"From the start, everyone recognized that the purpose of Texas’s redistricting effort was Republican political advantage."

"The district court erred by inferring bad faith and racial intent because the Texas Legislature’s map did not (through some hypothetical means) transform the only Democratic district in Austin — an exceptionally Democratic city — into a Republican stronghold."

Wrote Texas Solicitor General William Peterson, quoted in "Alito lets Texas reinstate gerrymandered House map that could give GOP 5 more seats/Alito’s move allowing Texas officials to continue to prepare for primary elections under the new map came just after the state asked the Supreme Court for an urgent ruling" (Politico).

This is one of the "certain topics" I was talking about yesterday in "I feel as though unseen readers are leaning on me to write about certain topics that I see out there." Today is a new day, with Alito's stay of the lower court's order. But if you want to engage with the very lengthy and emotional lower court opinions, I recommend the discussion on the podcast "Advisory Opinions," here. Excerpt: 

This is a partisan gerrymander, designed to increase Republican representation. It just so happens that white people in the deep south vote overwhelmingly Republican and black people in the deep south vote overwhelmingly democratic. But the real issue here is partisan not racial. And so if you're going to be challenging that as a racial gerrymander, it's very hard for you to win. It's very hard to, for you to win because that partisan makeup is so matched with race.

Without the racial angle, under existing precedent, the federal courts have no role in correcting the excesses of partisan gerrymander.

AND: Thanks to all who offered support to me in yesterday's post, including those who tried to guess which stories I was sloughing off. For example, Leslie Graves, who definitely guessed right:

I don't know what inspired this but stories like that of Olivia Nuzzi, who it turns out also had an affair with Mark Sanford when she was writing about him as he ran for POTUS, a story her ex-fiancee Ryan Lizza dropped on his Substack earlier this week just as excerpts from her book about her RFK Jr relationship made the rounds, and an insanely flattering profile in the NYT came out, feel like maybe you're supposed to write about what her whole deal is, or your readers think you should, or wish you would, because they'd kind of like to know what your take is on her. Yeah, I would resist that, and be irritated about the pressure, even if no one actually said that to me. It's what I would think they might be wishing for.