Inside the Supreme Court’s conflict with a Trump-appointed judge

In a 6-3 ruling issued on Monday, April 27, the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated a gerrymandered congressional map in Texas favored by President Donald Trump and Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. The decision in Abbott v. League of United Latin American Citizens came down along strict partisan lines, with the High Court's GOP-appointed supermajority supporting the map and all three Democratic appointees (Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan) dissenting.

Civil rights groups quickly voiced their displeasure with the ruling, arguing that the Texas map was racially discriminatory. In an official statement, Damon Hewitt, president of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, complained, "This was an intentional effort to limit the power of Black people and other people of color. This ruling does not erase the facts. Texas dismantled majority-minority congressional districts after the Trump Administration urged the state to do exactly that. The result is a rigged map that limits the power of voters of color in a state with a long record of voter suppression."

The High Court's April 27 decision reverses a lower federal court ruling against the Texas congressional map.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey V. Brown, who serves via Galveston, Texas and was appointed by Trump during his first presidency in 2019, was part of a preliminary injunction against the map issued in November 2025. And Brown was joined, in a 160-page ruling, by U.S. District Judge David Guaderrama, saying that there was "substantial evidence" that "Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 Map."

In an article published on April 29, Slate's Alexis Romero stresses that the ruling puts the Roberts Court at odds with a Trump-appointed federal judge — who agreed that the map was racially discriminatory.

"The lower court opinion — written by a Trump appointee — had found that Texas unconstitutionally diluted the voting power of racial minorities in its newly shaped districts," Romero explains. "But the Supreme Court overturned that ruling on the shadow docket, issuing a vague decision that not only has significant stakes for these midterms but reminds us just how much of a mess the High Court has made in this area of the law. Unless the court or Congress changes course, gerrymandering seems destined to distort American elections for years to come."

The Supreme Court's GOP-appointed justices first upheld the Texas map in December 2026 in Abbott v. League of United Latin American Citizens in what it described as a "preliminary evaluation."

"But on Monday, (Apri 27)," Romero notes, "it doubled down, formally reversing the Texas federal court's decision. And yet, the High Court did so without any additional explanation, simply citing back to its three-page decision from December."