🔗 Share this article

Via an unsigned ruling, the nation's top court permitted Texas to employ a redrawn congressional boundary scheme that may create as many as five new Republican-leaning districts. The six-to-three order, released on Thursday, grants a petition by the state to overturn a federal judge's ruling that had struck down the new map in November.

Court's Reasoning

The lower court wrongly interjected itself into an active primary campaign, causing significant confusion and upsetting the sensitive federal-state balance in elections, the supreme court said in detailing its action.

That lower court had previously found that Texas had likely sorted voters according to their race – a method known as unconstitutional racial sorting – when it adopted the boundaries. It had ordered the state to employ the maps drawn after the most recent national count for the next year's election.

Stinging Dissenting Opinion

Through a forcefully written dissent, Justice Elena Kagan objected to the majority's decision. She stated that it disrespected the work of the lower court, noting that its opinion was written by a judge appointed by ex-President Donald Trump.

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

Kagan added, This court's stay ensures that Texas's redistricting plan, with all its enhanced favoritism, will control next year's elections. And it guarantees that many Texas citizens, for no good reason, will be grouped in electoral districts because of their race. And that result, as this court has declared repeatedly, is a violation of the law of the land.

Countrywide Map-Drawing Struggle

The court's action comes amid a countrywide fight over the redistricting of electoral maps. Texas is a key piece in campaigns to transform the U.S. House map to secure a fragile Republican control. Usually, redistricting occurs after a ten-year survey. Yet the action by Texas Republicans to proceed with a aggressive mid-cycle redistricting earlier this year triggered a chain reaction among other states.

Republicans in states like North Carolina and Missouri have also enacted redistricting plans that might create several additional Republican-leaning seats. The opposition, meanwhile, have countered with revised boundaries in including California and Virginia, which might neutralize those projected gains.

Political Responses

Lone Star State attorney general praised the supreme court ruling. In a release, he said the order defended Texas's prerogative to draw a map that ensures electoral outcomes favorable to his party. Our state is leading the charge to reclaim the nation, one district and one state at a time, he stated.

On the other hand, opposition party representatives criticized the outcome. It is deeply disheartening that the Court has endorsed this severely racially gerrymandered plan from Texas Republicans, said the chair of a major party election organization.

Another senior House leader stated the court had yet again damaged its legitimacy by approving a discriminatory map. Tonight's ruling by far-right justices on the supreme court is further proof that the extremists will do anything to rig the midterm elections. The gerrymandered Texas congressional map is a partisan and racially discriminatory power grab designed to subvert the will of the voters – particularly in Black and Latino communities, he added.