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Via an unattributed order, the nation's top court permitted Texas to employ a redrawn congressional district plan that could add up to five new GOP-friendly districts. The 6-3 order, released on Thursday, approves a request by the state to overturn a federal judge's ruling that had rejected the new map in November.

Justices' Rationale

The district court wrongly interjected itself into an active primary campaign, generating significant confusion and upsetting the delicate equilibrium in elections, the order stated in detailing its decision.

The district court had earlier ruled that Texas had likely grouped voters according to their race – a act known as unconstitutional racial sorting – when it adopted the redistricting plan. It had mandated the state to use the boundaries drawn after the most recent national count for the forthcoming election.

Sharp Opposition

Through a forcefully written dissenting opinion, Justice Elena Kagan took issue with the court's ruling. She contended that it disrespected the work of the lower court, pointing out that its opinion was crafted 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 wrote in a dissent joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

She continued, The majority's order ensures that Texas's redistricting plan, with all its increased partisan advantage, will dictate next year's elections. And it means that many Texas residents, unjustly, will be placed in electoral districts because of their race. And that result, as this court has declared consistently, is a violation of the U.S. Constitution.

National Map-Drawing Fight

The court's action is part of a countrywide battle over the redistricting of electoral maps. Texas is an essential part in efforts to transform the U.S. House map to protect a narrow Republican hold. Typically, map-drawing happens after a new decade's census. Yet the action by Texas Republicans to move ahead with a aggressive mid-cycle redistricting earlier in the summer triggered a series of events among other states.

Conservative legislators in including North Carolina and Missouri have also enacted new maps that are estimated to yield several more conservative seats. The opposition, for their part, have countered with their own plans in including California and Virginia, which might neutralize those projected gains.

Political Responses

The Texas AG praised the High Court's decision. In a release, he said the order protected Texas's fundamental right to draw a map that ensures representation favorable to the GOP. Our state is leading the charge to reclaim the nation, one district and one state at a time, he added.

On the other hand, opposition party officials lamented the decision. The Court's approval of this extreme, racially gerrymandered Texas GOP map is profoundly disappointing, said the head of a major party election organization.

A top Democratic leader stated the court had yet again damaged its standing by approving a racially gerrymandered 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 concluded.