Abbott v. Perez
The Supreme Court ruled that a lower court wrongly forced Texas to prove its 2013 redistricting maps had shed the discriminatory taint of an earlier, never-used 2011 plan, when it was the challengers' job to prove the 2013 Legislature itself acted with discriminatory intent.
The Court upheld most of Texas's current congressional and state house districts, but struck down one state house district, HD90, as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, sending the case back for further proceedings on a remedy.
“Whenever a challenger claims that a state law was enacted with discriminatory intent, the burden of proof lies with the challenger, not the State.”
The Court's central rule on who must prove discriminatory intent in redistricting cases.
How it got here: A three-judge federal district court found several of Texas's 2013 districts unlawful and ordered quick action to fix them; Texas appealed those orders directly to the Supreme Court.
The Case in Depth
What happened
After the 2010 census, Texas redrew its congressional and legislative districts in 2011. Voters and civil rights groups sued, claiming the maps discriminated against minority voters. A federal court created interim maps for the 2012 elections, which Texas then adopted almost unchanged in 2013 and used again in 2014 and 2016, even as the lawsuits over the original 2011 maps continued.
The question before the Court
Could Texas keep using its 2013 election maps, or did it first have to prove it had cleared away the discrimination found in its abandoned 2011 maps?
The Court's answer
Mostly no. The Supreme Court ruled that the district court used the wrong legal standard: it had improperly required Texas to prove that its 2013 Legislature had purged the discriminatory intent behind the state's separate, never-used 2011 maps. Under long-standing law, it is the challengers who must prove that the legislature which actually enacted the maps at issue acted with discriminatory intent, and a legislature's good faith is presumed. Because the 2013 Legislature adopted court-drawn plans rather than reenacting the 2011 maps, and the record didn't show bad intent, most of the challenged districts were upheld.
The Court did affirm one part of the lower ruling: House District 90 was struck down as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander because Texas failed to show it had good reason to believe the district's race-based design was necessary to comply with the Voting Rights Act. That district's fate now returns to the lower court for a remedy.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Texas voters will keep using nearly all of the district lines drawn for the 2013 elections, since only one state house district was found unlawful. The ruling also makes it harder for challengers elsewhere to attack current maps by pointing to a legislature's past discriminatory maps, requiring fresh proof of present-day intent instead.
What changes now
The case goes back to the district court for further proceedings limited to fixing HD90, the one district found to be an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. All the other challenged districts in Texas's 2013 congressional and state house maps remain in place and were not required to be redrawn. This is a final decision on the merits of the districts addressed, though the remedy for HD90 still has to be worked out below.
What this does not decide
The ruling does not decide the outcome of any future remedy proceedings for HD90, and it does not hold that a legislature's history of discrimination is irrelevant to intent — only that such history alone cannot shift the burden of proof onto the state to disprove bad intent.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Thomas
Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Gorsuch, reiterated his long-held view that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act does not apply to redistricting at all. He argued that because Section 2 cannot provide a basis for invalidating any district, it also cannot serve as a justification for Texas's racial gerrymander in HD90, though he agreed the majority correctly applied existing precedent.
Dissent — Justice Sotomayor
Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, and Kagan, argued the Court lacked jurisdiction because the district court's orders were not injunctions and explicitly said so. She also argued the majority mischaracterized the record, ignored the deferential clear-error standard, and wrongly overturned findings that Texas's 2013 Legislature intentionally preserved discrimination from its 2011 maps. She would have dismissed the appeal or affirmed the lower court's findings.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court first addressed whether it even had power to hear the appeal, since the district court's orders never used the word 'injunction.' It applied the 'practical effect' rule: an order counts as an injunction for appeal purposes if it functions like one, regardless of the label the lower court gave it.
- Because the district court gave Texas only three days to say whether it would redraw its maps or face a court-ordered remedy before the next election, the Supreme Court found the orders functioned exactly like injunctions blocking use of the 2013 maps, giving it jurisdiction to review them.
- On the merits, the Court applied the settled rule that a challenger claiming discriminatory intent bears the burden of proof, and that a legislature's good faith must be presumed absent contrary proof — a presumption not erased simply because an earlier, different legislature acted with bad intent.
- Applying that framework, the Court found that the 2013 Legislature had not reenacted the 2011 maps but had instead adopted court-drawn interim maps meant to fix earlier problems, and that the evidence in the record was not enough to prove the 2013 Legislature itself acted in bad faith.
- For the districts challenged only under Section 2's 'effects' test (vote dilution without proof of intent), the Court applied the three-part Gingles framework — compactness, political cohesion, and majority bloc voting — and found the evidence didn't support a violation for CD27, HD32, or HD34.
- For HD90, the Court applied strict scrutiny to the Legislature's admitted use of race as the predominant factor in redrawing the district, and concluded Texas failed to show it had good reasons to believe the district's design was truly necessary to satisfy the Voting Rights Act.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Distinguishes Gunn v. University Comm. to End War in Viet Nam (399 U. S. 383)
The Court said that case's order had no practical effect, unlike the orders here which functioned as injunctions.
Distinguishes Hunter v. Underwood (471 U. S. 222)
That case involved a law never repealed, unlike Texas's 2011 maps, which were repealed and replaced.