We ran across this piece at the Texas Tribune yesterday and it got us thinking about the wild ride both Texas and Louisiana are going to face between now and next year’s federal elections…

Last month, the Republican Party of Texas sued over a state law that allows anyone to vote in any primary election, regardless of party affiliation.

On Thursday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton responded, not to defend the state law, but to side with the GOP in asking a federal judge to strike down parts of the election code that allow for open primaries.

“The unconstitutional law stopping the [Republican Party of Texas] from closing its primaries is completely indefensible and a slap in the face to the Republican Party and voters,” Paxton said.

This is the latest in a string of cases where Paxton, as the state’s top lawyer, has not only declined to defend a state law, but actively campaigned for the courts to strike it down.

Earlier this summer, the Department of Justice sued Texas over a law providing in-state tuition for undocumented college students. Paxton agreed to a consent decree striking down the law just six hours after the suit was filed.

Paxton indicated in a press release that he hoped to see a similarly swift resolution in this case, discouraging the Secretary of State’s office from “fighting this lawsuit with expensive out-of-state lawyers.”

Typically, the attorney general’s office defends state laws when they are challenged. But investigations from The Texas Tribune and ProPublica have identified at least 75 times when his office declined to defend state agencies in court; in other cases, Paxton’s office has hired expensive private lawyers to take on Big Tech companies and other high-profile litigation.

Paxton’s office gave Secretary of State Jane Nelson less than an hour’s notice that they would be siding against her agency in the lawsuit, a lawyer for Nelson said in a brief filed Thursday afternoon. She intends to oppose the motion, the brief said.

Texas’ system isn’t a jungle primary like we have in Louisiana. There are party primaries, but they’re open for Democrats to butt in and choose which Republican they’d like to run against. That’s a stupid system and it’s arguably unconstitutional on Equal Protection grounds; if you as a Republican voter – or a Democrat voter, for that matter, don’t have the right or ability to choose which candidate best fits your party’s philosophy and interests by voting in a party primary, you really don’t have much of a right to vote.

Ken Paxton, for all the faults attributed to him, gets this.

Here’s what’s interesting: December 8 is Texas’ qualifying deadline for its party primaries in next year’s federal and statewide elections. That, if I’m not mistaken, is the earliest qualifying deadline of all of the states who have redrawn or are considering redrawing, their congressional maps.

This deadline is an issue because all of the redistricting stuff – and there’s a lot of it – involves the Callais case out of Louisiana which will be in front of the Supreme Court for oral arguments on Thursday.

There is another Supreme Court case out there which is relevant to this discussion as a precedent. In Purcell v. Gonzalez, decided in 2006, the Court established that courts should not change election rules too close to an election, because of the risk of causing confusion.

They’re going to have oral arguments on the Callais case on Thursday, which is October 15. Those oral arguments will involve the constitutionality of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which is the provision which necessitates, essentially, the creation of affirmative-action districts for black Democrat politicians like Cleo Fields.

It’s unknown, but people think that all or part of Section 2 is going to go away as a result of Callais. Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill is going to be arguing, just as Gov. Jeff Landry argued in his own amicus brief on the case, that Section 2 has been an absolute mess for this state and, as it’s been applied by leftist federal judges like Shelley Dick in Baton Rouge, it’s just about impossible to draw any districts that (1) reflect the will of the public without (2) dragging the state into endless litigation every time new districts need to be drawn.

The Left and the clowns in Louisiana’s media keep saying that Murrill has changed her mind because she came out in favor of getting rid of Section 2; as we’ve said several times, this is a lie. Murrill argues that the current 4-2 congressional map that put Cleo Fields in Congress doesn’t violate the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment, but, asked about Section 2, takes the position that the state would rather not have to jump through all these stupid hoops.

Left alone by the federal courts, Louisiana would draw a 5-1 map.

Texas just redrew their congressional map to essentially turn over five of their congressional seats which are currently Democrat seats and make them very likely to flip to Republican. That’s going to be litigated, obviously, and if the Supreme Court blows out Section 2 of the VRA, the Texas map will be upheld.

So what this means is because of the doctrine the Court established in Purcell, they’d need to have a decision on the Callais case before December 8, or else anything decided in that case wouldn’t have implications on the 2026 elections in Texas.

Which may or may not affect the new map they drew earlier this year. A district court and/or the Fifth Circuit would pass judgement on the Texas map at some point, but one imagines they’d likely try to wait on any decisions until they hear from the Supreme Court on Callais.

This doesn’t just involve Texas and Louisiana. It’s going to involve a ton of other states, too.

Anyway, December 17 is the date set for Louisiana’s qualifying by petition for next year’s federal races, and January 14 is the final qualifying date.

This is the reason Louisiana is likely to go into a special session to change the election dates, and while we had a post here at The Hayride expressing some concerns around that idea, we’re not opposed to pushing the calendar around a bit.

Because given the Purcell doctrine, the Supreme Court has two ways to go here.

Either they need to have the Callais decision handed down before December 8, or, if they miss that window, then they’ve got to hand it down by June 25 of next year. That’s the date at which the Court’s current term ends, and all its decisions for the term have to be out by then.

Early is better, obviously. An early decision on Callais means there is time for all of these redistricting actions by the states to take hold for the 2026 elections. And in Louisiana’s case, an early decision means qualifying might need to be pushed back, but the actual elections – the first round of party primaries in Louisiana is currently scheduled for April 18 – can easily be held with a new map the Legislature might draw up.

Let’s remember, of course, that you have to have a congressional map in place before you can hold qualifying in congressional races.

But if the Supreme Court takes its time on a Callais decision and you don’t get it until June 25, then Gov. Jeff Landry would have to call a special session essentially over the July 4 holiday and the soonest a new map could be delivered to Secretary of State Nancy Landry would be July 20.

Every one of these politicians is going to scream that they can’t use a new map for the 2026 elections if it comes that late. Which is a crock, of course – you can qualify people at the end of July, hold the first round of elections in early September, the primary runoffs in early October and have the general election on the usual federal date in early November. It isn’t great, but it can be done and nobody should accept whining otherwise from legislators or Nancy Landry.

Anyway, the Purcell doctrine is a big deal over in Texas not just where their new map is concerned but also with respect to the TXGOP lawsuit seeking to close the party primaries there, because you’re looking at a very quick turnaround before that Dec. 8 qualifying date.

But it’s just as consequential in Louisiana, and the timeline is pretty similar.

An awful lot is riding on Callais, as you might imagine.