TEXAS REDISTRICTING

In an online advisory to party members this evening, the Republican Party of Texas said that the new interim map proposed by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott could give the party up to 96 state house seats (down slightly from the 101 Republicans currently hold) as well as what the party said could be a couple of new congressional seats.

According to the advisory:

The Republican Party of Texas has been closely analyzing these proposed lines. If the court agrees to enact these interim maps, the proposal should enable the Republican Party to have an excellent chance at preserving all of the Congressional seats we won in 2010, and would also provide a very strong chance at picking up an additional couple of Congressional seats from the four Texas has gained through reapportionment.

This is an improvement over the maps originally issued by the San Antonio three-judge panel. Under those maps, there was a possibility that the Republican Party would not win any of the new four seats, and Republicans also faced a possibility of losing one or two of our existing incumbents.

In regards to proposed maps for the Texas House of Representatives, the proposal preserves the ability of the Republican Party to achieve a solid majority in that body.

RPT staff has analyzed the maps over the past few hours and believe that there will be 96 State House districts with an average GOP vote of 50% or better (using vote totals for the 2008 Presidential Election.)

RPT chair, Steve Munisteri, also told party officials to prepare for a single unified primary “the second or third week of April,” explaining:

It is the Republican Party of Texas’ position that even if maps are not agreed to by all parties, that the Court now has sufficient information as to the  respective positions of all parties so as to allow the Court to issue final maps in time for a single unified primary in mid-April.

A number of minority groups contend the number of congressional seats Republicans would pick up actually would be higher, claiming that a couple of existing minority seats would become uncompetitive for minority preferred candidates and that Anglo Republicans could end up netting all four of the state’s new congressional districts.