Texas Dems, GOP Reach Agreement For April 2012 Primary

The Texas Democratic Party and Republican Party of Texas came to an agreement on a potential primary date. Remember that if there are two primaries, as has been proposed, that would likely disenfranchise Latino and minority voters. The later primary isn’t great. either, but it’s better. Here’s a snippet from the pree release, and a copy of the agreement:

The parties’ joint proposal provides for an April 3, 2012 unified primary date, along with adjusted dates, deadlines and requirements in respect to its administration…

Notable details of the agreement submitted to the panel are as follows:

·         February 1, 2012 – New residency deadline for candidates seeking election to the Texas House and Texas Senate.

·         February 1, 2012, 6:00pm – New deadline of court-ordered reopened filing period, in which candidates for all offices have the opportunity to amend, withdraw or file a new application for the ballot.

·         February 3, 2012 – New deadline for County Executive Committees to conduct drawing for candidate order on ballot.

·         April 3, 2012 – Date of the 2012 General Primary Election.

·         April 14 or April 21, 2012 – Date of County and Senatorial District Conventions, as determined by the State Chair of each political party.

·         June 5, 2012 – Date of the 2012 General Primary Runoff Election.

If signed by the three-judge panel – nothing in the order shall be construed by the Court or the parties as a waiver of the positions of each party with respect to the schedule or conduct of the upcoming election. The parties’ positions as stated at the December 13, 2011 hearing are expressly reserved. Additionally, the Republican and Democratic parties have agreed that it is necessary to have a primary early enough in April to allow them to conduct their statutorily required conventions as previously planned.