In Unhinged Dissent, Texas Judge Attacks Colleagues — and George Soros

In a remarkable and deeply unconventional dissent, U.S. Circuit Judge Jerry E. Smith unleashed a blistering and bizarre attack on his fellow judges after a federal court struck down Texas’ unconstitutional racial gerrymander. 

Smith’s filing — packed with personal insults, political conspiracies and open contempt for the majority’s ruling — reads unlike any federal judicial opinion in recent memory.

The dissent stands in stark contrast to the court’s careful, evidence-driven majority opinion, which found that Texas Republicans used race as the predominant factor when dismantling minority voting power in key districts. 

Smith, who was appointed by former President Ronald Reagan, immediately accused the majority of unprecedented misconduct.

“In my 37 years on the federal bench, this is the most outrageous conduct by a judge that I have ever encountered in a case in which I have been involved,” he said. “If the two judges on this panel get away with what they have done, it sets a horrendous precedent that ‘might makes right’ and the end justifies the means.”

Then the dissent veered sharply into conspiracy territory.

“The main winners from Judge Brown’s opinion are George Soros and Gavin Newsom,” he wrote, later claiming without evidence that “George and Alex Soros have their hands all over this.” According to Smith, one of the plaintiffs’ experts “is a paid Soros operative and does not attempt to hide it.”

Smith’s rhetoric only escalated from there.

“If, however, there were a Nobel Prize for Fiction, Judge Brown’s opinion would be a prime candidate,” he said, adding later that “this is the most blatant exercise of judicial activism that I have ever witnessed.”

Smith accused the court’s remedy — ordering Texas to return to its previous congressional map rather than using the illegal mid-decade redraw — of unleashing disorder on the state.

“Judge Brown’s remedy is unlawful judicial aggrandizement,” he wrote. “It creates mayhem, chaos, misinformation and confusion. Darkness descends on the Rule of Law.”

Federal judges often disagree with each other, but personal attacks, political conspiracy theories and theatrical flourishes are exceedingly rare. 

Smith reserved particular ire for one of the plaintiffs’ experts, accusing Judge Brown of being duped by what he described as “statistical hacking” and “conspiracy-theorist thinking.”

Beyond the theatrics, Smith attempted to make a substantive argument that race played no role in Texas’ gerrymander — even though the majority found extensive evidence to the contrary. 

“The most obvious reason for mid-cycle redistricting, of course, is partisan gain,” he wrote, insisting that the Legislature had “no real concern” for the minority communities whose districts were dismantled. “The salient issue of fact is whether the Legislature drew the new lines on account of race. The answer is easy: It did not.”

He relied heavily on testimony from Republican mapmaker Adam Kincaid, presenting his claims as irrefutable.

“In no uncertain terms, Kincaid stated ‘I don’t think it’s constitutional to draw maps based off of race,’” Smith wrote. “He said, ‘I drew my map using politics from start to finish and provided that to the Legislature.’”

But the majority opinion found that the map’s dramatic changes — particularly in Black and Latino communities — could not be explained by partisanship alone. The judges documented evidence that race, not simply voting behavior, drove the redrawing of district lines.

Smith framed the majority’s reliance on expert analysis as selective and ideologically motivated.

“This race-neutral explanation more plausibly explains the overall trend in the data,” Smith insisted. “The cherrypicked explanation preferred by plaintiffs fails to rationally account for the overall trend in the data.”

Smith’s dissent, likely aimed at the U.S. Supreme Court where Texas has already appealed, only seemed to underscore the strength of the majority’s ruling. 

Whether the high court takes it seriously remains to be seen. 

But for now, the federal panel’s decision stands. Texas’ racially gerrymandered map is blocked.

Smith’s dissent, however dramatic, does not change that.

Some of the plaintiffs in the case were represented by the Elias Law Group (ELG). ELG firm chair Marc Elias is the founder of Democracy Docket. Both Elias and the firm were attacked in Judge Smith’s dissent.