District Court, Splitting 2-1, Finds Texas Congressional Districts Violate VRA

[Virginiá]

http://electionlawblog.org/?p=91545
http://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/Perez-congress-opinion-3-10-2017.pdf
http://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/Perez-finding-of-fact-3-10-2017.pdf

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Opinion (part):

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[Virginiá]

So far these court victories haven't won dems much. A gain of 1 seat in Virginia, a net gain of 1 seat in Florida. In North Carolina the republicans simply inserted another "gerrymander recipe" and moved on without any losses. As a result, I have little reason to believe that this will result in large dem gains.

The more victories keep stacking up, the more important it becomes. You can look at these individually and say they don't matter much, but together it adds up, and when you are in a hole like the Democrats, every little bit counts.

[Virginiá]

No. The court was evaluating the districts drawn in 2011. In 2012, the court drew remedial districts, which were used in 2012. The Texas legislature adopted the districts in 2013, and they have been used in 2014 and 2016.

The court ruled that districts that have never been used are unconstitutional.

This doesn't make a lot of sense though, the current map still has the violations they talk about in the ruling (except maybe the TX-23 one, that's debatable).   How can they rule the other map is unconstitutional and the current one isn't, when they both do the same thing?

Since the newer map has some of the same problems, it should be able to be addressed. But as jimrtex noted, this was about the 2011 map. Here is from Michael Li @ Brennan Center:

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This whole case is quite interesting in both the ruling and how it transpired.