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In a per curiam ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for Texas to use a newly configured congressional boundary scheme that could add up to five new GOP-friendly districts. The 6-3 order, released on Thursday, approves a appeal by the state to set aside a lower court's injunction that had struck down the redistricting plan in November.

Justices' Reasoning

The lower court erroneously placed itself into an ongoing primary campaign, causing much confusion and disrupting the delicate equilibrium in elections, the order stated in explaining its ruling.

The federal court had previously found that Texas had probably classified voters by their race – a act known as illegal race-based districting – when it passed the boundaries. It had instructed the state to revert to the maps established after the 2020 census for the upcoming election.

Strong Dissenting Opinion

With a strongly worded dissenting opinion, Justice Elena Kagan took issue with the court's decision. She contended that it disrespected the work of the lower court, noting that its decision was crafted by a judge nominated 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 stated in a opinion supported by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Kagan added, Today's ruling guarantees that Texas's new map, with all its increased political tilt, will govern next year's elections. And it guarantees that many Texas residents, unjustly, will be grouped in electoral districts because of their race. And that result, as this court has declared repeatedly, is a breach of the U.S. Constitution.

National Map-Drawing Fight

The ruling is part of a countrywide contest over the redistricting of electoral maps. Texas is a crucial component in efforts to alter the U.S. House map to bolster a fragile Republican hold. Typically, redistricting happens after a new decade's census. Yet the decision by Texas Republicans to proceed with a bold off-cycle redistricting earlier this year triggered a series of events among other states.

Republicans in states like North Carolina and Missouri have also enacted new maps that could add several additional conservative seats. The opposition, in response, have countered with their own plans in states like California and Virginia, which are intended to balance those potential gains.

Political Responses

Lone Star State AG praised the supreme court ruling. In a release, he said the order upheld Texas's fundamental right to draw a map that guarantees electoral outcomes supportive of Republicans. Texas is paving the way as we take our country back, district by district, state by state, he remarked.

In contrast, opposition party leaders decried the ruling. 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 senior Democratic figure stated the court had yet again damaged its legitimacy by upholding a racially gerrymandered 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 added.