Court says Texas primary likely to be May 29

A federal judge in San Antonio working on settling this year's election schedule has said that Republican leaders should plan for the Texas primaries to be held on May 29, according to the Associated Press.

The state of Texas had originally planned on holding primaries in March. Last year, the primary got pushed back to early April as lawsuits over political maps passed by the Legislature kept candidates from filing for ballots when planned.

A May 29 primary would push any possible runoffs deep into the summer.

There are some indications that the primary may be pushed back even later due to ongoing issues with redistricting maps and the extra lead time that military and overseas ballots are now required to receive under federal law. 

Both the Texas Republican Party and Texas Democratic Party have scheduled state conventions for the weekend of June 6. Republicans are planning to meet in Fort Worth. The Democratic convention is planned for Houston.

Both parties usually need weeks following a primary to plan a convention. It's unclear if the conventions can still take place as planned.

Two Republican presidential candidates, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, have recently said that Texas could play a pivotal role in the presidential race. 

-Aman Batheja

Comments

[brian]

it should not have came to a judge.maps are drawn by either democrats or republicans based on election results of the last election. any map does not decide ,as people do or do not vote at election time

[C]

This is wrong. We are losing our right to decide who be the GOP nomination.
All because a bunch of lawyers want to control when we vote on this. The star telegram needs to list all the groups suing the state of Texas on this. So that the people will know very clearly who is taking away thier right to vote.

[Dave Robinson]

Rebublicans are trying to disenfranchise as many possible not republican voters as possible. Whatever happened to democracy?