🔗 Share this article

In a unattributed decision, the U.S. Supreme Court permitted Texas to implement a newly configured congressional map that could add several five additional Republican-leaning districts. The 6-3 order, released on Thursday, approves a petition by the state to lift a district court's block that had rejected the redistricting plan in November.

Court's Explanation

The district court erroneously placed itself into an ongoing primary campaign, generating considerable confusion and disturbing the sensitive federal-state balance in elections, the justices wrote in detailing its ruling.

The federal court had determined that Texas had likely grouped voters according to their race – a act known as racial gerrymandering – when it passed the redistricting plan. It had ordered the state to employ the boundaries established after the last decennial survey for the upcoming election.

Sharp Dissenting Opinion

In a sharply worded dissenting opinion, Justice Elena Kagan took issue with the court's decision. She contended that it undermined the work of the lower court, observing that its ruling was written by a judge selected by former President Donald Trump.

While our court is superior in jurisdiction, we are not superior in making these fact-intensive determinations, Kagan stated in a opinion supported by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

The justice went on, Today's ruling solidifies that Texas's new map, with all its boosted favoritism, will govern next year's elections. And it ensures that many Texas voters, for no good reason, will be placed in electoral districts due to their race. And that result, as this court has pronounced year in and year out, is a breach of the law of the land.

National Map-Drawing Battle

This decision is part of a national battle over the redrawing of electoral maps. Texas is an essential part in pushes to transform the U.S. House map to bolster a narrow Republican majority. Usually, redistricting occurs after a decennial population count. Yet the decision by Texas Republicans to move ahead with a bold off-cycle redistricting earlier in the summer triggered a chain reaction among other states.

GOP lawmakers in states like North Carolina and Missouri have also approved redistricting plans that could add a number of more GOP-friendly seats. Democrats, meanwhile, have responded with revised boundaries in including California and Virginia, which are intended to balance those potential gains.

Partisan Responses

The Texas AG welcomed the supreme court ruling. In a release, he said the order defended Texas's basic authority to draw a map that ensures representation favorable to the GOP. Texas is paving the way as we take our country back, district by district, state by state, he stated.

Conversely, opposition party leaders 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 head of a major party campaign committee.

A top Democratic figure argued the court had another time damaged its standing by rubber-stamping a discriminatory 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 concluded.