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Ali & Lockwood LLP
@alilockwood.bsky.social
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Women-owned firm litigating civil rights and commercial matters. Focused here on our civil rights docket and related issues.
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janainelson.bsky.social
The TX decision underscores the need for the Supreme Court to uphold the full vitality of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act as a critical protection against stripping Black and Brown voters of nearly all political power in legislative bodies across the country. 3/3
December 8, 2025 at 11:19 PM
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jaywillis.net
[me beginning my rebuttal after getting absolutely fucking waxed by my debate club opponent] I am sure we can all agree that there is no need for me to spend the time it would require to address each of my counterpart's arguments,
JUSTICE ALITO, with whom JUSTICE THOMAS and JUSTICE GORSUCH join, concurring in the grant of the ap- plication for stay. I join the order issued by the Court. Texas needs cer- tainty on which map will govern the 2026 midterm elec- tions, so I will not delay the Court’s order by writing a de- tailed response to each of the dissent’s arguments. Instead, I offer two short points which for me are decisive. First, the dissent does not dispute—because it
December 5, 2025 at 12:43 AM
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reichlinmelnick.bsky.social
As Justice Kagan begins her dissent by pointing out, what is even the point of trial, of fact-finding, of clear error, of standards of review, when the Supreme Court simply ignores every single part of that and decides everything purely on the papers without any real consideration of the facts?
USTICE KAGAN, with whom J USTICE SOTOMAYOR and J USTICE J ACKSON join, dissenting from the grant of the ap- plication for stay. Over the course of three months, a three-judge District Court in Texas undertook to resolve the factual dispute at issue in this application: In enacting an electoral map slanted toward Republicans, did Texas predominantly use race to draw its new district lines? Or said otherwise, did Texas accomplish its partisan objectives by means of a ra- cial gerrymander? The District Court conducted a nine-day hearing, involving the testimony of nearly two dozen wit- nesses and the introduction of thousands of exhibits. It sifted through the resulting factual record, spanning some 3,000 pages. It assessed the credibility of each of the wit- nesses it had seen and heard in the courtroom. And after considering all the evidence, it held that the answer was clear. Texas largely divided its citizens along racial lines to create its new pro-Republican House map, in violation of the Constitution’s Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. The court issued a 160-page opinion recounting in detail its factual findings. Yet this Court reverses that judgment based on its pe- rusal, over a holiday weekend, of a cold paper record. We are a higher court than the District Court, but we are not a better one when it comes to making such a fact-based deci- sion. That is why we are supposed to use a clear-error standard of review—why we are supposed to uphold the District Court’s decision that race-based line-drawing oc- curred (even if we would have ruled differently) so long as it is plausible. Without so much as a word about that stand- ard, this Court today announces that Texas may run next year’s elections with a map the District Court found to have violated all our oft-repeated strictures about the use of race in districting. Today’s order disrespects the work of a Dis- trict Court that did everything one could ask to carry out its charge—that put aside every consideration except get- ting the issue before it right. And today’s order disserves the millions of Texans whom the District Court found were assigned to their new districts based on their race. Because this Court’s precedents and our Constitution demand bet- ter, I respectfully dissent.
December 4, 2025 at 11:08 PM