🔗 Share this article

Via an unsigned decision, the U.S. Supreme Court permitted Texas to implement a redrawn congressional map that may create up to five additional GOP-friendly districts. The 6-3 order, released on Thursday, upholds a appeal by the state to overturn a lower court's ruling that had struck down the new map in November.

Justices' Reasoning

The federal judge erroneously placed itself into an active primary campaign, creating much confusion and disturbing the delicate federal-state balance in elections, the justices wrote in explaining its action.

The district court had determined that Texas had likely sorted voters by their race – a practice known as racial gerrymandering – when it enacted the boundaries. It had ordered the state to revert to the boundaries drawn after the last decennial survey for the upcoming election.

Stinging Dissent

In a strongly worded dissenting opinion, Justice Elena Kagan criticized the majority's action. She stated that it disrespected the work of the district court, observing that its ruling was actually authored by a judge selected by ex-President Donald Trump.

Our position is above the district court, but our capability is not greater for resolving such fact-driven issues, Kagan stated in a dissent supported by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Kagan added, This court's stay solidifies that Texas's new map, with all its increased partisan advantage, will control next year's elections. And it guarantees that many Texas voters, unjustly, will be sorted in electoral districts because of their race. And that result, as this court has declared repeatedly, is a violation of the constitution.

National Redistricting Battle

The ruling comes amid a national contest over the remapping of electoral maps. Texas is an essential part in campaigns to alter the U.S. House map to secure a slim Republican hold. Usually, map-drawing takes place after a decennial population count. Yet the action by Texas Republicans to move ahead with a aggressive mid-cycle redistricting earlier this year set off a chain reaction among other states.

GOP lawmakers in including North Carolina and Missouri have also approved redistricting plans that could add a number of more conservative seats. Democrats, for their part, have responded with revised boundaries in states like California and Virginia, which might neutralize those potential gains.

Political Reactions

The Texas AG praised the supreme court ruling. In a comment, he said the order defended Texas's fundamental right to draw a map that secures electoral outcomes supportive of the GOP. Texas is paving the way as we take our country back, district by district, state by state, he remarked.

Conversely, Democratic leaders lamented the decision. The Court's approval of this extreme, racially gerrymandered Texas GOP map is profoundly disappointing, said the leader of a major party campaign committee.

Another leading Democratic leader argued the court had yet again shredded its credibility by upholding a racially gerrymandered 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.