Time for another LinkSwarm, with a good dollop of Texas political news:
- Waiting for word on the Solomon Ortiz-Blake Farenthold recount? You’ll have to wait until Monday, since they stopped recounting for the weekend. Farenthold still leads by just under 800 votes.
- Things are getting a bit hairy down on the border.
- A look at congressional redistricting, with a good bit about Texas:
This state gains four districts. The Republicans used their mid-decade redistricting to create extremely Republican districts, forcing longtime Democratic incumbents out. They will probably relax these districts a bit now. With population trends, two districts will have to be in Houston, one in Dallas, and one in Austin; the growth is in heavily-Republican areas. The only real questions are how much they can shore up Blake Farenthold in the 80 percent Hispanic 28th, and whether they try to go after Democrat Lloyd Doggett in Austin, who had a surprisingly close 2010 race.
- On the other hand, the Washington Post notes that Republicans already dominate the Texas congressional delegation so extensively that gaining more than one or two additional seats will be very difficult to do.
- Not only are Democrats poised to lose Senate seats in 2012, but some of the seats they are most likely to lose are those of their least liberal Senators.
- The difference between how Ireland and Iceland handled their respective bank problems.