Federal judges in San Antonio unveiled maps for the state's congressional delegation and for the state House this afternoon, and they did it in time to allow the state to hold its delayed political primaries on May 29. The court also signed off on Senate plans agreed to earlier this month.
The court has not yet ordered a May 29 election, but on Monday asked the political parties to detail the election law waivers they would need in order to hold their primaries on that date. They put out the maps early enough to take comments from the various parties on them, but didn't immediately seek those comments, and aren't required to do so.
Here is a link to the Congressional map on the Texas Legislative Council's redistricting website.
Here is a link to the House map on TLC's website.
Here is a link to the Senate map on TLC's website.
And here (courtesy of TxRedistricting.org) are links to the court's orders on the three maps: Congress, House and Senate.
Barring appeals, these maps will be used for the 2012 elections. Below are the new maps. We'll fill in details throughout the afternoon.
No incumbent members of Congress were paired in the court map.
In 2008, Republican John McCain got more than 50 percent of the vote in 24 of the 36 congressional districts.
The map puts incumbent Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, in a Republican district -- like the one drawn for him by the Legislature -- that stretches from the southern border of Tarrant County, on the north, to include much of Hays County, south of Austin.
Doggett immediately announced he will file in the new CD-35 and has already set up a fundraiser at a supporter's home in San Antonio. "As an effective advocate for schools, veterans, health care and retirement security, my service fits well with the neighborhoods that have now been joined from South San Antonio to North Austin," he said in a press release. "I will continue the visits with working families that I already have underway. And I will continue to stand up to Rick Perry and other extremists, whose misguided policies are threatening our families' security."
The map includes a new Congressional District 35 that stretches from Austin to San Antonio.
U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Corpus Christi, will be in a district that reaches up the coastline to Matagorda County and inland almost to the Travis County line. But that's still a Republican district, according to the McCain-Obama numbers from 2008.
Republican John McCain carried 97 of the 150 House districts in the 2008 presidential election.
Several Texas House members were paired, including Erwin Cain and Dan Flynn; Mike "Tuffy" Hamilton and Allan Ritter; Connie Scott and Raul Torres; Jose Aliseda and J.M. Lozano; Warren Chisum and Jim Landtroop; Rodney Anderson and Linda Harper-Brown; Cindy Burkett and Joe Driver; and Jim Murphy and Beverly Woolley.
Most of those are empty challenges. Scott and Torres are both planning to run, but in each of the other pairings, one of the candidates is either retiring, moving to another district or running for another office.
One pairing from the court's original plan is notably missing from this one: Geannie Morrison of Victoria and Todd Hunter of Corpus Christi, both of them Republicans, are no longer in the same district.
