Ross Ramsey, Texas Tribune

In a parallel political universe — one in which redistricting maps were in place and elections were on schedule — Texas would be getting national attention right now.

The four survivors in the Republican presidential primary race would be hitting all the stops on the barbecue circuit, wearing jeans and boots, raising money, posing for pictures and saying remarkable things to be played over and over on TV.

Instead, the earliest possible date for our primary elections will come after 34 states and territories have already spoken, either through primaries or caucuses. It could come later, leaving Texas to join 13 states that hold presidential primaries in May and June.

Just think of it. If the federal courts had approved the maps drawn by the Legislature, or those drawn by a panel of federal judges in San Antonio last year, we’d be less than two weeks away from early voting.

The state unveiled proposed redistricting maps, saying some of the parties in that litigation have signed off on at least some of the lines.

Today is a court-set deadline: Three federal judges in San Antonio told the redistricting parties that they needed to reach an agreement by this afternoon to preserve any hope of holding political primaries on April 3. Those primaries, already delayed from March 6, could be pushed back to May or June if maps aren't in place in time to stage the elections.

Attorney General Greg Abbott announced he had reached agreement on most parts of the maps with most of the parties involved. Notably absent from the deal are the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, the NAACP, the so-called Davis plaintiffs, and the Texas Democratic Party, who sued over the Senate district maps in Tarrant County.

In a conference call on the proposal, Abbott says he's confident that the state will have a primary in April. "The plan that is now posted — that will not be objected to by a large number of parties to this lawsuit — addresses all of the Section 5 and Section 2 objections [under the federal Voting Rights Act]," he said.

The federal government — and the Obama administration in particular — were the targets of four Republicans running for the U.S. Senate at a business group's candidate forum this afternoon.

Ted Cruz, David Dewhurst, Craig Jamesand Tom Leppert talked for about an hour at a Texas Association of Business conference in Austin. They agreed on several points during the forum.

If you had just touched down in Texas, you might have thought the candidates were running for president, or that President Obama had moved to Texas to run for Senate.

Cruz said the election is about two questions: "Will the next senator from the state of Texas be a strong conservative? And No. 2, will the next senator from the state of Texas be a fighter?"

Ron Paul can’t win the Republican nomination for president unless the mainstream of the GOP changes direction.

The Texas congressman is not going to come to them, and if you’re wagering that he will prevail, you’re betting that Republican voters will collectively slap their foreheads, drop what they’ve done for years and throw in with someone who has made his public career out of telling them they’re wrong about almost everything.

Paul is popular, smart, experienced and, so far, able to successfully duck anti-Semitic and racist writings that appeared in newsletters under his name in the 1980s and 1990s. He’s done well in the primaries, raised money and made his points.

He just can’t get voters outside of his core group to take him seriously.

It takes at least two months to put a primary election together once political maps are finally drawn, and if the federal courts don't spit out a final Texas map within the next three weeks, the state's primary elections probably can't be held on April 3.

During Monday's oral arguments in the Texas redistricting case, the justices on the high court asked about holding elections on time in April or as late as June. At one point, they were working backward from the general election date next November as they tried to sort out the complexities of reworking political maps in the face of election deadlines.

"Texas has a very early primary," Justice Samuel Alito Jr. said at one point during the hearing. "Some states have them for congressional races in — in the fall, and the latest presidential primary I think is at the end of June. So why can't this all be pushed back, and wouldn't that eliminate a lot of the problems that we are grappling with in this case?"

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments today about Texas redistricting and now must decide whether the state's primaries must be delayed to buy time for the courts to approve new maps.

It appears that the justices have to choose between waiting for the current round of lower court proceedings to play out, pushing back the primaries or choosing an interim map to use now, keeping the primaries on schedule.

The high court took the case in December, after a panel of three federal judges in San Antonio adopted an interim map of its own making for the 2012 primary elections.

Gov. Rick Perry has opened a whole new realm of campaign finance.

Perry is taking advantage of a wrinkle in state law that allows a state officeholder to collect a pension while also collecting a paycheck. For the governor, that’s a $92,376 annual pension on top of a $150,000 annual salary.

Sweet, right?

Old news, too, so let’s move on to 2014, and how this figures into that year’s elections. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst is running for Senate, and a number of his political colleagues figure his state job will be open in 2014 whether or not he wins in 2012. Four or five current state officials are talking openly or semi-openly about that race, sniffing around for support and letting the money people around the state know they’re interested.

Texas Democrats and Republicans agreed to hold unified primary elections on April 3, avoiding the costs and confusion brought on by litigation over new political maps for congressional and legislative districts.

The agreement moves all of the March 6 primaries — including the one for president — to the first Thursday in April. Texas voters would be left out of the Super Tuesday contests in early March.

The plan still needs approval from a panel of three federal judges in San Antonio, and the agreement assumes that the courts will have completed work on the maps in time to hold elections in April.

Under the agreement:

Forget everything. The candidate announcements, the relocations, the decisions not to run again, the who vs. who vs. who and the campaign finance. Poof!

With a one-paragraph order on Friday night, the U.S. Supreme Court froze the Texas congressional and legislative elections and replaced pre-holiday candidate filings, politicking and fundraising with uncertainty and chaos.

In a late Friday afternoon order, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the use of court-drawn maps for legislative and congressional districts in Texas, telling the lawyers involved to be ready for oral arguments next month.

The state asked the court for a stay on maps for congressional, Texas House and Texas Senate maps. The court's order asks for briefs from the lawyers by December 21, replies by January 3, and sets the cases for oral arguments on January 9. 

Maybe the voters didn’t mean it. Could be they have reconsidered. It may have been a mistake, or a bunch of them got busy and never made it to the polls. Perhaps they were just as surprised the morning after the elections as the losers were, and maybe now the voters want their former incumbents back.

Or maybe it’s just that some candidates need to lose more than once to get the message.

It’s already clear, even with time remaining in the candidate-filing period, that the 2012 ballot will be stippled with retreads, officeholders who were cast out by voters last election but want to try again.

The promoters and track owners trying to put on a Formula One race in Austin apparently overcame their differences just in time — the F1 race for November 2012 is officially on the calendar.

The owners of the track — who stopped construction when the negotiations broke down last month — said this morning they will resume building immediately. That outfit, Circuit of the Americas, is run by Texas businessmen Red McCombs of San Antonio and Bobby Epstein of Austin.

The Legislature's foremost expert on school finance and one of its top public education advocates, state Rep. Scott Hochberg, D-Houston, confirmed this afternoon that he won't seek re-election next year.

Hochberg, who took office in 1993 and is now the vice chairman of the House Education Committee and the chairman of the education subcommittee on the House Appropriations Committee, said the time had come for him to pursue something new.

The Texas primaries will be held on March 6 next year, with runoffs more than two months later, on May 22.

Maybe. If the federal courts decide redistricting maps should be redrawn before the voting starts, some of those primary contests could be moved to May.

There’s little time left to rework the maps — candidates started filing for the March primaries this week — so it’s possible that delaying some of the primaries is the only way to put new maps in place.

The state's lawyers asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stop elections under court-ordered redistricting maps today, saying the federal judges who drew the maps improperly disregarded the wishes of the Legislature.

Candidates started filing for the March 6 primaries this morning. The filing from Attorney General Greg Abbott asks the high court to freeze the election, saying the primary could be put off if necessary.