight members to the Crime Victims' Institute Advisory Council for terms to expire Jan. 31, 2016. They are Blanca Burciaga of Fort Worth, Victoria Camp of Austin, Dottie Carmichael of College Station, Rodman Goode of Cedar Hill, Henry “Stephen” Porretto of Galveston, Richard Reynolds of Austin, Debbie Unruh of Austin and Mary Anne Wiley of Austin.

Nine members were named by the Supreme Court of Texas to the newly created Judicial Branch Certification Commission. They are Chairman Lee Hamilton of Abilene, Garland (Ben) Woodward of San Angelo, Migdalia Lopez of Brownsville, Sid L. Harle of San Antonio, Polly Spencer of San Antonio, Velma Arellano of Corpus Christi, Don D. Ford of Houston, Mark Blenden of Bedford and Ann Murray Moore of Edinburg.

Steve Head on Tuesday was confirmed as chancellor of the Lone Star College System. He had been chosen as lone finalist for the position on June 10. He succeeds Richard Carpenter, who had previously announced his retirement this summer.

Pam Boehm has been selected as the new president of Hill College. The only internal candidate to be named a finalist, Boehm replaces Sheryl Kappus, who retired earlier this year.

Steve Scheibal is leaving state Sen. Kirk Watson's shop to become associate director of communications at the Dell Medical School at UT-Austin.

Deaths: Angel Z. Fraga, who was a founding member of the Mexican American Bar Association of Houston and the first judge of Harris County Criminal Court at Law No. 13.

Disclosure: The University of Texas and Lone Star College are corporate sponsors of The Texas Tribune. A complete list of Texas Tribune donors and sponsors can be viewed here.