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Via an unattributed ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for Texas to employ a newly configured congressional map that could add up to five new conservative-tilting districts. The six-to-three order, issued on Thursday, upholds a petition by the state to lift a lower court's ruling that had struck down the redistricting plan in November.

Court's Reasoning

The lower court wrongly interjected itself into an ongoing primary campaign, creating much confusion and upsetting the fine equilibrium in elections, the supreme court said in explaining its action.

The district court had determined that Texas had likely classified voters according to their race – a practice known as racial gerrymandering – when it enacted the redistricting plan. It had instructed the state to revert to the maps established after the last decennial survey for the forthcoming election.

Stinging Opposition

In a sharply worded dissenting opinion, Justice Elena Kagan took issue with the court's action. She stated that it disregarded the work of the lower court, noting that its opinion was crafted by a judge selected by former 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 joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Kagan added, The majority's order solidifies that Texas's new map, with all its enhanced favoritism, will dictate next year's elections. And it guarantees that many Texas residents, unjustly, will be placed in electoral districts based on their race. And that result, as this court has pronounced consistently, is a violation of the U.S. Constitution.

National Redistricting Struggle

This decision comes amid a nationwide contest over the remapping of electoral maps. Texas is a key piece in efforts to reshape the U.S. House map to protect a slim Republican hold. Usually, redistricting takes place after a decennial population count. Yet the decision by Texas Republicans to move ahead with a brazen mid-cycle redistricting earlier in the summer triggered a chain reaction among other states.

GOP lawmakers in states like North Carolina and Missouri have also enacted redistricting plans that might create several more Republican-leaning seats. Democratic lawmakers, for their part, have responded with their own plans in states like California and Virginia, which are intended to balance those projected gains.

Political Responses

The Texas top lawyer welcomed the High Court's decision. In a statement, he said the order upheld Texas's fundamental right to draw a map that ensures electoral outcomes supportive of the GOP. Our state is leading the charge to reclaim the nation, one district and one state at a time, he remarked.

In contrast, Democratic leaders lamented the outcome. It's incredibly disappointing that the Court has rubber stamped a map enacted by Texas Republicans which, simply put, is an extreme, racially gerrymandered map, said the chair of a major Democratic campaign committee.

A top House leader said the court had another time eroded its credibility by approving a race-based map. This decision from the Court's far-right bloc proves extremists are willing to rig elections. The Texas map is a discriminatory power grab targeting Black and Latino voters, he added.