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In a per curiam order, the U.S. Supreme Court permitted Texas to employ a newly configured congressional boundary scheme that is projected to include up to five additional Republican-leaning districts. The 6-3 ruling, issued on Thursday, grants a request by the state to set aside a federal judge's injunction that had rejected the new map in November.

Court's Reasoning

The district court wrongly interjected itself into an active primary campaign, creating much confusion and upsetting the sensitive federal-state balance in elections, the supreme court said in explaining its decision.

That lower court had earlier ruled that Texas had probably grouped voters based on their race – a act known as racial gerrymandering – when it passed the redistricting plan. It had mandated the state to employ the maps drawn after the last decennial survey for the next year's election.

Strong Opposition

In a sharply worded dissent, Justice Elena Kagan objected to the majority's action. She contended that it disrespected the work of the district court, pointing out that its ruling was actually authored by a judge nominated 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 argued in a opinion supported by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

She continued, This court's stay ensures that Texas's redistricting plan, with all its increased favoritism, will control next year's elections. And it means that many Texas citizens, unjustly, will be placed in electoral districts based on their race. And that result, as this court has pronounced consistently, is a breach of the law of the land.

Countrywide Redistricting Struggle

The ruling comes amid a nationwide fight over the redrawing of electoral maps. Texas is an essential part in campaigns to alter the U.S. House map to secure a fragile Republican majority. Usually, map-drawing happens after a ten-year survey. Yet the move by Texas Republicans to move ahead with a aggressive mid-cycle redistricting earlier in the summer sparked a series of events among other states.

GOP lawmakers in states like North Carolina and Missouri have also approved new maps that could add several additional Republican-leaning seats. Democratic lawmakers, for their part, have responded with new maps in states like California and Virginia, which could offset those potential gains.

Political Reactions

Lone Star State AG welcomed the supreme court ruling. In a release, he said the order protected Texas's prerogative to draw a map that ensures electoral outcomes aligned with Republicans. Texas is paving the way as we take our country back, district by district, state by state, he added.

Conversely, Democratic leaders lamented 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 leader of a major Democratic campaign committee.

Another top House leader stated the court had once again shredded its credibility by approving a racially gerrymandered 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 added.