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Through a per curiam decision, the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for Texas to employ a redrawn congressional district plan that is projected to include up to five new GOP-friendly districts. The six-to-three decision, released on Thursday, approves a petition by the state to lift a district court's block that had rejected the new map in November.

Court's Reasoning

The district court wrongly interjected itself into an ongoing primary campaign, creating significant confusion and disturbing the fine federal-state balance in elections, the order stated in detailing its ruling.

The district court had previously found that Texas had probably sorted voters based on their race – a method known as unconstitutional racial sorting – when it passed the boundaries. It had ordered the state to revert to the maps drawn after the 2020 census for the next year's election.

Stinging Dissenting Opinion

In a forcefully written dissenting opinion, Justice Elena Kagan objected to the court's decision. She argued that it undermined the work of the district court, observing that its ruling was actually authored by a judge selected by former President Donald Trump.

Our position is above the district court, but our capability is not greater for resolving such fact-driven issues, Kagan argued in a opinion supported by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Kagan added, Today's ruling solidifies that Texas's redistricting plan, with all its enhanced favoritism, will govern next year's elections. And it means that many Texas residents, unjustly, will be sorted in electoral districts because of their race. And that result, as this court has stated repeatedly, is a breach of the law of the land.

Countrywide Redistricting Fight

This decision comes amid a nationwide contest over the redistricting of electoral maps. Texas is an essential part in campaigns to alter the U.S. House map to secure a fragile Republican majority. Usually, map-drawing occurs after a decennial population count. Yet the move by Texas Republicans to initiate a bold mid-cycle redistricting earlier this year sparked a chain reaction among other states.

GOP lawmakers in states like North Carolina and Missouri have also passed redistricting plans that could add several additional GOP-friendly seats. The opposition, for their part, have countered with revised boundaries in states like California and Virginia, which could offset those potential gains.

Political Responses

The Texas top lawyer welcomed the High Court's decision. In a statement, he said the order protected Texas's prerogative to draw a map that guarantees electoral outcomes aligned with Republicans. Texas is paving the way as we take our country back, district by district, state by state, he added.

Conversely, Democratic representatives criticized the decision. The Court's approval of this extreme, racially gerrymandered Texas GOP map is profoundly disappointing, said the chair of a major party election organization.

A top House figure argued the court had another time shredded its legitimacy by rubber-stamping a discriminatory map. The ruling demonstrates a willingness to subvert democracy. This Texas plan is a partisan, racially biased scheme to undermine voter will, especially in communities of color, he stated.