General Assembly Agrees to Push Congressional Filing Deadline to Feb. 7

Legislative leaders still disagree over new Congressional districts, but they have agreed on one thing: to extend the filing deadline.Instead of passing a new bill for the extension, state Senator Damon Thayer said the two sides agreed to gut House Bill 2.“We’re going to use the House Bill 2 conference committee report to change the Congressional filing deadline for candidates," Thayer said. "We have agreed that we’re going to postpone the filing deadline for the Congressional districts only by one week.”The Senate passed the committee report extending the deadline to February 7^th today. The House plans to do the same on Monday. The report doesn't contain any new district maps, but legislative leaders say they think they can agree on a plan soon.House Speaker Greg Stumbo says the conference committee agreed on the extension because there is slow progress on new Congressional map agreement.“We are not talking at this time, but we did agree that we thought if we had another week we might be able to reach some resolution on the Congressional plan," Stumbo said.He added that if the two chambers can't agree in time for the February 7th deadline, then there is little hope for new Congressional maps this legislative session.The filing deadline for legislative and judicial seats is still Tuesday.