When Texas’ new GOP-friendly congressional map was struck down on Tuesday, state leaders blamed the “radical left” and “activist judges.” But the opinion was authored by Judge Jeffery Brown, a former Texas Supreme Court justice and appointee of President Donald Trump with a long history in the conservative legal movement.
Republicans pushed for the new map after being pressured by Trump to add more GOP seats to preserve the party’s slim U.S. House majority in the upcoming midterms. The legislation sailed through the state’s Republican-led Legislature despite Democrats’ insistence that the effort would illegally disenfranchise voters of color.
