Texas Appellate Judge Slams Map Ruling, Cites Soros Influence
A blistering judicial dissent out of Texas has lit up the redistricting fight, with Judge Jerry Smith ripping the majority opinion as blatant activism and repeatedly calling out his colleague by name while invoking George Soros. The dispute centers on a three-judge panel that blocked the state’s new map for the 2026 midterms, and the fallout now points straight to the Supreme Court and a high-stakes political calendar.
Judge Jerry Smith did not hold back in a 104-page dissent that blasts the panel’s decision as extreme and partisan. “This is the most blatant exercise of judicial activism that I have ever witnessed,” he wrote, and he repeatedly tied the majority’s result to outside political influences.
Smith’s language is unusually personal for a federal opinion, naming the majority author hundreds of times and accusing him of “pernicious judicial misbehavior.” He even suggested the opinion was fiction, calling it a “prime candidate” for a “Nobel Prize for Fiction,” a line meant to bury the credibility of the ruling.
The dissent goes beyond judicial critique and into politics, asserting winners and losers from the ruling. “The main winners from Judge Brown’s opinion are George Soros and Gavin Newsom,” Smith said. “The obvious losers are the People of Texas and the Rule of Law.”
Smith is a Reagan appointee and a Yale Law graduate, and he didn’t spare barbs about the quality of the majority work. He said “if this were a law school exam, the opinion would deserve an ‘F.’” At the same time he conceded the dissent was “disjointed,” acknowledging the emotional intensity of his response.
The decision by the three-judge panel temporarily blocks Texas from using its redrawn congressional map in 2026 after the majority found unconstitutional racial gerrymandering. The map had added five Republican-leaning districts, a shift the majority said came at the cost of race-based manipulation.
Timing and procedure added fuel to the fire, since the majority released its ruling before Smith filed his dissent. “Any pretense of judicial restraint, good faith, or trust by these two judges is gone,” Smith wrote. “If these judges were so sure of their result, they would not have been so unfairly eager to issue the opinion sans my dissent, or they could have waited for the dissent in order to join issue with it. What indeed are they afraid of?”
Judge Jeffrey Brown, a Trump appointee, wrote the majority opinion and was joined by Judge David Guaderrama, an Obama appointee. That mix of appointees did not stop Smith from singling out Brown for much of his ire.
Smith accused Brown of preferring fantasy over law, saying Brown was “true to form,” that he preferred to “live in a fantasyland” and had engaged in “judicial tinkering.” Those phrases underscore how heated the intra-court dispute has become and how precarious the line between law and politics looks to conservatives pushing back.
The Supreme Court now finds itself in the hot seat, with an election timeline that compresses the practical consequences of the ruling. Texas candidates must declare by Dec. 8, and a lingering injunction on the map has real knock-on effects for campaign strategy and voter representation heading into the midterms.
The high court already has a related Voting Rights Act case from Louisiana on its docket, and the justices heard argument last month about race-based provisions of the law. Whatever the Court decides in that case will likely shape how the Texas dispute is resolved on the merits and on timing.
Brown’s majority leaned on language from Chief Justice John Roberts, opening with this line: “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” The majority also wrote bluntly that “Substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 Map,” signaling the central legal finding at issue.
The opinion cites recent exchanges between state officials and the Civil Rights Division as part of its factual footing, pointing to warnings to Texas about so-called coalition districts and the state’s rapid legislative response. Brown found that “The Governor explicitly directed the Legislature to redistrict based on race,” a conclusion that cuts to motive in the majority view and helps explain why Smith’s dissent landed so hard and fast.
Related