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Via an unattributed decision, the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed Texas to employ a newly configured congressional boundary scheme that could add several five additional Republican-leaning districts. The six-to-three order, issued on Thursday, grants a request by the state to set aside a lower court's block that had rejected the redistricting plan in November.

Justices' Rationale

The district court erroneously placed itself into an ongoing primary campaign, generating considerable confusion and disrupting the sensitive balance of power in elections, the justices wrote in justifying its ruling.

The district court had previously found that Texas had probably grouped voters according to their race – a practice known as unconstitutional racial sorting – when it enacted the new maps. It had ordered the state to employ the districts created after the most recent national count for the forthcoming election.

Sharp Opposition

With a sharply worded dissenting opinion, Justice Elena Kagan criticized the majority's ruling. She argued that it disrespected the work of the lower court, noting that its decision was written by a judge selected 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 wrote in a opinion supported by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Kagan added, The majority's order guarantees that Texas's new map, with all its increased political tilt, will control next year's elections. And it means that many Texas voters, without justification, will be placed in electoral districts because of their race. And that result, as this court has pronounced consistently, is a violation of the U.S. Constitution.

Countrywide Redistricting Battle

The ruling comes amid a national fight over the redrawing of electoral maps. Texas is a key piece in efforts to alter the U.S. House map to protect a slim Republican control. Ordinarily, redistricting occurs after a decennial population count. Yet the move by Texas Republicans to move ahead with a aggressive mid-cycle redistricting earlier this year sparked a series of events among other states.

Republicans in states like North Carolina and Missouri have also approved redistricting plans that are estimated to yield a number of additional GOP-friendly seats. The opposition, in response, have countered with their own plans in including California and Virginia, which are intended to balance those projected gains.

Partisan Reactions

Lone Star State AG hailed the High Court's decision. In a comment, he said the order defended Texas's basic authority to draw a map that guarantees representation supportive of his party. Texas is paving the way as we take our country back, district by district, state by state, he stated.

On the other hand, opposition party officials lamented 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 House leader stated the court had once again eroded its credibility by approving 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 stated.