🔗 Share this article

Through a unsigned ruling, the nation's top court permitted Texas to use a newly configured congressional map that may create several five new Republican-leaning districts. The 6-3 ruling, issued on Thursday, grants a petition by the state to set aside a district court's block that had struck down the new map in November.

Justices' Reasoning

The lower court erroneously placed itself into an ongoing primary campaign, generating considerable confusion and upsetting the delicate federal-state balance in elections, the justices wrote in explaining its ruling.

That lower court had earlier ruled that Texas had likely grouped voters by their race – a method known as illegal race-based districting – when it adopted the redistricting plan. It had mandated the state to use the maps drawn after the last decennial survey for the next year's election.

Stinging Dissent

In a sharply worded dissenting opinion, Justice Elena Kagan took issue with the court's ruling. She contended that it disrespected the work of the lower court, pointing out that its opinion was crafted by a judge nominated by former 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 stated in a dissent co-signed by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

She continued, Today's ruling ensures that Texas's new map, with all its increased partisan advantage, will govern next year's elections. And it ensures that many Texas citizens, without justification, will be grouped in electoral districts based on their race. And that result, as this court has declared year in and year out, is a infraction of the U.S. Constitution.

National Redistricting Battle

This decision comes amid a countrywide battle over the remapping of electoral maps. Texas is a key piece in campaigns to transform the U.S. House map to secure a fragile Republican hold. Ordinarily, boundary revision happens after a decennial population count. Yet the action by Texas Republicans to move ahead with a aggressive off-cycle redistricting earlier in the summer set off a chain reaction among other states.

Conservative legislators in states like North Carolina and Missouri have also passed redistricting plans that might create several additional conservative seats. Democratic lawmakers, meanwhile, have pushed back with their own plans in states like California and Virginia, which could offset those projected gains.

Political Reactions

The Texas top lawyer praised the High Court's decision. In a comment, he said the order protected Texas's basic authority to draw a map that ensures representation supportive of Republicans. Texas is paving the way as we take our country back, district by district, state by state, he remarked.

On the other hand, Democratic leaders criticized the outcome. The Court's approval of this extreme, racially gerrymandered Texas GOP map is profoundly disappointing, said the chair of a major party campaign committee.

Another top House figure said the court had yet again damaged its credibility by approving a racially gerrymandered map. This decision from the Court's far-right bloc proves extremists are willing to rig elections. The Texas map is a discriminatory power grab targeting Black and Latino voters, he added.