Don’t go making judges mad

You’d think the office of the Texas attorney general would know how to go about the state’s legal business well enough to avoid being chewed out by judges from a federal appeals court.

More than a year ago, a federal judge ordered Texas to pay more than $1 million in legal fees for plaintiffs in a long-running legal battle over legislative and congressional redistricting maps drawn by the Legislature in 2011. Lawmakers drew new maps in 2013.

The redistricting case has been a long and twisted one, and a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the Voting Rights Act made it even more complicated.

But the fact is that the state was ordered in June 2014 to pay up on the plaintiff’s legal fees. A district court judge chided the state’s lawyers for poorly written legal briefs.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs, who include former state Sen. Wendy Davis and U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey of Fort Worth, say the state still has not paid.

Now the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has rebuked the state for failure to file proper legal documents.

Not the best of moments for the AG’s office.

This story was originally published August 19, 2015 at 5:46 PM with the headline "Don’t go making judges mad."