Texas Supreme Court denies request to delay new election law despite lawsuit challenging it

HOUSTON (AP) — The Texas Supreme Court has ruled that a new Republican-backed law that dictates how elections will be run in the Democratic stronghold of Houston and its surrounding county will take effect as scheduled next month despite a lawsuit seeking to overturn it. Officials in Harris County, which is the state’s most populous, had sought to put the law, which abolishes its elections administrator’s office, on hold. Last week, a judge in Austin temporarily blocked enforcement of the law after calling it unconstitutional. The judge’s order was short-lived, as the state attorney general’s office successfully appealed to the Texas Supreme Court, which ordered oral arguments in the lawsuit to take place Nov. 28.