Photo by: zz/KGC-254/STAR MAX/IPx 2024 3/13/24 for the AP
A federal judge has blocked Texas’s efforts to redraw its congressional maps on Tuesday, finding that there is “substantial evidence” the new district lines were “racially gerrymandered,” and ordering the state to return to its 2021 map.
Normally, states draw their electoral maps every decade after new Census data is released, but in the wake of President Donald Trump’s reelection and the critically important 2026 midterms, he urged GOP-majority states to redraw their district lines early in order to give Republicans an advantage.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) enthusiastically embraced the idea, adding redistricting to the agenda for a special session, and the Texas Legislature created a new map earlier this year, which was swiftly challenged in court by a group of plaintiffs who argued that the new map was racially discriminatory.
On Tuesday, Judge Jeffrey V. Brown with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, a Trump appointee, agreed.
In a 160-page opinion, Brown was joined in a 2-1 ruling by Senior U.S. District Judge David C. Guaderrama, an Obama appointee. U.S. Circuit Court Judge Jerry E. Smith, a Reagan appointee, dissented.
Brown went through the history of how the new Texas map was created, noting that it was done as a direct response to urging from the Trump administration, specifically a letter from Harmeet Dhillon, the head of the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) that was sent to Abbott and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that made the “legally incorrect assertion that four congressional districts in Texas were ‘unconstitutional’ because they were ‘coalition districts’—majority-non-White districts in which no single racial group constituted a 50% majority” and “threaten[ing] legal action if Texas didn’t immediately dismantle and redraw these districts—a threat based entirely on their racial makeup.”
“Notably, the DOJ Letter targeted only majority-non-White districts,” wrote Brown, and the actions of the Governor and Legislature showed they were redistricting “based on race” and “plainly and expressly disavowed any partisan objective.”
Accordingly, the judge found multiple reasons that the plaintiffs were “likely to prove at trial that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 Map,” and ruled to grant a preliminary injunction.
The opinion expressly rejected Texas’s argument that going back to the 2021 map would cause a “significant disruption,” pointing out that the filing deadline had not yet passed and the court ruling was issued “well before” that Dec. 8 deadline.
“Simply put, the 2026 congressional election is not underway,” wrote Brown, adding that any “disruption” the state claimed “is attributable to the Legislature, not the Court”:
The Legislature—not the Court—set the timetable for this injunction. The Legislature—not the Court—redrew Texas’s congressional map weeks before precinct-chair and candidate-filing periods opened. The State chose to “toy with its election laws close to” the 2026 congressional election, though that is certainly its prerogative. But any argument that this Court is choosing “to swoop in and re-do a State’s election laws in the period close to an election” is wholly misdirected. In this case, “[l]ate judicial tinkering” with Texas’s congressional map is not what could “lead to disruption and to unanticipated and unfair consequences for candidates, political parties, and voters.” The Legislature—not the Court—opened that door.
The judge further noted that the case had been handled expeditiously, with the plaintiffs’ lawsuit being swiftly filed and the court and parties having worked “diligently” to get the motions filed and the preliminary injunction hearing scheduled, held, and a ruling issued — which had been a “Herculean task,” but the three-judge panel “has done everything in its power to rule as quickly as possible” and “sufficient time remains for an injunction to take effect.”
This ruling has now created an interesting situation, commented Politico senior legal affairs reporter Kyle Cheney, as Texas’s redistricting plans triggered California to launch its own as a ballot measure that passed earlier this month.
“[I]f the [Texas] ruling stands and California’s survives legal scrutiny,” wrote Cheney, then Texas’s redistricting scheme “could lead to a net gain for Democrats” in the end.
The post JUST IN: Federal Judge Blocks Texas’s New Congressional Maps, Ordering State to Use 2021 Maps first appeared on Mediaite.
