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In a per curiam decision, the nation's top court cleared the way for Texas to use a revised congressional boundary scheme that could add up to five additional conservative-tilting districts. The six-to-three decision, issued on Thursday, grants a appeal by the state to lift a federal judge's ruling that had struck down the boundaries in November.

Court's Reasoning

The federal judge erroneously placed itself into an active primary campaign, creating much confusion and disrupting the sensitive federal-state balance in elections, the justices wrote in justifying its ruling.

The federal court had determined that Texas had probably classified voters based on their race – a act known as racial gerrymandering – when it adopted the new maps. It had ordered the state to revert to the boundaries drawn after the last decennial survey for the upcoming election.

Strong Opposition

In a forcefully written dissent, Justice Elena Kagan criticized the court's action. She stated that it undermined the work of the lower court, pointing out that its decision was actually authored by a judge nominated 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 joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

She continued, The majority's order guarantees that Texas's redistricting plan, with all its enhanced partisan advantage, will dictate next year's elections. And it ensures that many Texas citizens, without justification, will be placed in electoral districts based on their race. And that result, as this court has pronounced consistently, is a violation of the constitution.

National Redistricting Battle

The court's action is part of a national contest over the redistricting of electoral maps. Texas is a crucial component in pushes to alter the U.S. House map to protect a slim Republican hold. Usually, boundary revision takes place after a new decade's census. Yet the move by Texas Republicans to move ahead with a bold mid-cycle redistricting earlier in the summer sparked a chain reaction among other states.

Republicans in states like North Carolina and Missouri have also passed new maps that could add a number of more Republican-leaning seats. The opposition, for their part, have pushed back with revised boundaries in states like California and Virginia, which are intended to balance those potential gains.

Political Responses

Lone Star State AG welcomed the supreme court ruling. In a comment, he said the order protected Texas's fundamental right to draw a map that guarantees electoral outcomes supportive of Republicans. We are setting the precedent for restoring our country, through each electoral district and individual state, he remarked.

On the other hand, Democratic representatives 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 leader of a major Democratic campaign committee.

A leading Democratic leader stated the court had yet again eroded its legitimacy 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 added.