🔗 Share this article

Through a per curiam ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court permitted Texas to use a revised congressional district plan that could add as many as five additional conservative-tilting districts. The six-to-three order, released on Thursday, grants a appeal by the state to overturn a lower court's block that had rejected the redistricting plan in November.

Court's Reasoning

The lower court improperly inserted itself into an active primary campaign, generating significant confusion and disrupting the sensitive federal-state balance in elections, the order stated in explaining its action.

That lower court had previously found that Texas had likely grouped voters based on their race – a act known as illegal race-based districting – when it passed the redistricting plan. It had ordered the state to revert to the boundaries drawn after the last decennial survey for the next year's election.

Stinging Dissent

With a forcefully written dissent, Justice Elena Kagan objected to the majority's action. She argued that it undermined the work of the district court, noting 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 argued in a opinion supported by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Kagan added, The majority's order guarantees that Texas's redistricting plan, with all its boosted partisan advantage, will dictate next year's elections. And it means that many Texas residents, for no good reason, will be placed in electoral districts due to their race. And that result, as this court has declared consistently, is a infraction of the U.S. Constitution.

National Redistricting Fight

The ruling occurs during a countrywide contest over the redrawing of electoral maps. Texas is a key piece in pushes to alter the U.S. House map to protect a fragile Republican hold. Ordinarily, boundary revision occurs after a new decade's census. Yet the move by Texas Republicans to move ahead with a bold mid-cycle redistricting earlier this year sparked a chain reaction among other states.

GOP lawmakers in including North Carolina and Missouri have also enacted redistricting plans that might create a number of more GOP-friendly seats. The opposition, in response, have pushed back with their own plans in including California and Virginia, which could offset those potential gains.

Political Responses

The Texas attorney general praised the supreme court ruling. In a comment, he said the order protected Texas's prerogative to draw a map that ensures representation aligned with the GOP. Our state is leading the charge to reclaim the nation, one district and one state at a time, he stated.

On the other hand, Democratic representatives criticized the ruling. The Court's approval of this extreme, racially gerrymandered Texas GOP map is profoundly disappointing, said the head of a major party campaign committee.

A senior House leader said the court had another time damaged its legitimacy by upholding a race-based 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 stated.