Chris Hooks undercuts himself on redistricting battles

Here's CD Hooks' take on the state-by-state redistricting semi-wash (not a wash yet with Virginia's on judicial hold):

When Texas needs something from the Feds—say, disaster aid after a hurricane—it benefits from having both Democrats and Republicans from its congressional delegation in senior positions in Congress. Republican state lawmakers advocated for the gerrymander by arguing that it was in the state’s core interest to ensure that the next Congress was Republican-controlled. But Democrats are likely to win control of the House—likelier to do so now because of what the Texas Legislature did—so the Legislature has weakened the negotiating position of the state in D.C. by shrinking the number of Democrats in the delegation and knocking out at least a few more well-regarded Democratic incumbents.

Sidebar: Ain't it funny to see the number of anti-gerrymandering opinion pieces in places like the NY Post AFTER the Virginia vote? 

That said, Hooks spoils it by entering the land of naivete:

There just might be a silver lining to this mess. If, after the midterm, there is national momentum toward a kind of grand bargain on redistricting, a meaningfully good thing will have come out of the Texas Legislature. The nation could, in theory, work out some kind of compact to limit redistricting to set intervals, say, or task independent commissions with drawing district lines on common criteria—proposals that are already favored by Democrats. But the change will have come from Texas lawmakers themselves learning the hard way that when you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes.

Can I have the hopium you're smoking? Dems are not winning back the state House and certainly not the state Senate. 

Yes, the other half of his narrative is true, that state Rethuglicans screwed themselves. But, the final fallout of redistricting will have empowered Trump, if anything. After the midterms, we'll get even more "fake elections" rants and even more push for state voter data. 

Gavin Newsom: What's wrong with Democraps in a nutshell

I'm not talking about his neoliberalism, and things like pseudoenvironmentalism that go along with that. Those are givens when you talk about "what's wrong with Democraps," as are things like Palestinian statehood and all related issues, military Keynesianism, etc.

No, there's something else generally wrong with national Democraps.

And, that is that, at some point, they'll always have a lack of balls.

Like Newsom on mid-decade redistricting. 

Texas called its special session more than a week ago, but here he is earlier this week, begging Trump to stop with the redistricting.

From the way he talks, I remain unconvinced that he'll actually order the Cal Legislature to do a mid-decade redistricting there.

Related to that, he's already backed off his claim that, the way the enabling rules are set for California's non-partisan redistricting commission, he and the Cal Lege could do a mid-decade redistricting without any additional approval.

Ballless.

Or clueless, if he misread the statute.

That said, they're not mutually exclusive.

Meanwhile, per Capital and Main, de facto segregation in California public schools is getting worse. And, it says that on magnet and charter schools, there are things the state could do to reverse that. But, obviously, hasn't.

Since she is also from California, remember that if Kamala is a Zionist Cop runs for prez again, too. 

A special session for redistricting?

I doubt it, even if Trump wants it, is even begging for it.

Trump wants Strangeabbott to call the Lege into special session to further gerrymander its Congressional districts for 2026. Ain't gonna happen, I don't think but a sure sign of Trump's fears about the midterms. Texas' Congresscritters are mostly mum in public but worry they could be pitched into redistricting fights against each other, per the Chronic, which also notes that, as we speak and type, the state faces trial in El Paso over previous redistricting.

Legislative Republicans, on the other hand, are less reticent about criticizing the whole deal.

Also, per all of the above links, since Texas congressional seats are already fairly gerrymandered, there's a lot of question about how much this could add. And, if Texas stretches itself too thin, how it might even backfire, like in the 2018 midterms.

How much backdoor word will Congressional incumbents give to Strangeabbott and Legiscritters about their fears? How much will Abbott reference the ongoing suit to Trump as an excuse?

John Roberts does it again on voting issues

Rick Hasen notes a ticking time bomb at the tail end of Moore v Harper. Here it is, edited to shorten:

In the last part of his majority opinion for the court, the chief justice got the liberal justices to sign on to a version of judicial review that is going to give the federal courts, and especially the Supreme Court itself, the last word in election disputes. The court held that “state courts may not transgress the ordinary bounds of judicial review such that they arrogate to themselves the power vested in state legislatures to regulate federal elections.”

To understand these dense words, we need to go back to the last time the Supreme Court decided a major election case, the 2000 Bush v. Gore decision (a case cited in Moore, for the first time ever, in a majority opinion in the 23 years since that decision).  ....

After the Florida court ordered the recount, Bush appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. A majority held that the recount ordered by the Florida court violated the equal protection clause because there was no guarantee that uniform standards were used or could be used to conduct it. But three justices—Chief Justice William Rehnquist, joined by Justices Antonin Scalia and Thomas—adopted this milder version of the independent state legislature theory at the time. In essence they argued that the Florida court’s interpretation of the Florida election statutes to allow this recount was so far from ordinary statutory interpretation that the Florida court was essentially making up the law for itself, and taking away the legislature’s power to decide the rules for conducting federal elections in the first instance. 

It is this milder version of the independent state legislature theory that the court embraced in Moore. It did not spell out its contours, and whether to adopt the Rehnquist Bush approach or some other approach. But Kavanaugh, in a concurrence, endorsed the Rehnquist approach and said that in engaging in this second-guessing, federal courts need to compare election law in the state in earlier decisions. The greater the deviation, the more likely they’d be to find a violation of the independent state legislature theory. 

Make no mistake: This apparent new test would give great power to federal courts, especially to the U.S. Supreme Court, to second-guess state court rulings in the most sensitive of cases. It is going to potentially allow for a second bite at the apple in cases involving the outcome of presidential elections. In the 2020 presidential election, for example, Trump allies raised this theory in arguing that Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court could not extend the days for the receipt of absentee ballots by three days in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. There were not enough of these late-arriving ballots to make a difference in 2020, but if there had been, according to the approach laid out in Kavanaugh’s concurrence, the Supreme Court would have had to look at Pennsylvania court precedents to decide if the state court went too far in deciding matters under its own state laws. ...

It fell to Thomas, who ironically joined Rehnquist’s Bush concurrence, to point out how much discretion Roberts’ test. ...

Thoughts?

First, besides the time bomb, is the making Bush v Gore precedent now, explicitly rejecting Rehnquist, speaking for the five kingmakers, saying that it shouldn't be, and even that it wasn't.

Second, Roberts has dropped such time bombs ever since being the fifth vote on upholding Obamacare — at the price of truncating the Commerce Clause by calling the penalty a tax, and other things. And, he's used that in years since.

Although the court upheld Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act earlier this year, that would be one way this could come into play in the future — keeping it technically still alive, but further narrowing its parameters.

Or, in the case of absentee ballots, things such as what counts as a defaced ballot, equal access and drop-off locations and more will all be in play for federal review.

Texas Progressives look at pre-Thanksgiving state tea leaves

Lots to talk about this week, the last before people stuff themselves on turkey or else scrape up vegan alternatives, so, let's dig in to ...

This week's Texas Progressives roundup.

Texas will get about $35 billion from the Biden infrastructure bill. GOP Senators Havana Ted Cruz and Tiny John Cornyn, and even more, wingnut US House Congresscritters, who all voted against it, will nonetheless start touting its state and House district benefits in 3, 2, 1 ... 

SB 8, the anti-abortion bill, is being challenged in state district court as well as the federal level.

Luke Warford is the first Dem to announce to seek Wayne Christian's Railroad Commission seat. Wondering who Texas Greens, or anybody else outside the duopoly, will get with the new third-party and independent filing fees. Warford is narrowly targeting his run on Winter Storm Uri.

In case you haven't heard, Robert Francis O'Rourke is running for guv, and taking a page from Warford. My take here.

The Monthly looks at the possibility of Gohmert Pyle entering the crowded Republican primary against Kenny Boy Paxton for AG. I personally am ready to pop plenty of popcorn and get it if Gohmert jumps in.

Carroll ISD has more problems than "alternatives to the Holocaust." The Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights has opened a discrimination investigation.

The Observer's Michael Barajas takes another look at redistricting. It's true the process was rushed like hell. But if Dem Legiscritters were eventually going to fold the tents on their boycott of the voting bill special anyway, wouldn't it have been better to not do it at all and instead find a way to delay the process? 

Off the Kuff analyzed how the new State House map changed electorally over the past decade.

SocraticGadfly talks about the latest in Texas-New Mexico water rights issues and other environment and climate news, with thoughts on Glasgow COP26 coming for the week ahead.

Cheese, anybody? The Texas sector is growing. The story's not THAT good though. There's some great cheese at a "homestead" place northwest of Waco, that's been in operation, assuming it still is, for a decade now. Nothing about it.

That said, per a link inside that piece? I didn't realize that Texas had loosened its rules on raw milk distribution at this year's regular session of the Lege. Not good. (The Snooze's story is also not good, starting with the fact that the Texas Dairy Asssociation has consistently opposed such legislation. And the freelancer, formerly a Snooze staffer, should know that.) The big problem is not direct-to-cheesemakers raw milk, where cheese fermentation may reduce the risks, but direct-to-consumer sales of raw milk for drinking. The Monthly also misses the boat on this.

Delta-8 is back to being Ill Eagle for now.

Jessica Goldman finds out how wheelchair-accessible Houston's theaters are.

Alex Karjeker takes a closer look at how the Texas Democratic Party did as an institution in 2020.

Steve Vladeck argues for greater Congressional authority to enforce their own subpoenas.

Your Local Epidemiologist explains the mechanisms by which vaccines reduce disease transmission.

Hope Osborn looks ahead to the day when Texas is no longer reliant on oil and gas taxes to fund public schools.

Texas Progressives get ready for redistricting

The Lege (as we await the fate of a lawsuit that claims redistrictings can be done only in regular sessions, per the Texas Constitution so beloved of wingnuts) has dropped its first Texas Senate redistricting map. The Trib has the backstory. As others have noted, "cracking and packing" along with "splitting and diluting" in the Metromess and elsewhere. Beverly Powell targeted in an attempt to "whiten" District 10 after she narrowly beat wingnut Konni Burton. That's the dilute and split. Nathan Johnson's Dist. 16 is cracked and packed, in part to benefit the GOP in District 10 and 12. Taking white suburbs out of Dist. 16 is done primarily to benefit whatever GOP wins the primary to succeed Jane "I Lied about Term Limits (and many other things)" Nelson in Dist. 12. Look back at her last two races, esp. the last one. I wrote a blog post about this, this summer, noting that Dist. 10, Dist. 12, Kelly Hancock's Dist. 9 and, if possible but a distant fourth, Angela Paxton's Dist. 8 would all be targets of redistricting help. She's getting some help by being moved more into exurban areas, with rejiggering to the east of nutbar Bob Hall's Dist. 2 and other things. Springer's Dist. 30 is "safe," so the GOP can borrow from it as needed. I had mainly been focused on "borrowing" from Springer's seat; hadn't thought about borrowing from Bob Hall's.

Off the Kuff looks at 2020 Congressional results as we wait for further redistricting maps.

Texas Dems may have some slim chance that they are right that the Lege can only redistrict in a regular session, but they're almost certainly wrong. They're definitely wrong that the courts are the next alternative; it's the Legislative Redistricting Board. See more here. That second link also says that Texas Dems may not be right about the "only in a regular session" claim. Also, Kenny Boy is right that such suit should go through state courts first. (Sigh; when Texas Dems continue to be dumber than Ken Paxton ...)

 

Katya Ehresman shows people how to get involved in the redistricting fight.

Texas House Dems execute Runaway Scrape 2.0: First thoughts

I had wondered a month ago if House Democrats in the Texas Legislature would pull off a new version of 2003's "Living on Ardmore Time," the new update of that classic hit.

You get Don Williams' version, not Clapton's, because Williams was first and Clapton's a racist and an asshole.

I figured several things had changed since then.

1. Democratic president, so Strangeabbott, unlike Tricky Ricky, couldn't lie to FEMA about missing planes.

2. Narrower margin in the House side than then.

3. Generally more organized Dems. Yeah, there's still a few ConservaDems in the House, but nobody like Helen Giddings of back then whoring herself out for Tom Craddick plum committee assignments. Dade Phelan is newer to the House than Craddick was back then, and brand-new as Speaker.

Anyway, they've done it. For non-Texans or new arrivals unfamiliar with the original Runaway Scrape, click that link.

Per this update from the Trib, at least four Dems — three from ConservaDem districts, the fourth retiring, have stayed.

Four Democrats were present on the House floor Tuesday morning: Reps. Ryan Guillen of Rio Grande City, Tracy King of Batesville, Eddie Morales Jr. of Eagle Pass and John Turner of Dallas.

It appears a few others, per the math, have also not fled. 

And, gone to DC, which as the Federal District, is not like a state in some ways. Had they gone to Ardmore again, in part, Okie Gov Kevin Stitt certainly would have helped Abbott round them up. Had they gone to New Mexico, like some of them in 2003, Michelle Lujan Grisham would have resisted more, but Abbott would have pushed harder.

Different in DC.

So, how long can this last?

Well, several things are in play. 

One is the suit against Abbott defunding pay of Legiscritter staff, which starts Sept. 1. If the veto is still in play, will Republicans be less likely, or more likely, to compromise if that hasn't been settled?

Possibly more.

Let's not forget that there's the special special session for redistricting that has to happen, and that won't happen until after Sept. 1 for sure. GOP Legiscritters are going to want staff there to help them crack and pack, though they probably could try to do it with outside consultants only.

Since 2010 redistricting ultimately went to court anyway, Dems have no incentive to return for THIS special special any more than for the regular special sessions, until some negotiations happen.

Will they?

How long before trust gets burned out and Democrats stop pretending that collegiality exists at some core level?

That determines whether negotiations happen before House Dems de-scrape or not.

What if the whole 30 days run out and nothing happens?

Do House Dems, expect for a purely symbolic few, not even bother showing up in the first place when Strangeabbott calls his second special session?

I think they have to do that.

Given that Abbott has now said he'll arrest them upon their return, and given that the quorumless House GOP took a vote to that effect, giving the whiny little titty-baby (look at his face, it looks like a perpetual pout) surely relishing the opportunity to posture, why would they return?

Abbott will send state troopers to their hotels and rented houses if the whole House Democratic Caucus shows up for the next special and there's been no movement between now and then.

Besides, there was no good faith at the start of this session, not even on the more collegial House side, Morales claims.

Texas Progressives talk special session, redistricting

With the special session of the Texas Legislature started, and a new one to come on redistricting soon enough, we've got plenty for you in this week's roundup of Texas Progressives thought.

So, let's dig in.

And see how long the digging in is going to last in Austin and DC.

Texas Lege House Dems, not living on Ardmore Time like in 2003, are living on DC Time now. I had expected this at the end of May. Strangeabbott and Goeb obviously didn't; I don't know about Dade Phelan. Kuff asks "what's the exit strategy" in the face of recurring special sessions. This may be it. Going to DC, not Okieland, and with a Dem Prez unlike in 2003, gives them more leverage.

Texas politics

SocraticGadfly looked at how Jane Nelson's retirement might affect Texas Senate redistricting. 

Off the Kuff takes one more look into how State Rep districts have changed over the decade, this time with a focus on counties.

Stace is back and writing about Greg Abbott's empty immigrant prison in South Texas. It's one part of Abbott's special session agenda.

Grits testified before the Lege and said rural counties would be hurt most by Strangeabbott removing most judicial discretion on bail.

The Trib analyzes the Lege's vote-suppression bill as of last Friday, even as people prepare to protest.

In Texas as nationally, critical race theory is both NOT taught in general in public schools but IS misunderstood (if they try to understand it at all) by wingnuts. Instead, the phrase, just like "socialism," is used as a whipping boy by the likes of the Texas Lege.

Harvey Kronberg sets the record straight about Dan Patrick, SB7, and why no one trusts the Senate right now.

Emily Eby live-tweets the voter suppression hearings.

Texas politics — next year

I noted last week, in discussing Allen West vs Dreamy Don Huffines vs Strangeabbott, how the GOP primary dance card for statewide executive offices was pretty much filling up. Chris Hooks notes that the Dems are largely still MIA, or as his header says, "dazed and confused." (And yet, dollars to doughnuts, Gilberto Hinojosa will remain the Dems' state chair after 2022.)

Speaking of, here's the four Rethuglicans who want to replace West as state GOP head.
 

National

Richard Hasen explains just how bad the Brnovich voting rights decision by the Supreme Court was.

Riffing on that, and starting with what Hasen notes, John Roberts' position with Reagan's Justice Department, Andy Kroll talks about how the mask is now fully off.

Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene were canceled in Orange County. You have to be a wingnut indeed to get canceled in the OC.

Jane Nelson's retirement and Texas Senate redistricting

While Danny Goeb was praising Jane Nelson on her announcement she wouldn't run again (and ignoring that she served 28 years while initially being elected because she claimed to back term limits), he ignored one other thing.

This might affect redistricting.

Yeah,  the Trib says "Republican-friendly district." But, is it THAT Republican friendly? Look at the map. Southern half of Denton County and NW Tarrant.

Then look at her election results. Yeah, she took 63 percent in 2020. But, that was after consistent 85 percent in previous general elections.

Yeah, with a 2022 election and Biden likely to slip a bit, she might do better. But how much better? And, would she be primaried? And would that paint her into a corner?

Meanwhile, with her gone, other GOP senators may eye parts of her district to make themselves safer.

Drew Springer in 30 is plenty safe. And, he's new so low on the pecking order. So, his district won't have to dip into Nelson's.

Elsewhere? Angela Paxton in 8 is not safe and also has the Sword of Damocles of hubby Kenny hanging over her head.

Kelly Hancock in 9? Not so safe.

Beverly Powell in 10 is a Democrat who edged out incumbent nutbar Konni Burton.

Nathan Johnson in 16 is a Democrat who won more convincingly against incumbent Dreamy Don Huffines.

Assuming Goeb writes off Paxton, does he try to shore up District 12 for a GOP newcomer who won't have the advantage of incumbency, by nibbling from Springer's district? Does he try to do this AND shore up Hancock, and not just for the next election but for the rest of them this decade? Does he instead try to make Powell's district more Republican?

There's lots of moving parts here, plus what I've previously blogged about, how the mix of suburban growth, and that growth tilting slightly Democrat, mixed with some more Republican exurban growth, but flatness and even decline in truly rural areas, especially in West Texas, is going to put some state House, state Senate, and Congressional Republicans at redistricting loggerheads. And, let's also not forget Trumper vs never-Trumper, or maybe, Trumper vs ultra-Trumper, battles. Again, maybe that's part of why Nelson ain't running again.

So, Nelson got out while the getting was good, and getcha popcorn!