🔗 Share this article

Through a unsigned decision, the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for Texas to use a newly configured congressional map that could add several five new conservative-tilting districts. The six-to-three ruling, issued on Thursday, upholds a request by the state to overturn a lower court's ruling that had struck down the boundaries in November.

Justices' Rationale

The lower court improperly inserted itself into an ongoing primary campaign, generating much confusion and disrupting the delicate equilibrium in elections, the justices wrote in explaining its decision.

The district court had previously found that Texas had probably grouped voters according to their race – a act known as racial gerrymandering – when it adopted the boundaries. It had instructed the state to revert to the boundaries established after the most recent national count for the upcoming election.

Sharp Dissenting Opinion

In a sharply worded dissent, Justice Elena Kagan took issue with the court's action. She argued that it undermined the work of the district court, noting that its opinion was crafted by a judge selected by former President Donald Trump.

While our court is superior in jurisdiction, we are not superior in making these fact-intensive determinations, Kagan stated in a opinion joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

The justice went on, Today's ruling ensures that Texas's redistricting plan, with all its increased political tilt, will dictate next year's elections. And it guarantees that many Texas voters, unjustly, will be grouped in electoral districts due to their race. And that result, as this court has declared repeatedly, is a violation of the U.S. Constitution.

National Map-Drawing Fight

The court's action is part of a national fight over the remapping of electoral maps. Texas is an essential part in efforts to reshape the U.S. House map to bolster a fragile Republican hold. Usually, redistricting happens after a new decade's census. Yet the decision by Texas Republicans to initiate a brazen off-cycle redistricting earlier in the summer set off a chain reaction among other states.

Conservative legislators in states like North Carolina and Missouri have also approved redistricting plans that are estimated to yield a number of additional GOP-friendly seats. Democrats, meanwhile, have pushed back with revised boundaries in states like California and Virginia, which could offset those projected gains.

Partisan Reactions

The Texas top lawyer welcomed the supreme court ruling. In a release, he said the order defended Texas's basic authority to draw a map that secures electoral outcomes favorable to his party. Texas is paving the way as we take our country back, district by district, state by state, he remarked.

In contrast, opposition party representatives criticized the ruling. 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 senior House figure stated the court had once again damaged its legitimacy by approving a discriminatory map. This decision from the Court's far-right bloc proves extremists are willing to rig elections. The Texas map is a discriminatory power grab targeting Black and Latino voters, he stated.