A ‘mean-spirited’ Texas map goes before a conservative appeals court that could make it a new standard

A county redistricting plan in Texas that a Donald Trump-appointed judge deemed “a clear violation” of the Voting Rights Act is back before a notoriously conservative appeals court.

Conservative judges on the federal appeals court that oversees a large swath of the South questioned a longstanding legal mandate in the circuit that allows multiple minority groups to join together to seek representation under the Voting Rights Act. Judge Edith Jones of the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals said that if it was “obvious” the Voting Rights Act contemplated so-called coalition districts that aim to bolster minority voting power, the Supreme Court would have said so in previous rulings about the law. “But it isn’t,” she told Justice Department attorney Nicolas Riley, who is defending the current precedent and how it was used by a Donald Trump-appointed judge to strike down the county commission map of Galveston, Texas. The trial judge agreed with the Biden administration – and the civil rights groups and Black and Hispanic voters that also sued over the plan – that the commission map drawn by Republicans was a “clear violation” of the Voting Rights Act. US District Judge Jeffrey Vincent Brown last year struck down the new map, saying that how the commissioners went about their “obliteration” of a majority-minority district was “stark,” “jarring,” “egregious” and “mean-spirited.” The 5th Circuit has already voted to pause Brown’s ruling, as it considers reversing the coalition district precedent. The new GOP-drawn map will be in effect for the 2024 election.