In 1996, a 3-judge US District Court redrew the
boundaries of some of the US House districts in Texas
on August 6, 1996. The Texas primary had been in
March 1996. The 3-judge court re-opened candidate
filing on those districts, and ordered that the
November 1996 elections in those district would be
conducted as an open primary, with a run-off in
December 10, 1996 if no one got 50%. So there is
precedent for handling things when districts have been
redrawn after the primary but before the November
election.
--- Rick Hasen <Rick.Hasen@lls.edu> wrote:
---------------------------------
UPDATE 3: The timing. Apparently the Court has
expedited thebriefing schedule (opening brief 1/10;
state's brief 2/1; reply 2/22)and set argument for
March 1. It is significant that the Court set thecase
for March 1, given that the Court was fillingits April
calendar and alreadyhas cases set for hearing that
day. Presumably the Court wants toexpedite things in
anticipation of the 2006 congressional
elections.Perhaps I'm reading this wrong, but it
lookslike the Texas primary is March 7. So what good
would expeditingdo? Would the Court order a new
primary?
Some history is instructive here, copied from
Lowenstein and Hasen,Election Law--3d 3d (2004) at
page 306:
The District Court on the remand of Bush [v Vera from
the SupremeCourt] redrew thirteen congressional
districts and declared void theprimaries that had
already been held. See Vera v. Bush, 933 F.Supp.1341
(S.D.Tex. 1996). New runoff primaries were ordered to
be held inthose districts at the same time as the
general election in November.In a runoff primary,
candidates of all parties run against each other.If
one candidate wins a majority, he or she is elected.
If no one winsa majority, a runoff election is held
between the top two vote-getters.
Because a primary was mixed with the Texas general
election byreason of the District Court's order, the
"straight-ticket lever" thatTexas includes in its
voting procedures could not apply to the
Houseelections in the thirteen districts, which
undoubtedly caused somevoters unknowingly to fail to
vote in the House races. In the threedistricts in
which no one won a majority in the November primary,
arun-off election had to be held in December. This
could easily haveaffected the results in a close
election, since turnout in a Decemberrun-off figured
to be far lower than in the November
presidentialelection.
--Rick HasenWilliam H. Hannon Distinguished Professor
of LawLoyola Law School919 Albany StreetLos Angeles,
CA 90015-1211(213)736-1466 - voice(213)380-3769 -
faxrick.hasen@lls.eduhttp://www.lls.edu/academics/faculty/hasen.htmlhttp://electionlawblog.org
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