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Via an unsigned order, the highest judicial body cleared the way for Texas to use a revised congressional map that is projected to include several five additional Republican-leaning districts. The 6-3 order, released on Thursday, grants a petition by the state to lift a federal judge's ruling that had struck down the new map in November.

Justices' Reasoning

The district court improperly inserted itself into an ongoing primary campaign, causing significant confusion and disrupting the delicate equilibrium in elections, the supreme court said in justifying its decision.

That lower court had previously found that Texas had likely classified voters according to their race – a act known as unconstitutional racial sorting – when it passed the boundaries. It had mandated the state to use the maps established after the 2020 census for the next year's election.

Sharp Opposition

Through a sharply worded objection, Justice Elena Kagan objected to the court's action. She stated that it disregarded the work of the lower court, pointing out that its ruling was actually authored by a judge appointed by former President Donald Trump.

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

Kagan added, Today's ruling guarantees that Texas's redistricting plan, with all its enhanced favoritism, will control next year's elections. And it guarantees that many Texas residents, unjustly, will be sorted in electoral districts based on their race. And that result, as this court has stated consistently, is a breach of the constitution.

National Map-Drawing Fight

The court's action is part of a national contest over the redrawing of electoral maps. Texas is an essential part in efforts to reshape the U.S. House map to bolster a fragile Republican majority. Typically, boundary revision happens after a decennial population count. Yet the move by Texas Republicans to initiate a aggressive off-cycle redistricting earlier this year triggered a series of events among other states.

Conservative legislators in states like North Carolina and Missouri have also passed new maps that are estimated to yield several more Republican-leaning seats. Democrats, in response, have countered with new maps in states like California and Virginia, which are intended to balance those potential gains.

Partisan Reactions

Lone Star State attorney general praised the High Court's decision. In a statement, he said the order upheld Texas's basic authority to draw a map that guarantees electoral outcomes favorable to the GOP. Our state is leading the charge to reclaim the nation, one district and one state at a time, he remarked.

In contrast, opposition party representatives criticized the decision. 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.

A top Democratic leader stated the court had yet again damaged its legitimacy by rubber-stamping 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 added.