Amid redistricting chaos, AG Greg Abbott seeks to halt election filing deadlines
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott (AP photo)
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott is planning to ask a San Antonio federal court Monday to temporarily suspend the deadlines for the candidate filing period for congressional and state House and Senate races.
The move, announced late Saturday night, comes a day after the U.S. Supreme Court threw Texas’ primary candidate filing period and primary elections into chaos by temporarily blocking the interim redistricting maps drawn by the San Antonio court.
The court-drawn maps created more majority-minority districts that Democrats are expected to win than the maps passed by the Republican-dominated Legislature.
Under the court’s proposal, Democrats could be competitive in as many as 65-70 Texas House districts and could gain as many as four congressional seats.
Minority groups and Democratic lawmakers sued the state over the Legislature’s redistricting plans, claiming they provided insufficient representation for minority groups.
Texas received four new congressional seats because of its explosive growth over the past decade, 90 percent of which came from minorities. But only one of new districts drawn by the Legislature was designed to elect a minority candidate, critics said.
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