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Via an per curiam order, the highest judicial body has allowed Texas to use a revised congressional map that may create several five additional conservative-tilting districts. The six-to-three ruling, handed down on Thursday, upholds a appeal by the state to lift a lower court's block that had invalidated the new map in November.

Court's Explanation

The lower court erroneously placed itself into an ongoing primary campaign, generating much confusion and disturbing the fine equilibrium in elections, the justices wrote in explaining its decision.

The district court had previously found that Texas had probably sorted voters by their race – a practice known as racial gerrymandering – when it enacted the new maps. It had ordered the state to employ the boundaries created after the 2020 census for the upcoming election.

Strong Dissent

Through a sharply worded dissenting opinion, Justice Elena Kagan criticized the majority's action. She stated that it disregarded the work of the district court, observing that its decision was crafted 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 stated in a opinion joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

The justice went on, Today's ruling guarantees that Texas's redistricting plan, with all its increased favoritism, will control next year's elections. And it means that many Texas citizens, without justification, will be placed in electoral districts due to their race. And that result, as this court has pronounced year in and year out, is a violation of the constitution.

National Redistricting Battle

The court's action is part of a countrywide contest over the remapping of electoral maps. Texas is a key piece in campaigns to reshape the U.S. House map to protect a narrow Republican majority. Ordinarily, map-drawing happens after a decennial population count. Yet the move by Texas Republicans to proceed with a brazen off-cycle redistricting earlier in the summer sparked a chain reaction among other states.

Republicans in states like North Carolina and Missouri have also approved redistricting plans that could add a number of more Republican-leaning seats. The opposition, meanwhile, have responded with new maps in including California and Virginia, which could offset those projected gains.

Political Reactions

The Texas AG hailed the supreme court ruling. In a release, he said the order upheld Texas's prerogative to draw a map that ensures representation favorable to Republicans. Texas is paving the way as we take our country back, district by district, state by state, he added.

On the other hand, opposition party representatives lamented the decision. The Court's approval of this extreme, racially gerrymandered Texas GOP map is profoundly disappointing, said the head of a major Democratic election organization.

Another leading Democratic leader argued the court had another time damaged its credibility by approving a discriminatory 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.