I was talking to an attorney for the plaintiffs in the upcoming Supreme Court case, when he said that conservatives may intervene in the school finance lawsuit. Their contention, the attorney said, is that an efficient system could be achieved with school choice and vouchers. A school finance lobbyist told me about a law review article on the subject a few years ago.

In any event, I doubt that the current lawsuit will go down that road. The Legislature’s decision, backed by Governor Perry, to cut $4 billion from the public education budget virtually guarantees that the state will lose the lawsuit. The state’s legal problem is that it continues to raise standards, which is a good thing, without providing the money and the instructional materials necessary to achieve success. This is a pretty good definition of a school system that does not meet the constitutional requirement of “efficient.”

Tagged: school finance

Nothing prevents the Legislature from drawing new maps. Redistricting is no different from any other bill, and it doesn’t have to be limited to the session after a census. That said, I don’t see the point of going through the exercise. So what if Republicans endorse a referendum to re-redistrict in 2013, as the state party chair promised last December? The intent of those pushing for “re-redistricting” is clearly to restore Republican dominance, which is threatened by the current maneuvering in San Antonio and in the District Court in Washington. To attempt to do so, however, raises all of the issues that are currently in play. The Legislature’s bill will still have to go through preclearance (unless the Supreme Court strikes down Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act in the meantime); it will still be vulnerable to a court’s determination that the Legislature’s map is tainted by discriminatory intent.

The state’s legal team may find itself in the same position a year from now that it is in today: trying to defend maps that ignore Hispanic population growth. The issue comes down to this: Do Republicans (a) want to redistrict so they can correct the flaws in the current plans? Or do they (b) want to redistrict so that they can suppress minority voting strength? We all know the answer. Unless there is a sea change in the attitude of Republicans, a re-redistricting session is likely to end up costing the state a considerable amount of money–just to lose again. Until Republicans come to terms with the reality of demographics, another exercise in ignoring them will only produce the same result.

Tagged: redistricting

From RealClearPolitics:

1/30 polls

Insider Advantage: Romney 36, Gingrich 31

Public Policy Polling: Romney 39, Gingrich 32

Suffolk University: Romney 47, Gingrich 27

Quinnipiac: Romney 43, Gingrich 29

Gallup Tracking: Romney 27, Gingrich 28

1/29 polls

Survey USA: Romney 41, Gingrich 26

NBC Marist: Romney 42, Gingrich 27

Miami Herald/Mason Dixon: Romney 42, Gingrich 31

Rasmussen: Romney 44, Gingrich 28

Public Policy Polling: Romney 40, Gingrich 32

1/28 polls

Public Policy Polling: Romney 40, Gingrich 28

1/27 polls

Sunshine State: Romney 40, Gingrich 31

Quinnipiac: Romney 38, Gingrich 29

* * * *

All roads lead to Rome here. It’s hard to see how Gingrich can turn a state like Florida around.

From the story, dated 1/27, by Cameron Joseph:

The Texas state attorneys defending the state’s GOP-drawn redistricting plans from court challenges have reached out to settle litigation, according to sources in the state. The settlement would give minority groups and Democrats what they’ve been demanding from the start: more heavily minority, Democratic-leaning House seats.

The result would likely mean at least four more Texas Democrats in Congress as of next year, a good start on the 25 or so seats Democrats need to win to retake control of the House. “They’re backed up against the wall and have to come to some agreement and it’ll be awfully favorable on our end,” said one of the plaintiffs in the case.

Another plaintiff agreed.  “It’s clear they know they’re in a vulnerable position and that’s why they want to settle,” he said.

Any settlement would need to get the multiple minority group plaintiffs on board, and would create more majority-Hispanic and majority-African American congressional districts. Two of the plaintiffs predicted that an agreement will be reached early next week.

Any agreement would lead to a minimum of 13 Democratic-leaning seats, and possibly a fourteenth seat depending on how the districts in Fort Worth are drawn.

With conservative former Rep. Nick Lampson (D-Texas) running for a Galveston-area seat, Democrats could win as many as 14 or 15 seats in the state, up from the nine seats they currently hold. Republicans would hold 21 or 22 seats, down from the 23 they currently have. Those 23 seats include two Democratic-leaning seats won by Republican Reps. Quico Canseco and Blake Farenthold in the 2010 Republican wave election. Farenthold would have a chance to run in the same Galveston district Lampson is likely to run in, while Canseco would have an uphill fight for reelection.

Texas Republicans in the legislature likely overreached by drawing a very Republican-friendly maps for the statehouse and Congress. Because of Texas’s history of racial discrimination it needs to get its redistricting maps cleared at the federal level under the Voting Rights Act, and it has been increasingly clear that those maps would not be cleared.

In exchange for a map that would give minorities and Democrats what they want, the agreement would allow Republicans to keep the state’s primary on April 3, saving the state money and making it more likely its presidential primary will be early enough to matter. Texas has already had to move its primary back once because of the ongoing court cases. They would also avoid having two federal courts label their plans intentionally discriminatory.

* * * *

Even though the state won its case in the Supreme Court–Attorney General Abbott persuaded the High Court to toss out the maps drawn by the federal district court for the Western District of Texas–the Supreme Court was between a rock and a hard place. It was either going to have to draw the maps itself, which would happen on a cold day in hell, or delegate the task back to the District Court, which it had previously chided by ruling:

“To the extent the [federal] District Court exceeded its mission to draw interim maps that do not violate the Constitution or the Voting Rights Act, and substituted its own concept of ‘the collective public good’ for the Texas Legislature’s determination of which policies serve ‘the interests of the citizens of Texas,’ the [district] court erred.”

Abbott may find himself on the hot seat again, as critics are sure to question (again) his decision to go forum shopping by making an end run around the Department of Justice: going straight to the Republican-dominated district court of the District of Columbia and  moving for summary judgment to preclear the state’s congressional and legislative maps. But the D.C. Court found potential evidence of discriminatory intent, and suddenly Abbott’s litigation strategy didn’t look so clever. To be fair to Abbott, he didn’t have much choice; the House supermajority was dead set on maximizing seats for both the House and the Congressional maps. The impulse to overreach is common to large majorities, regardless of party. But the result is that the state’s legal team ran out of time, which would not have occurred had Abbott taken the traditional route of seeking preclearance from the Department of Justice.

And so, in a single stroke, the Republican Legislature has managed to resurrect the Democratic party from the ashes of the 2010 election and the 2003 Tom DeLay midcensus redistricting.

The results are hardly surprising. In a recent post, I raised the question of whether Perry could be reelected. I didn’t think so then, and I don’t think so now. And the talk from Ray Sullivan and the Perry team that he could run for president in 2016 is a fantasy. The problem for Perry is that the American people have made up their minds about him–and so have most Texans. His brand is ruined.

Here are the key numbers from the newspapers’ poll:

Job approval (adults): 40% approve, 40% disapprove

Job approval (registered) 42% approve, 43% disapprove

Should he run again for governor (registered): 56% no

More/less favorable view of him as a result of his presidential candidacy: 41% say less favorable

Adversely affected Texas’s image: 25% “a little”, 23% “a lot”

Support among Republicans: down from 73% to 60%

Support among independents: down from 46% to 29%

These are disastrous numbers across the board. Perry is leaking support everywhere: Republicans, independents, and registered voters. The problem for Perry is that there is nowhere to hide. His “oopses” were so numerous, and so indelibly stamped onto the minds of those who saw them, that they will not be forgotten. Indeed, Perry can expect to see them again and again, every election year, into his old age, as pundits ruminate on the influence of debates and use the “oops” moment as their teaching lesson. This is the point of my article in the February issue, “Is There Life After Rick Perry?” The governor’s mistakes are going to reverberate into the 2013 legislative session. Yes, Perry is still the governor, but a leader’s power depends upon one thing–followers–and it is not clear whether Perry still has them, or at least enough of them to enable him to govern, much less win reelection. Whether he has done so much damage to himself that he has lost the moral authority to lead will be determined in the 83rd Legislature.

The newspapers’ poll comes on top of a recent Public Policy Polling survey, whose numbers I wrote about last week.

There has been brave talk from the Perry camp that he might run for relection in 2014, or that he might even run for president in 2016. This translates into, “Repeat after me: Rick Perry is not a lame duck, not a lame duck, not a …..” [quack, quack]

Tagged: polling, rick perry

A single word can turn a campaign in the wrong direction. In the case of Rick Perry, of course, that word was “oops.” In the case of Mitt Romney, the word was “maybe”: Romney’s answer to the question of whether he would release his tax returns. It came across as arrogant and condescending. Whether it turned the tide in the South Carolina primary is impossible to say, but it definitely diminished Romney. Most people who go into electoral politics do so knowing that they will likely be called upon to release their tax returns. It is expected. Romney ducked and dodged the question, saying that he might release them in April. “Maybe” was as close as he came.

Romney’s inconsistent statements raised the issue of why he wouldn’t release them and whether there was something embarrassing that he didn’t want anyone to know about. This is exactly what happened to Bill White. He wouldn’t release his returns, and the Perry campaign used it as an excuse to keep from debating White, and to impugn White’s ethics. Romney’s “Maybe” was his Bill White moment. He let the issue fester, when he should have known that he was going to have to release the returns in the end. Now he finds himself in a dogfight with Gingrich, trailing in the polls, with no assurance that he can win in Florida. Another self-inflicted wound in a race that has abounded with them.

Tagged: bill white, mitt romney

This solves one problem but creates a slew of others, starting with the most obvious: which maps will be used? The Legislature’s maps haven’t been pre-cleared by the D.C. court. The San Antonio district court’s maps were incinerated by the Supremes, who ordered the San Antonio judges to draw new ones, without offering any apparent guidance, except to respect the Legislature’s right to make policy choices. And then there are the questions of filing deadlines and dates for primary elections and runoffs, which will almost certainly have to be moved yet again.

Here is the gist of the Supreme Court’s ruling, as reported in the Washington Post:

“To the extent the [federal] District Court exceeded its mission to draw interim maps that do not violate the Constitution or the Voting Rights Act, and substituted its own concept of ‘the collective public good’ for the Texas Legislature’s determination of which policies serve ‘the interests of the citizens of Texas,’ the [district] court erred,” said the Supreme Court ruling Friday.

Where do we go from here? This much is clear: About all there is left for the San Antonio district court to do is tweak the legislative and congressional maps. There will be no major changes. Congressional District 23 will probably get some more attention, according to an attorney who is familiar with the case.

The question that I have always had about the House redistricting map is why it failed to take into account the huge Latino population gains. The answer is that much of that growth did not occur among the voting age population. The Hispanic population is young, due to high birth rates, and also includes many non-citizens in urban areas, who are ineligible to register to vote. They live here, but they cannot be counted in a way that swells the ranks of Latino voters.

As I wrote in an earlier post on this subject, the 2011 redistricting will be the last to be controlled by Republicans (unless the GOP is smart enough to do Hispanic outreach, instead of trying to suppress Latino voting). During the next census cycle, the young Hispanic population will be ten years older and will enter the voting age population. 2021 is when Texas politics will truly change as Latino growth shifts the balance of power away from not only Anglos but also African Americans. The clock is ticking.

The only surprise is how long it took for Perry to surrender to the inevitable. He has been a non-factor since the Iowa caucuses.

During the past month, I have been working on a story about what happens when Perry returns to the Capitol. It will be posted on the TEXAS MONTHLY web site today.

A new CNN/Opinion Research survey finds Rick Perry leading Mitt Romney in the GOP presidential race by double-digits, 32% to 21%, with Ron Paul at 13% and all other candidates in single digits.

Most interesting is that Perry’s biggest strength may be the electability factor, with 42% saying he has the best chance of beating President Obama next year. Some 26% say Romney has the best chance of defeating the president.

Said pollster Keating Holland: “That may go a very long way toward explaining his rise in the polls, since three-quarters of all Republicans say they would prefer a candidate who can beat President Obama over one who agrees with them on major issues.”

–Political Wire, September 12, 2011

A COMMUNICATION FROM THE PERRY CAMPAIGN TO THEIR SUPPORTERS

Subject: PERRY COMMITS BEYOND SOUTH CAROLINA!!!  We’re in for the long haul, folks!

Perry supporters nationwide!

Our ranks have grown and money is being raised from individual donors at a breakneck pace. You are ALL A MAJOR PART of that.

In case you didn’t hear already through social media, RICK PERRY HAS COMMITTED TO STAYING IN THE RACE. In an article hosted by the National Journal, Governor Perry discussed the Marine/Taliban story, but added that no matter what, he intends to compete in Florida at the end of the month!

In the face of adversity, media distortion, Fox News blackouts and bundlers trying to force him out, Governor Perry has seen something in the grassroots support the last 10 days that has lifted his spirits and energized his campaign. Something big has begun brewing and we are all a factor in that.

We have not gotten as many updates from you, our members as we need to keep accurate records and be sure you’re getting credit. Ron Paul supporters put most campaigns to shame with their viral, almost epidemic-like money bomb campaigns that spread through social media. WE DEPEND ON YOU to get the word out and help us recruit those willing to give $75, $50, $25, even $10 to help move ads on South Carolina television and radio.

We thank you for your support so far and wish to recognize the efforts of Morgan McComb – TX, Angela Toft – CA and Brenda Baggins – TX for the remarkable recruiting efforts. Together, we’ve raised over $3,000 of the $15,000 pledged this cycle. Let’s help Governor Perry by thanking him for his committment to staying beyond South Carolina with an investment into his campaign!

* * * *

I received the above email from a friend connected with the Perry campaign. I’m baffled. Does anyone really believe this:

Our ranks have grown and money is being raised from individual donors at a breakneck pace.

or this:

Something big has begun brewing and we are all a factor in that.

or this:

WE DEPEND ON YOU to get the word out and help us recruit those willing to give $75, $50, $25, even $10 to help move ads on South Carolina television and radio.

Now they are trying to raise money for television and radio spots in increments of $75, $50, $25, and $10. How much time does $10 buy on the radio? Twenty seconds? None of this makes any sense to me. Perry is still at 6% in South Carolina. He is going to finish last again. If he goes on to Florida, he will finish last there. What is the compulsion that drives him to hang on?