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In a unsigned ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court permitted Texas to use a newly configured congressional district plan that could add up to five additional GOP-friendly districts. The six-to-three decision, handed down on Thursday, grants a request by the state to overturn a district court's block that had struck down the redistricting plan in November.

Justices' Reasoning

The district court improperly inserted itself into an ongoing primary campaign, creating much confusion and disrupting the fine equilibrium in elections, the order stated in justifying its action.

That lower court had earlier ruled that Texas had likely classified voters according to their race – a act known as illegal race-based districting – when it adopted the boundaries. It had mandated the state to revert to the boundaries created after the most recent national count for the forthcoming election.

Strong Opposition

In a sharply worded dissenting opinion, Justice Elena Kagan took issue with the court's ruling. She argued that it undermined the work of the lower court, observing that its opinion was written by a judge selected by former 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 dissent supported by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

She continued, This court's stay ensures that Texas's new map, with all its enhanced political tilt, will dictate next year's elections. And it means that many Texas voters, for no good reason, will be placed in electoral districts because of their race. And that result, as this court has declared repeatedly, is a violation of the law of the land.

National Redistricting Fight

The ruling comes amid a national battle over the redrawing of electoral maps. Texas is an essential part in campaigns to transform the U.S. House map to secure a narrow Republican hold. Usually, boundary revision happens after a new decade's census. Yet the move by Texas Republicans to proceed with a aggressive mid-cycle redistricting earlier in the summer set off a chain reaction among other states.

GOP lawmakers in states like North Carolina and Missouri have also approved redistricting plans that are estimated to yield a number of additional Republican-leaning seats. Democrats, meanwhile, have pushed back with new maps in including California and Virginia, which are intended to balance those projected gains.

Partisan Responses

Lone Star State top lawyer welcomed the High Court's decision. In a comment, he said the order protected Texas's basic authority to draw a map that ensures representation supportive of Republicans. We are setting the precedent for restoring our country, through each electoral district and individual state, he stated.

On the other hand, Democratic officials decried the outcome. It is deeply disheartening that the Court has endorsed this severely racially gerrymandered plan from Texas Republicans, said the leader of a major Democratic campaign committee.

Another leading Democratic figure argued the court had yet again eroded its standing by rubber-stamping 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 concluded.