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Deadline Legal Blog-Judge issues berserk dissent from ruling blocking Texas congressional maps
Judge Jerry Smith, a Reagan appointee, spent much of his 104-page dissent attacking Judge Jeffrey Brown, a Trump appointee in the majority.
Judge issues berserk dissent from ruling blocking Texas congressional maps/ Judge Jerry Smith, a Reagan appointee, spent much of his 104-page dissent attacking Judge Jeffrey Brown, a Trump appointee in the majority. www.ms.now/deadline-whi...
— (@jwwcan.bsky.social) 2025-11-20T15:50:34.357Z
https://www.ms.now/deadline-white-house/deadline-legal-blog/judge-dissent-texas-ruling-congressional-map-redistricting-rcna244875
When the majority of a three-judge panel led by a Trump appointee blocked Texas’ congressional maps on Tuesday, a footnote to Judge Jeffrey Brown’s 160-page opinion said that the judge who disagreed with the majority, Jerry Smith, “will file a dissenting opinion.” That 104-page dissent came Wednesday, and it began with Smith warning readers with a movie quote: “Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night!”
Perhaps that was a sign that what would follow would be unusual. In retrospect, it managed to undersell things......
But the judge kicks off the next 100 pages by proclaiming that the “main winners from Judge Brown’s opinion are George Soros and Gavin Newsom,” referring to the progressive philanthropist who has long been a bogeyman of the right and California’s Democratic governor, respectively. “The obvious losers are the People of Texas and the Rule of Law,” Smith wrote.
In his admittedly “disjointed” opinion, Soros’ name would appear more than a dozen times in ways that would look more familiar in dark corners of the internet — or, at best, on right-wing television or podcasts — than in the pages of a judicial opinion, such as the judge’s reference to an expert in the case as a “paid Soros operative” who “expects to receive $2.5 million in his Soros piggybank.”
Perhaps mindful that his words will be taken as he writes them, Smith drops a footnote to offer that he supposes “someone will say that in making these comments about the Soros connections, I’m expressing a political view, not the proper role of a federal judge.” But to a reader who would rush to that judgment, Smith explains that it’s “not ‘political’ for me to point that out by describing the political dynamics that are inherent in the litigation of redistricting cases.”.....
Once the smoke clears from the recriminations and the bluster and whatever else one might say about the style of Smith’s dissent, the legal disagreement might be boiled down to the following. The gist of Brown’s majority opinion is that the Texas map in question didn’t merely seek partisan advantage (which the Supreme Court has basically said is fine) but more likely represents an unlawful racial gerrymander. As Smith sees it: “This is about partisan politics, plain and simple.”
Perhaps that was a sign that what would follow would be unusual. In retrospect, it managed to undersell things......
But the judge kicks off the next 100 pages by proclaiming that the “main winners from Judge Brown’s opinion are George Soros and Gavin Newsom,” referring to the progressive philanthropist who has long been a bogeyman of the right and California’s Democratic governor, respectively. “The obvious losers are the People of Texas and the Rule of Law,” Smith wrote.
In his admittedly “disjointed” opinion, Soros’ name would appear more than a dozen times in ways that would look more familiar in dark corners of the internet — or, at best, on right-wing television or podcasts — than in the pages of a judicial opinion, such as the judge’s reference to an expert in the case as a “paid Soros operative” who “expects to receive $2.5 million in his Soros piggybank.”
Perhaps mindful that his words will be taken as he writes them, Smith drops a footnote to offer that he supposes “someone will say that in making these comments about the Soros connections, I’m expressing a political view, not the proper role of a federal judge.” But to a reader who would rush to that judgment, Smith explains that it’s “not ‘political’ for me to point that out by describing the political dynamics that are inherent in the litigation of redistricting cases.”.....
Once the smoke clears from the recriminations and the bluster and whatever else one might say about the style of Smith’s dissent, the legal disagreement might be boiled down to the following. The gist of Brown’s majority opinion is that the Texas map in question didn’t merely seek partisan advantage (which the Supreme Court has basically said is fine) but more likely represents an unlawful racial gerrymander. As Smith sees it: “This is about partisan politics, plain and simple.”