Ted Cruz is an old friend of RedState, of course: so we made sure to spend a couple of minutes talking about the race, how the ongoing redistricting dispute in Texas is making everybody’s elections difficult, and about CPAC generally.  And if you’re wondering why a Texas federal Senate race would be affected by redistricting, it’s because nobody really wants to have three primary dates this year.  Anyway, we chatted for a bit:

Ted’s site is here.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

Ted Cruz is an old friend of RedState, of course: so we made sure to spend a couple of minutes talking about the race, how the ongoing redistricting dispute in Texas is making everybody’s elections difficult, and about CPAC generally.  And if you’re wondering why a Texas federal Senate race would be affected by redistricting, it’s because nobody really wants to have three primary dates this year.  Anyway, we chatted for a bit:

Ted’s site is here.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

One hundred sixty four years ago, on this date in the year 1848, in the conquered and occupied Federal District of Mexico, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed by representatives of US President James Polk and interim Mexican President Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, ending the war between the two countries.

By every possible measure, the war ended as a decisive victory for the United States and a humiliating defeat for Mexico. As a result of the treaty, Mexico ceded all rights to territory north of the Rio Grande and the Gila River, including all of California, Nevada, Utah, and Texas, parts of Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, and Oklahoma, as well as the parts of Arizona and New Mexico not later bought in the Gadsden Purchase. From Mexico’s perspective, a perspective that recognized neither the revolutions in Texas and California nor the Annexation of Texas, the country lost over half of its prewar territory.

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One hundred sixty four years ago, on this date in the year 1848, in the conquered and occupied Federal District of Mexico, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed by representatives of US President James Polk and interim Mexican President Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, ending the war between the two countries.

By every possible measure, the war ended as a decisive victory for the United States and a humiliating defeat for Mexico. As a result of the treaty, Mexico ceded all rights to territory north of the Rio Grande and the Gila River, including all of California, Nevada, Utah, and Texas, parts of Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, and Oklahoma, as well as the parts of Arizona and New Mexico not later bought in the Gadsden Purchase. From Mexico’s perspective, a perspective that recognized neither the revolutions in Texas and California nor the Annexation of Texas, the country lost over half of its prewar territory.

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And I wish that I had been there to see both the Democrats and the three-person judicial panel bug their eyes out at Texas’s lawyer when he calmly pointed out that any hypothetical screwing over of minority Democrats when it came to redistricting took place not because they were minorities, but because they were Democrats. I don’t know if that argument’s going to actually fly with the courts, but it must have at least rocked them back on their heels to have somebody simply admit that, yes, the Republicans dominate Texas right now, the Democrats don’t, and these facts have consequences.

As to how this will all play out… well, the USSC’s instruction to the San Antonio court trying to come up with interim maps still holds: show more deference to the state legislature’s maps. Despite the fact that they’re probably going to be rejected anyway; and the deadline for new maps is going to be February 6th, on pain of delaying the primaries yet again. I’m starting to understand why Michael Williams is assuming that there won’t be a primary in April…

Moe Lane (crosspost)

And I wish that I had been there to see both the Democrats and the three-person judicial panel bug their eyes out at Texas’s lawyer when he calmly pointed out that any hypothetical screwing over of minority Democrats when it came to redistricting took place not because they were minorities, but because they were Democrats. I don’t know if that argument’s going to actually fly with the courts, but it must have at least rocked them back on their heels to have somebody simply admit that, yes, the Republicans dominate Texas right now, the Democrats don’t, and these facts have consequences.

As to how this will all play out… well, the USSC’s instruction to the San Antonio court trying to come up with interim maps still holds: show more deference to the state legislature’s maps. Despite the fact that they’re probably going to be rejected anyway; and the deadline for new maps is going to be February 6th, on pain of delaying the primaries yet again. I’m starting to understand why Michael Williams is assuming that there won’t be a primary in April…

Moe Lane (crosspost)

Sorry about the sound quality: we’re in the middle of a solar storm today, remember? At any rate, I talked this afternoon with Michael Williams, who is running in TX-25, assuming of course that the courts d0n’t decide to fold up the new Congressional maps for Texas into a variety of paper airplanes and fly them out of the window. The short version is: the maps are being contested, a lower court stepped in to get something up and running, the Supreme Court stepped in to smack down said lower court, and now people are kind of worried that the primaries are going to be delayed yet again. As you might have guessed, we talked a bit on the redistricting controversy down there; Michael even took the time to gently correct me on a couple of things that I was getting wrong…

Michael’s site is here.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

Sorry about the sound quality: we’re in the middle of a solar storm today, remember? At any rate, I talked this afternoon with Michael Williams, who is running in TX-25, assuming of course that the courts d0n’t decide to fold up the new Congressional maps for Texas into a variety of paper airplanes and fly them out of the window. The short version is: the maps are being contested, a lower court stepped in to get something up and running, the Supreme Court stepped in to smack down said lower court, and now people are kind of worried that the primaries are going to be delayed yet again. As you might have guessed, we talked a bit on the redistricting controversy down there; Michael even took the time to gently correct me on a couple of things that I was getting wrong…

Michael’s site is here.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

Details here and here: the short version is that the USSC decided that a lower court erred because it had, to quote the New York Times, “not paid enough deference to the Legislature’s choices and had improperly substituted its own values for those of elected officials.” The underlying issue is that there is an ongoing dispute over how the new Texas federal Congressional map should be drawn; Texas got four more seats in the latest round of redistricting, and the beleaguered Democratic minority in Texas has been using Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act as their excuse to tie the entire process up in legalistic knots. As primaries are, well, looming at this point, the aforementioned lower court (in San Antonio) had put together an interim map that more or less ignored the elected legislature’s wishes in this matter; and the Supreme Court just unanimously smacked them down for it.

This does not mean that the original Texas legislature’s maps will be used; that’s up to the currently Democratic-controlled Justice department, or else an ostensibly impartial three-judge tribunal in DC. What it does do is reaffirm the principle that lower courts should take into account the original wishes of the legislature in emergency situations – and with an effective deadline of February 1st, this qualifies as an emergency situation – such as these. In other words, the courts may still create interim maps (which will apply for at least the 2012 election cycle) while the final maps are being resolved; what they can not do is ignore the original wishes of the legislature, to the extent that the San Antonio court did.

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Details here and here: the short version is that the USSC decided that a lower court erred because it had, to quote the New York Times, “not paid enough deference to the Legislature’s choices and had improperly substituted its own values for those of elected officials.” The underlying issue is that there is an ongoing dispute over how the new Texas federal Congressional map should be drawn; Texas got four more seats in the latest round of redistricting, and the beleaguered Democratic minority in Texas has been using Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act as their excuse to tie the entire process up in legalistic knots. As primaries are, well, looming at this point, the aforementioned lower court (in San Antonio) had put together an interim map that more or less ignored the elected legislature’s wishes in this matter; and the Supreme Court just unanimously smacked them down for it.

This does not mean that the original Texas legislature’s maps will be used; that’s up to the currently Democratic-controlled Justice department, or else an ostensibly impartial three-judge tribunal in DC. What it does do is reaffirm the principle that lower courts should take into account the original wishes of the legislature in emergency situations – and with an effective deadline of February 1st, this qualifies as an emergency situation – such as these. In other words, the courts may still create interim maps (which will apply for at least the 2012 election cycle) while the final maps are being resolved; what they can not do is ignore the original wishes of the legislature, to the extent that the San Antonio court did.

Read More →