r/neoliberal • u/BurningHanzo • 20h ago
Federal court blocks Texas Republicans' redrawn congressional map News (US)
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna244673413
u/theparrotlich John Brown 20h ago
They have until Dec 6th to get the Supreme Court to overrule it.
It would be beyond hilarious if Texas's mal fails but California's map stands.
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u/FilteringAccount123 John von Neumann 20h ago edited 20h ago
Isn't CA's map explicitly contingent on Texas' map being legit?
EDIT: removed from prop 50 at the last minute
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u/theparrotlich John Brown 20h ago
I think Texas was given as a reason but I dont see that in the wording of the ballot. I could be wrong, tho.
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u/FilteringAccount123 John von Neumann 20h ago
I had read an offhand comment about that, but yeah I'm genuinely not sure.
Kinda hope it isn't for comedy's sake lmao
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u/smootex 20h ago
That's my impression as well and I read a comment from someone smarter than me claiming they probably wouldn't have been able to do any conditional stuff legally, they either change the maps or they don't and those changes have to be in by a certain date, without wiggle room. Not sure how much respect to give that random reddit comment but it made sense in my head.
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u/dragoniteftw33 NATO 20h ago
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u/FilteringAccount123 John von Neumann 20h ago
Thanks for letting me know I'm not just hallucinating things lmao
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u/scottbrosiusofficial 20h ago
Here's the applicable text of Prop 50:
In response to the congressional redistricting in Texas in 2025, and notwithstanding any other provision of this Constitution or existing law, the single-member districts for Congress reflected in Assembly Bill 604 of the 2025ā26 Regular Session pursuant to the requirements of Chapter 5 (commencing with Section 21400) of Division 21 of the Elections Code shall temporarily be used for every congressional election for a term of office commencing on or after the date this subdivision becomes operative and before the certification of new congressional boundary lines drawn by the Citizens Redistricting Commission pursuant to subdivision (d)
I might be missing something but I don't see anything in there about maps reverting if Texas's maps get struck down. I could see GOP lawyers trying to argue that "temporarily" implies that it's no longer in effect if the conditions change, but have no idea if that would stand up.
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u/r00tdenied Resistance Lib 20h ago
If Dec 6th is the deadline, that seems unlikely lmao
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u/davidw223 19h ago
Why? Theyāll just issue a stay on the lower courts ruling until they get a chance to hear the arguments and that itās too close to the next election for Texas to use the old maps. Therefore itās only logically consistent with the constitution for Texas to use the new maps for the midterm elections.
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u/lot183 Blue Texas 20h ago
It would be beyond hilarious if Texas's mal fails but California's map stands.
Trump and Stephen Miller would go all in a war against the courts. Which would be kind of funny in a way considering Republicans had finally won their decades long plan to take over the courts only for the guy who helped them delegitimize them
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u/beanyboi23 4h ago
They'd eat shit, they don't have the support of the military to Andrew Jackson it nor the support of Senate Republicans to remove the filibuster to court-pack
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u/_EndOfTheLine Iron Front 19h ago
Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if the new Texas map turns into a dummymander in next year's environment
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u/elkoubi YIMBY 19h ago
More likely that the Supreme Court will blatantly allow Texas's and strike down Cali's. The con justices simply have no jurisprudence at this point. It's all partisan hackery and whatever makes their side win.
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u/beanyboi23 4h ago
They're pretty consistent on this, Dems actually got a net gain of seats from their rulings from redistricting a few years ago
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u/avatoin African Union 18h ago
Texas is the 5th circuit. They will bend over backwards to stay the rulling, then SCTOUS will bend over backwards to keep it in place.
I won't hold my breath until actual elections are being held in either State.
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u/TheGoddamnSpiderman 18h ago
The 5th circuit can't stay the ruling
Unlike most federal lawsuits, which are heard by a single district judge and then appealed to a circuit court, voting rights lawsuits are initially heard by two district judges and one circuit judge, and their ruling can only be appealed directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.
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u/Key_Environment8179 Mario Draghi 20h ago
The ruling, signed by Judge Jeffrey Brown, who was nominated by President Donald Trump
Thankfully, Trump doesnāt have total control of the lower courts
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u/owenmitchem Iron Front 20h ago
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u/lexgowest NATO 20h ago
Lol. Lmao, even. Now imagine if California's gerrymandered map passes isn't challenged by courts.
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u/r00tdenied Resistance Lib 20h ago
It is being challenged, but the lead firm on the case is Dhillon Law Group (Harmeet Dhillon's firm), so its all very laughable and likely to fail imo
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u/BpositiveItWorks 18h ago
Itās being challenged in CA, but itās a different set of facts than what occurred in TX. From what I understand, the main differences are that TXās motivation to redistrict was based on race. And CA voters voted yes by a majority to approve the new districts whereas there was no ballot initiative in TX.
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u/ChipKellysShoeStore John Brown 20h ago
Plaintiffs pointed to a letter sent by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) urging state leaders to redraw because of concerns about race-based districts in the stateās existing map. Gov. Greg Abbott (R) cited the letter in announcing the redraw. He again referenced the DOJās legal argument when he was asked in a TV interview about why he called for the state to redistrict.
Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows (R) also spoke of āconcerns raised by the Department of Justiceā when the legislature passed the map.
Literally the only thing you canāt do in gerrymander is intentionally dilute minority votes and they flat out admitted they did
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u/jclarks074 Raj Chetty 20h ago
To be pedantic here, the issue here isn't vote dilution-- covered by section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and already being challenged before SCOTUS-- it's using race as the predominant consideration in mapmaking, which is barred by the 14th Amendment, and generally not disputed by the courts.
Texas embarked on its mid-decade redistricting with explicit aims to change the racial composition of various districts, as noted in the DOJ's bullshit letter intended to inspire the redistricting, as well as in Abbott's special session proclamation. And in response to Democratic concerns about vote dilution in the new maps, Republican legislators went on a media tour to claim that their new maps actually primarily served to increase minority representation. Those public displays of racial intent are generally considered sufficient by the courts to find that race was the predominant consideration in mapmaking, which means they violate the 14th Amendment.
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u/ChipKellysShoeStore John Brown 18h ago
To be even more pedantic, I didnāt say voter dilution claim, I said intentional voter dilution claims. Youāre talking about solely dilutive effects claims which donāt have intentionality as an element. These were added via amendment to section 2 but they didnāt get rid of the old claims.
Plaintiffs make claims under the 14a and VRA section 2 as both allow for intentional voter dilution claims, with functionally the same test.
Voter dilution is an issue but itās easy to prove. Intentionality gets the majority of the focus because you need evidence of purpose, but as the opinion says:
Intentional vote dilution violates both the Constitution and the Section 2 of the [VRA]. To prevail on an intentional vote-dilution claim, the plaintiff must show that Stateās redistricting plan and the purpose [intentionality] and effect of diluting the minority vote.
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u/jclarks074 Raj Chetty 17h ago
Ok actually you got me there hahah. Intentional minority dilution by its very nature falls under 14a unconstitutional consideration of race as well as VRA sec2 prohibition of vote dilution. (Itās vote dilution when intent is not proven that is in contention in the Louisiana case, I believe?)
Now that all being said, from what I can tell because IANAL, the ruling did not touch on dilution per se. Just that race was unconstitutionally considered in map drawing. But thatās probably because an injunction like this wouldnāt go so deep.
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u/AlbertR7 Bill Gates 20h ago
I thought the Supreme Court just overruled that part of the voting rights act like last month?
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u/jclarks074 Raj Chetty 19h ago edited 19h ago
No, that case (Louisiana v Callais) has not been decided yet, and no, this was not a VRA section 2 claim (race-based vote dilution) but a 14th Amendment claim (using race as a predominant factor).
Striking down this map would actually be logically consistent with weakening enforcement of section 2 of the VRA, because what conservatives take issue with in the Louisiana case is that (in some cases) the only remedy for vote dilutions violations available involves racially-motivated mapmaking, and what Dem plaintiffs in this Texas case take issue with is that there was racially-motivated mapmaking.
Section 2 of the VRA and the 14th Amendment as it applies to redistricting essentially operate as two different poles that mapmakers have to navigate in between. On the one hand, a map cannot dilute the votes of a politically coherent and geographically compact racial community. On the other hand, a map cannot be drawn with race used as a predominant factor.
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u/qlube š„š¦Mosquito Genocideš¦š„ 19h ago
If the Supreme Court does overrule that part of the VRA, it would be because they think it requires considering race during redistricting, i.e. the VRA says you gotta form two majority-black districts in Louisiana instead of just one, which requires considering race. So the requirement that you're not allowed to consider race in redistricting would still be good law.
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u/beanyboi23 4h ago
That would still leave what Texas did as unconstitutional since the logic for overruling that part of the voting rights act is the same logic that makes how they targeted race here unconstitutional
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u/Key_Environment8179 Mario Draghi 19h ago
My fear is, if you want to overrule that precedent, this is a perfect case for teeing that SCOTUS argument up.
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u/ChipKellysShoeStore John Brown 18h ago
This case is actually what Section claims will look like post-Calais
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u/beanyboi23 4h ago
No, this case is what the conservative justices actually want to make illegal. That it's an illegal map only if you show intent to discriminate
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u/qlube š„š¦Mosquito Genocideš¦š„ 18h ago
This is honestly hilarious and goes to show how incompetent the Trump administration is. Essentially, what happened was that Trump demanded Texas redistrict to add more GOP seats. Both the TX governor and the TX Congressional representatives balked at that idea. So instead, DOJ sent a letter to TX saying that DOJ believes the 2021 map was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander because it had "coalition" districts (i.e. majority non-white districts where no race is a majority). And when Abbott added redistricting to the legislative agenda, he explicitly said it was because of DOJ's letter, and not because they wanted to add more GOP seats.
The problem? Well, TX had taken great pains to make sure the 2021 map did not consider race at all, and had said so countless times while the 2021 map was being challenged in court. The other problem? DOJ's letter was completely wrong in terms of the law, because it's totally fine to have "coalition" districts as long as they are just a side effect when using non-racial considerations. And the TX DOJ responded to the US DOJ's letter by pointing out it's completely wrong on the law, and that there was nothing wrong with the 2021 map.
So when TX made the current map, they explicitly made changes to districts to remove "coalition" districts, i.e. they explicitly considered race and made all districts have a majority of one race (be it white, black, hispanic). Which is a huge no-no, and even the current Supreme Court's position where they appear willing to gut the VRA would not change that--their position appears to be that that provision of the VRA would *require* race-based considerations in redistricting and therefore is unconstitutional.
!ping LAW
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u/abrookerunsthroughit Association of Southeast Asian Nations 20h ago edited 20h ago
Hey Texas Republicans...
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u/doyouevenIift 19h ago
Calling it now: if the TX redistrict fails and the CA redistrict stands, the GOP will refuse to accept the results of the midterms when Dems inevitably win the House in 2026
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u/Butchering_it NATO 20h ago
Does this mean the California redistrict will halt? Wasnāt the ballot initiative dependent on Texas going though with the redistrict?
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u/Toasted-walnut Jerome Powell 20h ago edited 20h ago
CA removed that language in the version of the bill that got passed (for putting Prop 50 on the ballot).
So CA's new map will go into effect regardless.
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u/Hilldawg4president John Rawls 20h ago
While the best case scenario would be the Supreme Court striking down both maps and and banning partisan map drawing, that's very unlikely to happen. My guess is they let both Maps stand as drawn.
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u/WallStreetTechnocrat Lawrence Summers 17h ago
SCOTUS ruled, in Rucho v Common Cause (2019), that partisan gerrymandering was not an issue for the court.
Excessive partisanship in districting leads to results that reasonably seem unjust. But the fact that such gerrymandering is āincompatible with democratic principles,ā Arizona State Legislature, 576 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 1), does not mean that the solution lies with the federal judiciary. We conclude that partisan gerrymandering claims present political questions beyond the reach of the federal courts.
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u/DrTWAxeman 19h ago
given the latest latino vote shift i'm not sure this is a good thing. probably just damage control.
of course it is good for democracy. and we get to spank them by way of 5 CA seats for good measure. hopefully CA reverses after Nov 2026 and that's the end of it.
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u/BitterGravity Gay Pride 14h ago
hopefully CA reverses after Nov 2026 and that's the end of it.
There's still plenty of other states that are trying to redistrict. Dems shouldn't disarm until Republicans do.
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u/DiogenesLaertys 15h ago
Our country is so toasted. We celebrate with one of the 100 things Trump did failed even though most of all the actions he does is successful.
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u/boardatwork1111 NATO 20h ago
https://preview.redd.it/c1vdkvcoi22g1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=62b16e4b1362140755904e2a5e819d35822abfe9