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Via an unsigned decision, the highest judicial body permitted Texas to implement a revised congressional district plan that is projected to include up to five additional GOP-friendly districts. The 6-3 ruling, released on Thursday, grants a appeal by the state to set aside a lower court's injunction that had invalidated the new map in November.

Court's Explanation

The federal judge wrongly interjected itself into an active primary campaign, generating significant confusion and upsetting the delicate federal-state balance in elections, the supreme court said in detailing its decision.

The district court had determined that Texas had probably sorted voters by their race – a act known as racial gerrymandering – when it passed the redistricting plan. It had ordered the state to revert to the maps established after the last decennial survey for the upcoming election.

Sharp Dissenting Opinion

Through a strongly worded objection, Justice Elena Kagan criticized the court's ruling. She argued that it disregarded the work of the district court, noting that its opinion was actually authored by a judge appointed by ex-President Donald Trump.

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

Kagan added, This court's stay guarantees that Texas's new map, with all its boosted partisan advantage, will control next year's elections. And it guarantees that many Texas voters, unjustly, will be placed in electoral districts because of their race. And that result, as this court has declared consistently, is a infraction of the U.S. Constitution.

Countrywide Redistricting Fight

The ruling occurs during a countrywide battle over the redistricting of electoral maps. Texas is a crucial component in efforts to alter the U.S. House map to secure a narrow Republican majority. Usually, redistricting occurs after a new decade's census. Yet the decision by Texas Republicans to move ahead with a aggressive off-cycle redistricting earlier this year sparked a wave among other states.

GOP lawmakers in including North Carolina and Missouri have also approved redistricting plans that are estimated to yield several more GOP-friendly seats. The opposition, meanwhile, have pushed back with revised boundaries in states like California and Virginia, which could offset those projected gains.

Political Responses

The Texas attorney general welcomed the High Court's decision. In a release, he said the order upheld Texas's prerogative to draw a map that ensures representation aligned with his party. We are setting the precedent for restoring our country, through each electoral district and individual state, he stated.

Conversely, Democratic officials decried the outcome. The Court's approval of this extreme, racially gerrymandered Texas GOP map is profoundly disappointing, said the leader of a major Democratic campaign committee.

A leading Democratic figure stated the court had another time eroded its standing by upholding 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.