They had a busy day on Friday.
Travis County remains divided between two State Board of Education districts under the redistricting plan adopted by the Texas Senate on Friday.
See the map here.
[…]
The new map was passed on a vote of 28-3. It will return to the House for final approval.
The House version is here. I haven’t looked at either in much detail, but at first glance I saw that Harris County was different in each, so there are some things to be worked out. I don’t anticipate any difficulties with that.
Here’s an excellent diary from SSP on the House SBOE map.
Out of curiosity, I looked up who the 3 nays were, and I was pretty surprised. They were Watson, Patrick, and Birdwell. Watson is easy to explain since Travis County is split. I’m not sure why Birdwell was against. Maybe he doesn’t want Hood to share an SBOE seat with McClennan? But, the real surprise here is Patrick. Terri (sp?) Leo, who represents the SBOE seat in his Senate District, got the district she wanted. Furthermore, both Rep. Roberto Alonzo and Sen. Mario Gallegos wanted a second minority SBOE seat out of Houston in place of Leo’s seat. So, when they didn’t get it, I would have expected the Houston Democrats to vote against the map. Instead all three Houston Democrats voted for the map, while Dan Patrick voted against it. This makes me think that Leo’s district may be more vulnerable than I think it is.
Kuff—You’re from Houston. What’s going on here?