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Via an unattributed decision, the highest judicial body has allowed Texas to employ a revised congressional boundary scheme that could add as many as five new GOP-friendly districts. The 6-3 ruling, handed down on Thursday, upholds a request by the state to lift a federal judge's block that had rejected the new map in November.

Court's Reasoning

The lower court erroneously placed itself into an ongoing primary campaign, creating significant confusion and disrupting the delicate balance of power in elections, the supreme court said in justifying its decision.

That lower court had previously found that Texas had likely classified voters based on their race – a practice known as racial gerrymandering – when it enacted the new maps. It had instructed the state to employ the districts established after the 2020 census for the next year's election.

Sharp Dissenting Opinion

With a sharply worded dissent, Justice Elena Kagan took issue with the majority's action. She contended that it disrespected the work of the district court, noting that its opinion was crafted by a judge appointed 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 supported by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Kagan added, This court's stay ensures that Texas's redistricting plan, with all its boosted partisan advantage, will control next year's elections. And it guarantees that many Texas citizens, unjustly, will be grouped in electoral districts because of their race. And that result, as this court has stated repeatedly, is a breach of the law of the land.

Countrywide Redistricting Fight

The ruling is part of a nationwide fight over the redrawing of electoral maps. Texas is a crucial component in efforts to alter the U.S. House map to secure a slim Republican majority. Typically, map-drawing happens after a new decade's census. Yet the action by Texas Republicans to move ahead with a aggressive off-cycle redistricting earlier in the summer triggered a chain reaction among other states.

Conservative legislators in states like North Carolina and Missouri have also enacted redistricting plans that are estimated to yield several more Republican-leaning seats. Democratic lawmakers, for their part, have countered with revised boundaries in states like California and Virginia, which are intended to balance those potential gains.

Political Responses

The Texas attorney general hailed the High Court's decision. In a statement, he said the order upheld Texas's basic authority to draw a map that secures representation favorable to the GOP. We are setting the precedent for restoring our country, through each electoral district and individual state, he stated.

On the other hand, Democratic leaders decried the decision. 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 House figure said the court had another time shredded its credibility by approving a race-based 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 stated.