Gavin Newsom’s Retaliatory Redistricting Plan Is Good, Actually

In a letter sent on July 7, the Justice Department formally notified Texas that it believed that four of the state’s districts—the 9th, 18th, 29th, and 33rd—amounted to an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The letter claimed that the districts were no longer constitutionally defensible after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last year that the “coalition districts,” which are minority-minority districts created by counting white crossover voters, are not covered by the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

“Although the state’s interest when configuring these districts was to comply with Fifth Circuit precedent prior to the 2024 Petteway decision, that interest no longer exists,” Harmett Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for civil rights, told state leaders. “Post-Petteway, the congressional districts at issue are nothing more than vestiges of an unconstitutional racially biased gerrymandering past, which must be abandoned, and must now be corrected by Texas.”

The letter continues a trend of Republicans treating Voting Rights Act remedies for racial gerrymandering as equivalent to (or even worse than) actual racial gerrymandering. As I noted earlier this week, the Supreme Court is planning to re-hear a major case on Louisiana’s congressional districts this fall after punting it at the end of the court’s most recent term. The next round of oral arguments will likely center on the constitutionality of racial gerrymandering claims under the VRA and what courts can do to remedy them.

Even though the letter appears to be front-running an expected Supreme Court ruling, it is also somewhat pretextual. The New York Times reported last month that Trump personally pressured Republican members of Texas’s congressional delegation to support another round of partisan redistricting, with the apparent goal of making it easier for the GOP to hold onto the House of Representatives in next fall’s midterms.