Austin Rep. Eddie Rodriguez says he's hopeful the final maps will be similar to the interim maps.

Photo by John Anderson

Texas has been in limbo over its primary season as lawyers argue over the House, Sen­ate, and congressional maps. Now the latest ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court – which many expected to slash through this Gordian knot – has done little to resolve the situation, instead restarting the map-drawing process.

The justices were debating the relative merits of the heavily gerrymandered maps passed by the Legislature last session (see "Riding the Pinwheel," Aug. 26, 2011) against the more balanced interim maps drawn by a three-judge panel in San Antonio (see "New Map Tweaks Local House Seats," Nov. 25, 2011). On Jan. 20, the high court sent the redistricting question back down to the San Antonio panel to redraw the maps again.

In a triumphal statement, Attorney General Greg Abbott said, "The Supreme Court confirmed that the San Antonio court drew illegal maps, without regard for the policy decisions of elected leaders." However, Democrats and voting rights groups countered that the Supreme Court did nothing of the sort. The high court's instructions to the lower court are very simple. When drawing up the interim map, the San Antonio court completely ignored the gerrymandered map passed last year. Instead, it modified the maps passed after the 2001 redistricting. The Supreme Court ruled that the San Antonio court should have used the Legislature's new maps and simply fixed them to ensure compliance with the Voting Rights Act. In a statement analyzing the ruling, Texas Demo­cratic Party spokesman Anthony Gutierrez said, "The issues they had pertained to the process by which the court arrived at new maps, not necessarily the maps themselves."

Theoretically, the San Antonio court could return with exactly the same maps that it drew in November. Rep. Eddie Rodriguez, D-Austin, was in Washington, D.C., last week giving testimony in another redistricting trial and said: "I remain hopeful that the final maps will be very similar to the interim maps. After all, the courts are still responsible for protecting the voting rights of all Texans under the Voting Rights Act and the Constitution."

This all does little to nothing to resolve the other big question about the primaries: when they will be. State GOP and Demo­cratic leaders had already agreed to shift primary day back from March 6 to April 3 while the courts finish their deliberations. Both parties have voiced concerns about moving the date again, because it would leave campaigns in limbo and force them to reschedule their state conventions. Abbott has already asked the San Antonio court to issue its new maps by Jan. 30, but that seems unlikely since those judges are not scheduled to meet until Jan. 27.