🔗 Share this article

Via an unsigned order, the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for Texas to employ a revised congressional district plan that could add several five new Republican-leaning districts. The 6-3 order, released on Thursday, upholds a petition by the state to overturn a federal judge's ruling that had invalidated the redistricting plan in November.

Court's Explanation

The federal judge wrongly interjected itself into an ongoing primary campaign, generating considerable confusion and upsetting the sensitive balance of power in elections, the supreme court said in justifying its action.

The federal court had determined that Texas had probably sorted voters by their race – a method known as unconstitutional racial sorting – when it enacted the redistricting plan. It had instructed the state to use the districts created after the last decennial survey for the next year's election.

Sharp Opposition

With a strongly worded dissent, Justice Elena Kagan criticized the majority's ruling. She argued that it disregarded the work of the lower court, observing that its decision was written by a judge nominated 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 dissent supported by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

She continued, The majority's order solidifies that Texas's redistricting plan, with all its enhanced partisan advantage, will dictate next year's elections. And it means that many Texas voters, unjustly, will be grouped in electoral districts due to their race. And that result, as this court has declared consistently, is a infraction of the law of the land.

National Map-Drawing Battle

The ruling is part of a countrywide battle over the remapping of electoral maps. Texas is a crucial component in campaigns to reshape the U.S. House map to bolster a slim Republican hold. Usually, boundary revision occurs after a decennial population count. Yet the decision by Texas Republicans to proceed with a brazen mid-cycle redistricting earlier this year sparked a series of events among other states.

Conservative legislators in including North Carolina and Missouri have also enacted new maps that might create several more conservative seats. Democrats, meanwhile, have pushed back with revised boundaries in states like California and Virginia, which might neutralize those potential gains.

Partisan Reactions

Lone Star State top lawyer hailed the High Court's decision. In a release, he said the order upheld Texas's prerogative to draw a map that secures electoral outcomes favorable to Republicans. Texas is paving the way as we take our country back, district by district, state by state, he added.

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

A leading Democratic leader stated the court had another time eroded its standing by approving 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 concluded.