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In a unsigned order, the highest judicial body has allowed Texas to implement a newly configured congressional map that may create several five additional GOP-friendly districts. The 6-3 order, handed down on Thursday, upholds a request by the state to set aside a lower court's ruling that had invalidated the redistricting plan in November.

Court's Rationale

The district court improperly inserted itself into an active primary campaign, creating significant confusion and disrupting the fine equilibrium in elections, the supreme court said in detailing its decision.

The district court had earlier ruled that Texas had probably sorted voters based on their race – a method known as illegal race-based districting – when it adopted the redistricting plan. It had ordered the state to use the maps drawn after the 2020 census for the next year's election.

Stinging Dissent

With a sharply worded objection, Justice Elena Kagan objected to the court's decision. She argued that it undermined the work of the district court, pointing out that its ruling 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.

She continued, Today's ruling solidifies that Texas's redistricting plan, with all its increased partisan advantage, will control next year's elections. And it guarantees that many Texas residents, without justification, will be placed in electoral districts due to their race. And that result, as this court has declared year in and year out, is a violation of the law of the land.

Countrywide Redistricting Struggle

The ruling is part of a countrywide battle over the redrawing of electoral maps. Texas is a crucial component in pushes to alter the U.S. House map to bolster a fragile Republican majority. Usually, map-drawing occurs after a decennial population count. Yet the action by Texas Republicans to initiate a brazen mid-cycle redistricting earlier in the summer set off a series of events among other states.

GOP lawmakers in including North Carolina and Missouri have also enacted new maps that might create several additional Republican-leaning seats. Democratic lawmakers, meanwhile, have responded with new maps 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 statement, he said the order upheld Texas's basic authority to draw a map that secures electoral outcomes favorable to the GOP. Our state is leading the charge to reclaim the nation, one district and one state at a time, he added.

In contrast, opposition party leaders lamented 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 election organization.

Another top House figure argued the court had another time shredded its standing by approving 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 added.