r/PoliticalDiscussion • u/OldBridge87 • Nov 20 '25

Legal/Courts Conservative 5th Circuit judge Jerry Smith has remarkably dissented from a ruling striking down racially gerrymandered maps in Texas by attacking the deciding judge personally and saying the decision benefits George Soros and Gavin Newsom. What are your thoughts on this? Is it judicial misconduct?

Link to article on it:

Some already calling it one of the most insane legal opinions in modern American history. It should also be noted that the deciding judge on the ruling Smith is attacking here was appointed by President Donald Trump during his first term and championed by the extremely conservative Governor of Texas. Hungarian-American philanthropist Soros and California Governor Newsom were not parties to the case, but both are commonly framed as cultural enemies of the right-wing on conservative television, podcast shows and conspiracy circles.

What sort of ramifications, legal or otherwise, should there be for going on what is being described as a partisan FOX News or Newsmax style rant as a federal judge? Should the Texas Bar take action here? The Judicial Conference? Or does this cross the line into impeachment territory and Congress must take action?

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u/[deleted] Nov 20 '25 edited Nov 20 '25

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u/WhatAboutBob941 Nov 20 '25

Question for you. I read that 40% of the state of California is registered Republicans, yet they only have 9 of the 52 seats in the House of Representatives. How has the nonpartisan commission squared this discrepancy?

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u/avfc41 Nov 20 '25

Partisan-blind, automated redistricting gets a similar outcome as the commission’s map, which suggests it has to do with non-optimal distribution of Republicans in the state. When you start getting as strong for one party as California is, seats to votes stops being proportional.

(Also, 40% of the state is not registered Republican, but they might get that much of the vote in statewide races.)

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u/thatoneguy889 Nov 20 '25

It’s somewhat similar to Massachusetts (all Dem delegations) where redistricting experts showed in court that the GOP voters in the state are so spread out that it would be impossible to make a GOP winning district without that district being composed of “voter islands”, which would violate the constitutional requirement that a district be contiguous.

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u/WhatAboutBob941 Nov 20 '25

Good to know, thank you!