Curt Gebers @curtgebers.bsky.social

2 days ago

It seems weird to assert that a newly crafted districting map currently undergoing a court challenge is the status quo.

The 2025 map is the status quo. Counties have begun preparations with 2025 map and educating local officials about the current law. Although Judge Brown acknowledges that the State has the prerogative to “toy with its election laws,”47 he quickly contradicts himself that the State “invited this issue by enacting a new map within Purcell’s range.”48 Contrary to what Judge Brown wants to hear, the State, which has the prerogative to redistrict mid-decade, is in a fundamentally different position from that of a federal court, which must exercise extraordinary caution before intermeddling with an intimately vital local prerogative such as redistricting.49

Judge Brown parrots plaintiffs’ argument that the State is using the 2021 map in some limited circumstances.50 But Judge Brown doesn’t attempt to grapple with what the Fifth Circuit has made clear: A duly enacted Texas congressional districting map is the “status quo.”51 There, the Fifth Circuit said in no uncertain terms that “the Texas Legislature’s duly enacted law” creating a new congressional districting map “became the new ‘status quo’” under Texas law.

ECP @ecppdx.bsky.social

2 days ago

And it isn't status quo! The 2021 map is still being used, as the governor is refusing to schedule a special election that falls under that map, not the new one. Which was cited in the main opinion, I believe.

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