'Give that a second to sink in': WSJ editors stick a knife in Trump's Texas hopes
As it currently stands, any hope that Donald Trump may have that the Texas redistricting ploy to pick up additional seats in the House of Representatives will be revived is likely dead in the water.
According to the editors of the Wall Street Journal editorial page, that is the way it should be as they lambasted Texas Republicans for blatant racial gerrymandering.
On Tuesday, a federal court ruled 2-1 to overturn the Texas bill with Trump-appointed Judge Jeffrey Brown writing, “[I]t is not illegal for a legislature to enact a redistricting plan with the purpose of favoring one political party over another. When a plaintiff brings race-based gerrymandering claims, ‘partisan motivation [acts] as a defense, not a jurisdictional bar.”
Citing the ruling stating, “There’s no indication that the 2021 Legislature drew any coalition districts for legal-compliance reasons that it wouldn’t have drawn anyway for race-neutral reasons like partisanship,” the editors wrote, “The problem with the new map, the judge continues, is that the Legislature did impermissibly consider race when it revised those coalition districts at the Justice Department’s urging.”
“Give that a second to sink in,’ they proposed before offering, “The opinion says the Trump Administration wrongly claimed the first Texas map was a racial gerrymander, which prompted the state to attempt to undo it with an actual racial gerrymander.”
Calling what Texas Republicans did in service to the president a “charade,” the editors warned that their attempt to petition the Supreme Court for help is both “convoluted and questionable” due to Texas lawmakers readily admitting their motivations for the radical change in districts.
Having made that point, they pointed the finger at Trump for crippling the Republican Party with an election less than a year away.
“Mr. Trump’s attempt to bludgeon GOP state legislatures to redo their districts could turn out to be a misjudgment that costs Republicans their House majority,” they accused.
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