berg80
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- Oct 28, 2017
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The 160-page opinion was written by District Judge Jeffrey V. Brown, who was appointed by Trump during his first term as president. His ruling drew upon statements and contradictions in what Republican lawmakers said as the maps were passed.
A letter the Department of Justice wrote to encourage the redistricting, ended up being grounds the court used to block the effort.
The judges noted that when Gov. Abbott originally called lawmakers into session to draw the map, he cited a letter from justice department officials criticizing districts that had majority non-white voting populations as "racial gerrymanders." In other words, the letter implied the districts as they stood gave non-white voters an advantage and that had to be reversed.
Eventually, Texas Republicans said the map was not intended to correct for a racial tilt but for partisan gain.
That letter put lawmakers, who for years had denied their use of race when making maps, in "a difficult spot" according to University of Texas at Austin political scientist Josh Blank, because they were "ultimately saying opposite things."
Brown's ruling criticized the construction of the letter itself, which was sent by Harmeet Dhillon, head of the Justice Department's civil rights division. "It's challenging to unpack the DOJ Letter because it contains so many factual, legal, and typographical errors," Brown wrote.
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