U.S. Circuit Judge Jerry Smith issued a scathing, lengthy dissent aimed at a district judge on a panel that struck down Texas’s new congressional map, likely providing ammunition for the state’s forthcoming appeal to the Supreme Court.
Smith accused U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown of “embarking on a results-oriented crusade against the Texas Legislature” in the majority opinion halting the use of the state’s recently passed congressional map, ripping that decision and laying out his issues with Brown’s conduct. Smith issued his dissent one day after the majority on the three-judge panel released its ruling. In it, he argued the winners of the majority’s ruling are George Soros and Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom, while the losers are the people of Texas and the rule of law.
“In 37 years as a federal judge, I’ve served on hundreds of three-judge panels. This is the most blatant exercise of judicial activism that I have ever witnessed,” Smith said in his dissent.
“The opinion is caught in an illogical straitjacket from which it cannot escape,” he later added.
Brown had written in his Tuesday majority opinion that the map passed by the Texas legislature earlier this year, which would net Republicans up to five additional House seats, amounted to an unlawful racial gerrymander. The panel ordered the state to use its existing maps for the 2026 elections.
Smith issued a sharp rebuttal to that finding, stressing repeatedly that “the most obvious reason for mid-cycle redistricting, of course, is partisan gain,” and detailing why the panel reached the wrong conclusion in issuing a preliminary injunction.
Texas officials said they would appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court, with state Attorney General Ken Paxton saying he expects the high court to “uphold Texas’s sovereign right to engage in partisan redistricting.”
The forthcoming appeal at the Supreme Court comes as the justices are set to rule on a case that could overrule how racial gerrymandering cases are decided and when they can be brought. Louisiana v. Callais, which centers on a challenge to Louisiana’s congressional map, could see the justices strike down the high court’s current Voting Rights Act precedent, which mandates the creation of minority-majority districts if a minority group is compact geographically and makes up a significant portion of the state’s population.
Smith pointed to the pending case as a reason why the injunction should be paused pending the outcome of the Louisiana case.
“The fact that Callais may fundamentally change the nature of this case also weighs in favor of a stay. It is reckless for this court to proceed with opining on the merits, which amounts to nothing more than a general guess as to whether existing voting-rights jurisprudence will survive Callais,” Smith wrote in his dissent.
The circuit judge concluded his 104-page dissent by imploring the high court to reverse the panel’s ruling.
REDISTRICTING SETBACKS IN COURT SLOW GOP MAP PUSH AHEAD OF 2026
“This order, replete with legal and factual error, and accompanied by naked procedural abuse, demands reversal,” Smith concluded.
Texas officials are expected to appeal the ruling in the coming days, hoping to restore the recently passed map for use in the 2026 election as deadlines for next year’s races approach. The filing deadline for the 2026 elections in Texas is Dec. 8.