This cartoon published in the San Antonio Express News sums it up.
The GOP ended up working with one of the major plaintiffs (the Hispanic coalition group of LULAC, MALDEF, GI Forum and others) to come up with maps for Congress, the State Senate, and the State House, none of which have changes in the North Dallas, Collin and Denton County areas. The map did what the GOP should have done from the beginning: added Hispanic-centric districts, primarily by giving up districts currently held by Anglo Democrats. The resulting map DOES increase minority representation; it does very little to expand Democrat representation. More writeup here.
Naturally, the true desires of most of the plaintiffs have come through: the NAACP naturally opposes it, as does the Democrat Party State Sen. Wendy Davis is in the hilarious position saying of that preserving her district in a form that she- an Anglo- can be be re-elected, is the ONLY way to properly serve ethnic minorities. .
Unfortunately, the court seems to want ALL parties satisfied (which means they want the Democrats to win out, NOT just the ethnic minorities). Unless things change significantly, this will almost assuredly delay the election past April 17th (which was the date these maps were developed to support). The court has not moved up any of it’s schedules; it seems in no hurry. However, others think that there are enough satisfied plaintiffs that the Courts might accept this for the April 17th date. Others do not think so. We’ll have to see. But April 3rd is pretty much gone.
