As first flagged by Gerry Hebert, the Department of Justice has submitted this filing in the long-running Texas redistricting case of Abbott v. Perez  indicating it no longer believes (as the Obama Administration did) that Texas should be put back under federal supervision for voting. Such “bail-in” to preclearance under section 3(c) of the Voting Rights Act is discretionary in cases, like this one, where a court has found that a jurisdiction has engaged in intentional racial discrimination in voting.

The filing does not indicate the basis for the DOJ’s change of position; that will appear in a further filing (assuming the three-judge court allows such a filing).

It is yet another example of the Trump administration siding with those who have committed Voting Rights Act violations rather than those who are the victims of it.