🔗 Share this article

In a per curiam decision, the U.S. Supreme Court permitted Texas to employ a newly configured congressional map that may create several five new conservative-tilting districts. The six-to-three ruling, handed down on Thursday, approves a request by the state to set aside a lower court's ruling that had struck down the redistricting plan in November.

Court's Explanation

The federal judge wrongly interjected itself into an active primary campaign, generating significant confusion and upsetting the sensitive balance of power in elections, the justices wrote in justifying its action.

The district court had previously found that Texas had likely grouped voters by their race – a act known as unconstitutional racial sorting – when it enacted the redistricting plan. It had mandated the state to use the districts established after the most recent national count for the next year's election.

Stinging Opposition

With a sharply worded dissenting opinion, Justice Elena Kagan criticized the majority's ruling. She stated that it disrespected the work of the lower court, observing that its opinion was written by a judge selected by ex-President Donald Trump.

We are a higher court than the district court, but we are not a better one when it comes to making such a fact-based decision, Kagan wrote in a opinion supported by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

She continued, This court's stay ensures that Texas's redistricting plan, with all its increased partisan advantage, will control next year's elections. And it means that many Texas residents, unjustly, will be sorted in electoral districts because of their race. And that result, as this court has declared year in and year out, is a breach of the law of the land.

Countrywide Map-Drawing Fight

The ruling comes amid a nationwide contest over the redrawing of electoral maps. Texas is a key piece in efforts to transform the U.S. House map to secure a narrow Republican majority. Typically, boundary revision takes place after a decennial population count. Yet the action by Texas Republicans to initiate a aggressive off-cycle redistricting earlier in the summer triggered a series of events among other states.

GOP lawmakers in including North Carolina and Missouri have also passed redistricting plans that are estimated to yield several more GOP-friendly seats. Democratic lawmakers, for their part, have pushed back with their own plans in states like California and Virginia, which are intended to balance those potential gains.

Political Responses

Lone Star State attorney general hailed the High Court's decision. In a statement, he said the order defended Texas's fundamental right to draw a map that ensures representation favorable to his party. Our state is leading the charge to reclaim the nation, one district and one state at a time, he added.

In contrast, opposition party officials criticized the ruling. It's incredibly disappointing that the Court has rubber stamped a map enacted by Texas Republicans which, simply put, is an extreme, racially gerrymandered map, said the leader of a major Democratic election organization.

A leading Democratic leader argued the court had another time eroded its standing by rubber-stamping a discriminatory map. The ruling demonstrates a willingness to subvert democracy. This Texas plan is a partisan, racially biased scheme to undermine voter will, especially in communities of color, he stated.