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In a unattributed ruling, the highest judicial body has allowed Texas to use a redrawn congressional boundary scheme that could add as many as five new GOP-friendly districts. The six-to-three ruling, issued on Thursday, approves a petition by the state to set aside a district court's block that had rejected the new map in November.

Justices' Reasoning

The federal judge wrongly interjected itself into an active primary campaign, causing much confusion and disrupting the fine balance of power in elections, the justices wrote in detailing its ruling.

The district court had earlier ruled that Texas had likely sorted voters by their race – a act known as unconstitutional racial sorting – when it enacted the boundaries. It had instructed the state to use the districts established after the last decennial survey for the upcoming election.

Stinging Dissent

With a forcefully written dissent, Justice Elena Kagan took issue with the majority's action. She stated that it disregarded the work of the district court, noting that its decision was written by a judge appointed 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 wrote in a opinion co-signed by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Kagan added, This court's stay solidifies that Texas's redistricting plan, with all its increased favoritism, will govern next year's elections. And it guarantees that many Texas citizens, without justification, will be grouped in electoral districts because of their race. And that result, as this court has declared repeatedly, is a infraction of the constitution.

National Redistricting Fight

This decision is part of a national battle over the remapping of electoral maps. Texas is a key piece in efforts to reshape the U.S. House map to bolster a fragile Republican control. Typically, map-drawing occurs after a new decade's census. Yet the move by Texas Republicans to move ahead with a brazen off-cycle redistricting earlier in the summer triggered a series of events among other states.

GOP lawmakers in including North Carolina and Missouri have also passed redistricting plans that are estimated to yield several additional GOP-friendly seats. Democratic lawmakers, meanwhile, have responded with their own plans in states like California and Virginia, which might neutralize those projected gains.

Political Reactions

Lone Star State top lawyer hailed the High Court's decision. In a statement, he said the order upheld Texas's prerogative to draw a map that secures electoral outcomes supportive of his party. We are setting the precedent for restoring our country, through each electoral district and individual state, he remarked.

In contrast, opposition party leaders criticized the decision. 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 Democratic election organization.

Another senior House leader argued the court had yet again damaged its standing by upholding a race-based 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 stated.