2 ABBOTT v. PEREZ Opinion of the Court Last year, however, the three-judge court reversed its prior analysis and held that some of the districts in those plans are unlawful. After reviewing the repealed 2011 plans, which had never been used, the court found that they were tainted by discriminatory intent and that the 2013 Legislature had not “cured” that “taint.” We now hold that the three-judge court committed a fundamental legal error. It was the challengers’ burden to show that the 2013 Legislature acted with discriminatory intent when it enacted plans that the court itself had produced. The 2013 Legislature was not obligated to show that it had “cured” the unlawful intent that the court attributed to the 2011 Legislature. Thus, the essential pillar of the three-judge court’s reasoning was critically flawed. When the congressional and state legislative districts are reviewed under the proper legal standards, all but one of them, we conclude, are lawful. I A The 2010 decennial census revealed that the population of Texas had grown by more than 20% and the State was therefore apportioned four additional seats in the United States House of Representatives. C. J. S. 369a.1 To accommodate this new allocation and the population changes shown by the census, the Legislature adopted a new congressional districting plan, as well as new districting maps for the two houses of the State Legislature. Redistricting is never easy, and the task was especially —————— 1 There are several appendixes in these cases. We use “App.” to refer to the joint appendix filed at the merits stage. We use “C. J. S.” and “H. J. S.” to refer to the appendixes attached to Texas’s jurisdictional statements in No. 17–586 and No. 17–626, respectively. We use “C. J. S. Findings” and “H. J. S. Findings” to refer to appellees’ supplemental appendixes in No. 17–586 and No. 17–626.

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