Friday at 6 p.m. is the witching hour for anyone who wants voters to put them in the state Capitol or the Texas congressional delegation this year.
This extra week of filing was made possible -- or necessary, if you prefer -- by redistricting litigation that upended the 2012 Republican and Democratic primaries.The voting's scheduled for May 29, though it still has the lingering aura of a believe-it-when-you-see-it event.Even though federal judges in San Antonio have issued a new set of interim voting maps for the primaries, they could run into objections from the U.S. Justice Department. Or there could be another run to the Supreme Court, not from the state this time but from an interest group arguing that this latest version still contains unacceptable legal flaws. A federal court in Washington could issue a ruling that sends everyone scrambling again.Almost anything could happen this tumultuous election season.Or voters could actually get to the polls, and the real impact of redistricting thus far would become clearer.After the San Antonio panel signed off on the newest maps last week, groups with a keen interest issued dueling statements about the prospects for minorities to have a meaningful voice under the latest configurations.Representatives of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and Texas branch of the League of United Latin American Citizens said Hispanics gained the opportunity to elect more candidates of their choice to Congress.But the National LULAC organization, along with the NAACP, state Sen. Wendy Davis of Fort Worth and others, argued that minority voters still are losing out, particularly African-Americans in Tarrant and Dallas counties.Thousands of hours and millions of dollars into the litigation, the Legislature's redistricting work has budged somewhat, but no court has yet ruled definitively on the extent to which lawmakers might have violated the Voting Rights Act. That's what a panel in D.C. is considering.The San Antonio court's redrawing of lines is designed to eliminate potential violations for the short term -- this year's elections -- while the Washington court decides what changes must be made for maps that are supposed to last a decade.For the state Senate map, Davis, a Democrat, wrestled a compromise with Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott that for now undoes legislative efforts to reconfigure Senate District 10 to reduce her chances of winning. The court-approved interim map restored fast-growing African-American neighborhoods in southwest Tarrant County to District 10 and extended it to the Johnson County line.Those areas are fractured in the congressional map, though, one reason why there are continuing objections to it. A new congressional District 33, which is seen as Hispanic-leaning, encompasses part of west Dallas, central Arlington around the sports stadiums and most of southeast Fort Worth.But sections of far south Fort Worth contained in state Senate District 10 are split between congressional districts represented by Reps. Joe Barton and Kay Granger, both Republicans.The repeated reworking of boundaries has forced some candidates to scurry about to decide which districts to run from -- while the shifting of primaries from March to April to May might reduce voter turnout. That would be an unfortunate and ironic unintended consequence from litigation that's supposedly about enhancing voter participation.So much of the pushing and tugging has been about whether Republicans would overwhelm Democrats when all the voters are counted and whether growth of the state's Hispanic population would be reflected in the electoral maps, a result likely to help Democrats' fortunes.But ultimately it's about which candidates persuade enough voters. Some of that is about boundaries; much is about giving voters something to vote for.