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Through a per curiam decision, the highest judicial body cleared the way for Texas to use a redrawn congressional map that is projected to include up to five additional GOP-friendly districts. The six-to-three order, released on Thursday, grants a request by the state to lift a lower court's ruling that had rejected the new map in November.

Court's Reasoning

The district court erroneously placed itself into an active primary campaign, creating much confusion and disrupting the sensitive federal-state balance in elections, the supreme court said in explaining its ruling.

The federal court had earlier ruled that Texas had probably classified voters according to their race – a method known as illegal race-based districting – when it passed the new maps. It had mandated the state to employ the districts created after the last decennial survey for the forthcoming election.

Stinging Opposition

With a strongly worded objection, Justice Elena Kagan took issue with the majority's ruling. She stated that it disrespected the work of the district court, pointing out that its opinion was crafted 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 argued in a dissent supported by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

She continued, This court's stay guarantees that Texas's redistricting plan, with all its boosted favoritism, will govern next year's elections. And it means that many Texas residents, for no good reason, will be sorted in electoral districts based on their race. And that result, as this court has pronounced year in and year out, is a violation of the U.S. Constitution.

National Map-Drawing Battle

The ruling occurs during a countrywide contest over the redrawing of electoral maps. Texas is an essential part in efforts to transform the U.S. House map to protect a slim Republican hold. Ordinarily, map-drawing takes place after a ten-year survey. Yet the move by Texas Republicans to proceed with a bold off-cycle redistricting earlier this year triggered a wave among other states.

GOP lawmakers in states like North Carolina and Missouri have also enacted new maps that could add a number of additional Republican-leaning seats. Democrats, meanwhile, have pushed back with new maps in states like California and Virginia, which could offset those potential gains.

Partisan Responses

Lone Star State attorney general hailed the High Court's decision. In a release, he said the order protected Texas's basic authority to draw a map that secures electoral outcomes supportive of Republicans. Our state is leading the charge to reclaim the nation, one district and one state at a time, he remarked.

In contrast, Democratic leaders decried the ruling. It is deeply disheartening that the Court has endorsed this severely racially gerrymandered plan from Texas Republicans, said the chair of a major Democratic campaign committee.

Another top House figure argued the court had yet again damaged its standing by upholding a racially gerrymandered 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.