Enlarge Illustration by Todd Wiseman

Holiday redistricting stories, not unusual things if you've watched this for a while, always start with three wise persons in the guise of federal judges. It's super-sized this year, with six wise men, three in San Antonio and three in Washington.

The three in Washington are in the game because Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott thought the state would get a better ride from federal judges in the DC circuit than from staff attorneys in a Democratic administration's Department of Justice. But the DC panel, asked to pre-clear the Texas maps for legislative, congressional and State Board of Education seats — to certify that those maps didn't put Texas in reverse gear with regard to the rights of minority voters — ruled only on the SBOE map. They'll hold a trial on the others.

Nothing wrong with that except the timing. A new federal law required Texas to put more space between candidate filing and its primary elections, and more space between the primaries and the runoffs. That put candidate filings in November, and to have candidate filings in November, candidates have to have maps.

The judges in Washington didn't make the deadline. They decided Texas hadn't shown that the legislative maps make muster, and they'll hold a trial to find out. Next month. That's why the San Antonio court drew maps. Ordinarily, they would wait until someone in the Capitol — the DC judges or Justice — pre-clears the maps. They'd then decide whether the maps also took proper notice of changes in the state's minority populations. Pre-cleared maps are legal, but the state's maps never got that stamp of approval. The only legal maps, then, were the ones approved years ago by the Legislature and the courts. But those are out of whack because the population has changed and because a census was taken to prove it. Those maps are illegal because the districts aren't close to uniform sizes; some voters have disproportionately stronger or weaker votes. One person, one vote, and all of that.

So the San Antonio judges had only one way out of the box: Draw.

They drew new maps that, compared with the Legislature's versions, increase the number of minority opportunity districts where minority voters have the ability to choose the candidates of their choice. Since Texas minorities tend to favor Democrats over Republicans, they increased the numbers of Democratic seats along the way.

Republicans don't like the result and plan to ask higher courts — that's the Supremes, pretty quickly — to stay the San Antonio maps while the DC court catches up. And the nation's high court will have to decide whether the new maps are so problematic that it's worth messing with the deadlines and timing of the state's party primaries.

As it stood on Thanksgiving Eve: The San Antonio judges have ordered the state to use a Senate plan drawn by a unanimous panel and a House map drawn by a 2-1 majority. They've unanimously presented a congressional plan and asked for comments by Friday at noon and they'll follow with an interim map for the primaries. Abbott's office, meanwhile, is readying a request for a stay to try to make these maps go away.

Candidates are scrambling.

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A panel of three federal judges in San Antonio proposed new congressional districts for Texas Wednesday. The map is a proposal; the court is seeking comments from the parties by noon Friday.

The court's map creates four new district where minority voters have the upper hand, effectively creating that many new opportunities for Texas Democrats. A spokeswoman for Attorney General Greg Abbott said the judges ignored the law.

"The court's proposed Congressional map seems to depart from the law just as much as its proposed state legislative maps," said Lauren Bean. "The court issued a map without any explanation, but still, it seems apparent that the proposed map misapplies federal law and continues the court's trend of inappropriately venturing into political policymaking rather than simply applying the law. Perhaps worst, in the name of protecting Hispanic voting power, the court seems to be discarding already elected Republican Hispanics in favor of drawing maps that may elect Democratic Hispanics.  That is not and should not be the proper role of the court or the proper application of the Voting Rights Act. If the final interim map does not meaningfully change, the Texas Attorney General's Office is prepared to immediately appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to correct this improper overreach by unelected federal judges."

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White won in 12 of the 36 districts in the new map while losing the state. Barack Obama won in 13 of them, including in CD-23, where U.S. Rep. Francisco "Quico" Canseco, R-San Antonio, is the incumbent. No other Republicans are in districts where the Democrats won (in 2010, White lost the district with 47.8 percent of the vote). No Democratic incumbents got new districts where Republicans won at the top of the ticket.

It looks like U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, and state Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, won't be running against each other. Castro is in a district that doesn't reach Doggett's Travis County. And Doggett has a map that could work for his reelection.

The new congressional map apparently sinks the hopes of former Secretary of State Roger Williams and former Texas Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams. Both men started the election cycle vying for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Kay Bailey Hutchison. With the oxygen in that race gulped up by Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, former Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert and former Solicitor General Ted Cruz, both jumped to congressional races. And now, the districts they chose have been redrawn. Under the court plan, Roger Williams lives in a congressional district represented by Republican Kay Granger, a former Fort Worth mayor. Michael Williams would still be in a district represented by Austin Democrat Lloyd Doggett. But where the Legislature's map gave Doggett a fatal dose of Republican voters, the new district is made for a Democrat. Candidate Williams, in each case, is the odd man out.

U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Corpus Christi, now has a district with nearly 200,000 Harris County residents. Former Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Paul Bettencourt says "people have encouraged me to look at it." Nueces County, where Farenthold is from, has about half as many people in the district.

Texas got four new seats as a result of reapportionment because it grew faster than other states. White and Obama won in three of them; in the new CD-36, both lost.

The court's proposal includes 13 districts where minorities make up more than half of the population, including eight where Hispanics alone are in the majority. One is a new open seat in Tarrant County; state Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Fort Worth, said via text message that he'll be a candidate: "Yes, I'm in and glad that my efforts help make this a reality for Tarrant County residents."

Here's the map (and a link to a bigger version on the Texas Legislative Council's website):

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Court-proposed congressional districts for Texas.

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A panel of federal judges in San Antonio ordered the state to conduct its 2012 House and Senate elections using political maps drawn by the court and not those drawn by the state, issuing final maps that give minority voters — and Democrats — more power.

The three-judge panel proposed maps last week and collected comments from lawyers on all sides. On Wednesday, they issued their final versions, which will be used unless higher courts intervene. Candidates can file to run for office starting next Monday and have until December 15 to do so. The new maps increase the number of minority seats and give Democrats and 3-1 advantage on the state's four new congressional seats; the Legislature's version designed three of those seats for Republicans.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott will ask higher federal courts to block legislative elections under the court maps, saying the new maps are better than what was proposed last week but still overstep the judges' authority.

"While the federal court maps issued Wednesday go a long way to curing some of the problems with the Senate maps drawn by the three judge panel, those changes do not in any way negate the legal flaws that remain with both the interim Senate and House maps," said Lauren Bean, a spokeswoman for Abbott, in an email. "The Texas Attorney General's Office is seeking an immediate stay to prevent elections from proceeding under these illegal maps. We can not allow any map that so grossly misapplies federal law and continues a trend of inappropriately venturing into political policy-making to move forward unchallenged."

The AG expressed similar reservations about proposed congressional maps issued by the court Wednesday. That proposal is open for comment from the various parties until noon on Friday. Since the court hasn't made its final ruling on congressional maps, there's nothing there for the state to appeal yet.

The maps are similar to those proposed by the judges last week, but some districts — Senate District 24 is an example — have been reworked. That district now has less of Taylor County and loses Falls and Bosque counties. Consultants and lawyers and candidates are still sorting it out.

The court put the slack back in the Senate map, making districts a little easier to draw. The version approved by the Legislature had a difference of 64,226 between the biggest and smallest districts. The court's proposed map last week cut that to 12,330, adding population (and moving lines) in smaller districts and taking population away from bigger ones to close the gap. In their final order, they reversed themselves and used the same deviation the Legislature used.

That erased some of the state's objections to the court maps, but not all of them.

The judges said they were drawing maps for two reasons — the current maps are malapportioned and don't reflect the results of the 2010 census, and the Legislature's maps have not been approved by a federal panel in Washington D.C., which hasn't held hearings on the plans yet. Two judges — Orlando Garcia and Xavier Rodriguez — signed off on the new House plan.

Despite the allegations of intentional discrimination and widespread constitutional violations in the enacted House plan, the State objects to issuance of a court-drawn map and insists that this Court must adopt the enacted plan '[b]ecause unelected federal judges possess neither the constitutional power nor the political competence to make the policy choices essential to redistricting[.]' While redistricting is generally a task for legislatures, a legislature’s powers are not unbounded. Here, Texas failed to receive the necessary Voting Rights Act approval for the House plan before the 2012 elections. In such cases, federal courts are required to step in to create a lawful map that will allow free and fair elections to go forward.

The judges wrote that their goal was to keep the status quo — the maps that elected the current Legislature — in place as much as possible while adjusting for the state's population shifts and growth.

All three judges signed off on the Senate plan, but the one appellate judge on the panel — Jerry Smith of the 5th U.S. Court of Appeals — dissented on the plans drawn for the House. He telegraphed his punch last week, submitting a separate proposed map of his own.

When a three-judge court is forced into the unwanted position of fashioning interim redistricting plans, the focus should be on practicality, balance, and moderation, albeit with unbending adherence to the Voting Rights Act (“VRA”) and the Constitution. The judges in the majority, with the purest of intentions, have instead produced a runaway plan that imposes an extreme redistricting scheme for the Texas House of Representatives, untethered to the applicable caselaw. The practical effect is to award judgment on the pleadings in favor of one side — a slam-dunk victory for the plaintiffs — at the expense of the redistricting plan enacted by the Legislature, before key decisions have been made on binding questions of law. Because this is grave error at the preliminary, interim stage of the redistricting process, I respectfully dissent.

Barring intervention from the U.S. Supreme Court, he wrote, these maps will hold through the 2012 elections.

The Texas Legislative Council has detailed statistical and mapping information about the plans on its website.

Here are the new maps:

Enlarge Texas Legislative Council

Court-ordered political maps for the Texas House.

Enlarge Texas Legislative Council

Court-ordered political maps for the Texas Senate.

Enlarge Muliadi Soenaryo

Texas Capitol

The Texas Legislative Council has a terrific redistricting section on its website, with full statistical reporting on all of the new maps, including geography, demographics, incumbencies, and election results all the way back to 2002. It's easy to use and open to the public — a model of how to make information available (we're fans, in other words).

More importantly, it's the agency that has handled map drawing for the Legislature and for the federal judges in San Antonio, so the information is The Information. Here's a link to the page with all of the data. Use the district viewer (here) to look closely at maps, down to the house level. And you can compare maps to see how they changed from current law, say, to the legislative versions to the court versions.

They have everything but the final court orders, which you can get here (the House plans) and here (the Senate plans).  

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The federal judges unleashed a proposed congressional plan on Wednesday morning and set a deadline for comments from the various parties: "Recognizing that many are already traveling for the Thanksgiving holiday, the parties are ordered to access these proposed plans and file any comments and/or objections via CM/ECF no later than twelve o'clock noon on Friday, November 25, 2011."

There was, however, a dissent in the footnote on that one-page order: "Judge Smith disagrees. Because filing for office is currently set to begin on Monday November 28 (unless that schedule is stayed or modified), the parties should be required to comment on the  Congressional plan by the close of business on Wednesday November 23 so that the court can get a final order in place for the Congressional plan in plenty of time on Friday November 25 that the parties can take any appropriate action that day."

Friday it is. Candidates are set to start filing for office on Monday, November 28 — a court set date. Filing will be open until December 15. The answer to that next question is, "Yes, the courts can change the dates if they want to."

Enlarge Justin Dehn

Rep. Joe Driver, R-Garland, pleaded guilty to a charge of abuse of official capacity, admitting that he had billed the state for expenses that had already been reimbursed by his campaign. He's already announced he won't seek reelection, and he'll be sentenced December 19. Prosecutors recommended five years of deferred adjudication, a $5,000 fine and said he should repay his campaign $14,000 on top of almost $50,000 he's already repaid. The third-degree felony carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison.

Christi Craddick picked up endorsements from former Railroad Commissioners Charles Matthews and Barry Williamson. Elizabeth Ames Jones is seeking election to the Texas Senate and Craddick, Warren Chisum and Roland Sledge are running for that seat. Victor Carrillo, voted off the commission last year, has endorsed Chisum.

Tarrant County GOP Chairwoman Stephanie Klick will run in an open seat for the Texas House in HD-101. That's one of the new seats in the maps proposed last week by the federal judges in San Antonio.

Fort Worth City Councilwoman Kathleen Hicks says she'll run in CD-33, the new open congressional seat in Tarrant County. She'll face state Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Fort Worth, and he says he expects a number of other contestants.

Edinburg businessman T.C. Betencourt, a Democrat, will run in HD-40 if court-proposed plans for the Texas House hold; that make him a challenger to state Rep. Aaron Peña, R-Edinburg in a district that appears to favor a Democrat.

Donna Campbell, who's running for the Texas Seante against Sen. Jeff Wentworth and Texas Railroad Commissioner Elizabeth Ames Jones, got the endorsement of former Texas Republican Party Chairwoman Cathie Adams, who's also the former head of the Texas Eagle Forum.

We put the right candidate in the wrong race last week; here's the correct version: Former San Marcos Mayor Susan Narvaiz is planning a run in CD-35 — the congressional district that includes parts of Hays, Travis, Comal and Bexar counties. When she announced, she was looking at a race with U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, and state Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio. Now, it's apparently just Castro.

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This week's questions went out — and came back — before the courts had handed up final maps for the Texas House and Senate elections and before the judges proposed new maps for congressional districts. But all of that was on the horizon, so we asked our insiders who's to blame for putting the courts in a position to draw new political districts. Given an array of choices, the insiders overwhelmingly blamed the Legislature.

The insiders don't have much desire to see lawmakers redo the maps after the elections, but there's a contingent — 40 percent — who think the Legislature and not the courts should have the final say.

We also asked about another topic — tax incentives for major events, premised on the events generating enough economic activity to make it a net benefit to the state. Even with that qualification, the insiders were tepid: Only 28 percent said yes. Finally, we asked about the latest such proposal, asking whether Formula One racing is a good economic deal for the State of Texas. According to 52 percent of our insiders, the answer is... No.

As always, we've attached the full set of verbatim comments. Here's a sampling:

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The Legislature's redistricting maps didn't pass court muster. Who's to blame?

• "Redistricting is no longer an inexact science. Legislators immediately know the ramifications of moving a district line two streets over or two miles over. No one to blame but themselves."

• "Tactical error by the AG."

• "Stupid gerrymandering is always illegal"

• "There are strong feelings among many that the state's lawyers were weak in defending the maps, but the maps the court drew make so little sense that it is hard not to see partisanship in their motivations."

• "They could have been content with a convincing majority instead of overreaching. The Pena district was the most egregious example, but certainly not the only one."

• "It can hardly be a surprise that a map that totally ignored the growth in minority populations ran afoul of a Voting Rights Act that exists solely to protect minority populations."

• "The legislators are responsible for the map, but Abbott's handling of the case in the courts was grossly incompetent."

• "Don't leave staff out of the blame here."

• "An 'all the above' selection would have been nice."

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Should the Texas Legislature redraw the congressional and legislative district maps to replace maps drawn and approved by the courts?

• "They should, but they won't."

• "It is the Legislature's job to draw the maps. They should not give that authority to the courts."

• "Precedent was set in 2003. Accountable legislators should set the boundaries, not unelected judges."

• "The lege has taken enough time on this. Our state is in crisis and the limited time devoted to the state's business needs to be dedicated to pressing public policy concerns, not partisan power plays."

• "Are you kidding? Should the Legislature do something just because it can? As long as nothing else has to occur in the next regular session."

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Should state money be spent to bring events like Formula One racing and the Super Bowl to Texas?

• "...As long as it's a wash -- meaning the economic impact generates at least the amount of money that is being spent."

• "Super Bowl - Yes. Formula One - No. We know what we're getting when hosting an event like the Super Bowl. Formula One is a case of 'If we build it, they MIGHT come.'"

• "Government should not, as a general rule, finance private profit-making events. Corruption and favoritism inevitably follow"

• "That's one thing the Tea Party and the OWS people can agree upon--no more 'crony capitalism.'"

• "It's not state money. It's money from patrons of the events collected at the events that support the fund."

• "Economic development can occur here or somewhere else - I vote for here"

• "Taxpayer money should not be used to benefit specific groups like the tourism industry in the Metroplex. If local groups want to hold these events, they should be the ones investing the money, not the state."

• "I hope the Governor tries. It is just good economic sense. Educating kids brings no economic rewards for years. This will bring in sales tax. So does legalizing drugs."

• "Hell no! If it can't stand on its own two feet (or ride on its own four wheels) it shouldn't be done."

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Is Formula One racing a good economic deal for the state of Texas?

• "What is formula one? Who cares? NASCAR is where it's at...."

• "F1 is huge."

• "Even if it is a good deal - not a good political move especially considering NJ is getting one without the cash on the barrel."

• "Don't know, don't care. Even if it is, just because something is a 'good economic deal' does not mean the government should be involved in it. The government is a non-profit--it's not supposed to chase money. That's why we have what seems like 117 different kinds of license plates, which is 116 too many."

• "It's the equivalent of 10 consecutive Super Bowls in Texas. Who in their right mind would turn that down?"

• "Also, it brings annoying people to Austin. We're full up here."

Our thanks to this week's participants: Gene Acuna, Clyde Alexander, George Allen, Jay Arnold, Louis Bacarisse, Charles Bailey, Mike Barnett, Reggie Bashur, Dave Beckwith, Rebecca Bernhardt, Andrew Biar, Allen Blakemore, Tom Blanton, Steve Bresnen, Chris Britton, Andy Brown, Lydia Camarillo, Kerry Cammack, Marc Campos, Snapper Carr, William Chapman, Elizabeth Christian, George Cofer, Rick Cofer, Lawrence Collins, John Colyandro, Harold Cook, Hector De Leon, June Deadrick, Tom Duffy, Jeff Eller, Jack Erskine, John Esparza, Jon Fisher, Terry Frakes, Neftali Garcia, Dominic Giarratani, Eric Glenn, Kinnan Golemon, John Greytok, Bill Hammond, Sandy Haverlah, Adam Haynes, Jim Henson, Ken Hodges, Billy Howe, Laura Huffman, Shanna Igo, Deborah Ingersoll, Cal Jillson, Jason Johnson, Mark Jones, Robert Kepple, Richard Khouri, Tom Kleinworth, Nick Lampson, Pete Laney, Dick Lavine, James LeBas, Donald Lee, Ruben Longoria, Homero Lucero, Vilma Luna, Matt Mackowiak, Dan McClung, Parker McCollough, Robert Miller, Craig Murphy, Keats Norfleet, Pat Nugent, Nef Partida, Gardner Pate, Jerry Philips, Wayne Pierce, Royce Poinsett, Kraege Polan, Jay Propes, Ted Melina Raab, Bill Ratliff, Karen Reagan, Tim Reeves, Kim Ross, Jason Sabo, Luis Saenz, Mark Sanders, Andy Sansom, Jim Sartwelle, Stan Schlueter, Bruce Scott, Steve Scurlock, Dee Simpson, Ed Small, Martha Smiley, Todd Smith, Larry Soward, Dennis Speight, Tom Spilman, Jason Stanford, Bob Strauser, Colin Strother, Charles Stuart, Michael Quinn Sullivan, Sherry Sylvester, Bruce Todd, Trent Townsend, Trey Trainor, John Weaver, Ware Wendell, Michael Wilt, Lee Woods, Peck Young, Angelo Zottarelli.

Occupy Houston participants got a shock Monday when a 21-year old man dressed in a suit started shooting a rifle near their encampment.  No one in the gathering was injured and the gunman continued on to Tranquility Park where police intercepted him. After a standoff, police shot the man and he was taken to a local hospital, although his wounds were not life threatening.

All parties in the Formula One racetrack debate are pointing fingers when it comes to deciding if the first scheduled race will go forward next November as scheduled. The CEO of Formula One, Bernie Ecclestone, says he’s waiting for a $25 million sanctioning fee and he’s set a deadline for the receipt of the money.  The promoter of the race, Tavo Hellmund, is negotiating with his partners at Circuit of the Americas to come to a resolution of the issue before the December 7th vote on the 2012 racing schedule.

After the San Antonio panel presented its final San Antonio maps, state Rep. Sarah Davis, R-Houston, filed a motion asking the lead judge, Orlando Garcia of San Antonio, to step aside. She said, correctly, that his sister-in-law is state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio. The other judges on the panel turned that down; Garcia disclosed the relationship at the beginning of the trial and asked the state and the other parties whether they had any objection. Nobody did, so he stayed.

The San Antonio panel includes two Republicans and a Democrat. Garcia is a Democrat and a former state legislator. He was appointed by President Bill Clinton. Xavier Rodriguez, a Republican, was appointed by President George W. Bush, after losing a Republican primary for the Texas Supreme Court, where he was trying to hold onto a seat to which Gov. Rick Perry had appointed him. Jerry Smith, a Houston judge on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, is also a Republican. He was appointed by President Ronald Reagan.