From another article but pertinent: "The public perception of this case is that it's about politics," Judge Jeffrey Brown, a Trump appointee, wrote in his decision, which was joined by Judge David Guaderrama, an Obama appointee. "To be sure, politics played a role in drawing the 2025 Map. But it was much more than just politics."
The impetus for Texas' new maps was a letter from Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice, that argued, erroneously, that the state's "coalition" districts those with majority-minority populations where that majority consists of more than one minority group were unconstitutional following a decision by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Petteway v. Galveston County.
"Any mention of majority White Democrat districts"which DOJ presumably would have also targeted if its aims were partisan rather than racial"was conspicuously absent," Brown wrote.
Redistricting was added to the special legislative session called by Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, two days after Dhillon sent her letter.
"In other words, the Governor explicitly directed the Legislature to redistrict based on race," Brown wrote. "In press appearances, the Governor plainly and expressly disavowed any partisan objective and instead repeatedly stated that his goal was to eliminate coalition districts and create new majority-Hispanic districts."
Brown's decision eviscerates Dhillon's letter as containing "so many factual, legal, and typographical errors" that it is "challenging to unpack." The main problem is that the letter completely misinterprets the Petteway decision by arguing that its finding that the Voting Rights Act cannot require the drawing of coalition districts means that coalition districts are therefore unconstitutional.
"Petteway's holding that [Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act] does not require [coalition] districts' has no bearing on the permissibility of such districts as a matter of legislative choice or discretion,'" Brown wrote, quoting from other legal precedents.
Brown goes on to point out that Dhillon's explanations for which districts were unconstitutional coalition districts included multiple factual inaccuracies, including the background about how the district lines were initially drawn. He also notes what is missing from her letter.
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