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Through a per curiam order, the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed Texas to use a revised congressional boundary scheme that could add up to five additional GOP-friendly districts. The six-to-three decision, handed down on Thursday, approves a petition by the state to lift a federal judge's block that had invalidated the new map in November.

Justices' Explanation

The district court improperly inserted itself into an active primary campaign, causing much confusion and upsetting the delicate equilibrium in elections, the justices wrote in justifying its ruling.

That lower court had determined that Texas had probably sorted voters according to their race – a act known as illegal race-based districting – when it enacted the redistricting plan. It had mandated the state to use the maps drawn after the most recent national count for the upcoming election.

Stinging Dissent

With a strongly worded objection, Justice Elena Kagan criticized the court's ruling. She argued that it undermined the work of the district court, noting that its decision was crafted by a judge selected by former President Donald Trump.

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

The justice went on, The majority's order ensures that Texas's new map, with all its boosted favoritism, will dictate next year's elections. And it ensures that many Texas voters, unjustly, will be grouped in electoral districts because of their race. And that result, as this court has stated consistently, is a infraction of the law of the land.

National Redistricting Fight

The court's action is part of a nationwide battle over the redistricting of electoral maps. Texas is a key piece in pushes to reshape the U.S. House map to secure a narrow Republican majority. Typically, map-drawing happens after a new decade's census. Yet the action by Texas Republicans to move ahead with a brazen off-cycle redistricting earlier this year set off a chain reaction among other states.

GOP lawmakers in including North Carolina and Missouri have also passed new maps that might create several more conservative seats. Democratic lawmakers, in response, have countered with revised boundaries in states like California and Virginia, which could offset those projected gains.

Political Reactions

The Texas AG welcomed the High Court's decision. In a release, he said the order protected Texas's basic authority to draw a map that guarantees representation supportive of the GOP. We are setting the precedent for restoring our country, through each electoral district and individual state, he remarked.

Conversely, Democratic representatives criticized the decision. It is deeply disheartening that the Court has endorsed this severely racially gerrymandered plan from Texas Republicans, said the head of a major party election organization.

Another leading House leader argued the court had another time shredded its legitimacy by rubber-stamping 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 concluded.