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Through a per curiam order, the highest judicial body permitted Texas to implement a revised congressional district plan that is projected to include several five new GOP-friendly districts. The 6-3 decision, released on Thursday, approves a petition by the state to overturn a district court's block that had invalidated the boundaries in November.

Justices' Rationale

The district court erroneously placed itself into an active primary campaign, generating significant confusion and disrupting the delicate federal-state balance in elections, the justices wrote in justifying its action.

The federal court had earlier ruled that Texas had probably grouped voters according to their race – a practice known as racial gerrymandering – when it adopted the new maps. It had mandated the state to employ the boundaries drawn after the 2020 census for the upcoming election.

Strong Dissent

In a sharply worded dissent, Justice Elena Kagan took issue with the court's decision. She stated that it disrespected the work of the lower court, noting that its decision was crafted 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 stated in a dissent supported by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Kagan added, The majority's order ensures that Texas's redistricting plan, with all its enhanced favoritism, will dictate next year's elections. And it guarantees that many Texas residents, for no good reason, will be placed in electoral districts based on their race. And that result, as this court has stated year in and year out, is a violation of the law of the land.

National Redistricting Battle

The ruling comes amid a national fight over the redrawing of electoral maps. Texas is a key piece in campaigns to alter the U.S. House map to secure a narrow Republican hold. Typically, map-drawing occurs after a new decade's census. Yet the decision by Texas Republicans to proceed with a brazen mid-cycle redistricting earlier in the summer set off a series of events among other states.

Conservative legislators in states like North Carolina and Missouri have also passed new maps that are estimated to yield a number of additional conservative seats. The opposition, for their part, have countered with revised boundaries in states like California and Virginia, which might neutralize those projected gains.

Partisan Responses

Lone Star State AG welcomed the supreme court ruling. In a comment, he said the order upheld Texas's prerogative to draw a map that guarantees representation favorable to his party. We are setting the precedent for restoring our country, through each electoral district and individual state, he remarked.

In contrast, opposition party leaders criticized the decision. The Court's approval of this extreme, racially gerrymandered Texas GOP map is profoundly disappointing, said the head of a major party election organization.

A top House figure stated the court had once again damaged its legitimacy by upholding a racially gerrymandered 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.