The Texas case held that neither federal law, nor the federal constitution, forbid multiple redistricting efforts in a decade, at least, if state law and the state constitution permits it.

The Colorado Supreme Court case held that Colorado’s state constitution forbids multiple redistricting efforts in a decade, regardless of whether or not federal law might permit it.

The only federal issue in the Colorado case is whether federal law or the federal constitution forbid a state ban on multiple redistricting efforts in a decade. The Colorado Supreme Court case held that it did not, and the U.S. Supreme Court chose not to grant certiorari on that point of federal law in that case.

At this stage in the game, the U.S. Supreme Court remanded to see if standing or collateral estoppel or similar issues would be the case under Colorado law. The trial court, on remand, has now held that collateral estoppel applies to these Plaintiffs under Colorado law. And, if collateral estoppel does apply, then any federal questions resolved in the Colorado Supreme Court decision can’t be collaterally attacked in the federal lawsuit, even if the Colorado Supreme Court resolved those federal questions incorrectly.

For the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case at this point would require the U.S. Supreme Court to hold that the trial court, on remand, improperly applied the Colorado law of collateral estoppel in this case, which isn’t itself a federal question. Hence, Lyle’s conclusion that the U.S. Supreme Court is unlikely to grant relief to the appealing Plaintiffs.

Also, just to be clear, the ruling in the Salazar case was not quite that:

“a state legislature may try only once during a decade to draw up new congressional disticts after a new Census, and cannot do so if a state court has already drawn up a plan because the legislature could not do so on the first try.”

The ruling was merely that this could not be done in Colorado as a result of unusual provisions in its state constitution and the legislative and ballot measure history associated with it. The narrow ruling did not reach the question of whether multiple redistricts might be permitted in other states, as Texas was permitted to.