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In a per curiam ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court permitted Texas to employ a newly configured congressional boundary scheme that is projected to include up to five new conservative-tilting districts. The six-to-three ruling, handed down on Thursday, upholds a request by the state to overturn a district court's ruling that had invalidated the boundaries in November.

Court's Reasoning

The lower court improperly inserted itself into an active primary campaign, creating much confusion and disrupting the fine equilibrium in elections, the order stated in explaining its decision.

The district court had earlier ruled that Texas had likely grouped voters by their race – a act known as unconstitutional racial sorting – when it enacted the boundaries. It had mandated the state to employ the maps drawn after the 2020 census for the forthcoming election.

Stinging Dissenting Opinion

Through a sharply worded dissent, Justice Elena Kagan objected to the majority's action. She contended that it undermined the work of the district court, noting that its opinion was written 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 wrote in a dissent co-signed by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

The justice went on, The majority's order ensures that Texas's redistricting plan, with all its increased favoritism, will control next year's elections. And it ensures that many Texas voters, for no good reason, will be grouped in electoral districts because of their race. And that result, as this court has pronounced year in and year out, is a infraction of the constitution.

National Redistricting Battle

The ruling is part of a nationwide contest over the remapping of electoral maps. Texas is a key piece in pushes to transform the U.S. House map to bolster a fragile Republican control. Typically, redistricting takes place after a ten-year survey. Yet the action by Texas Republicans to move ahead with a bold off-cycle redistricting earlier in the summer sparked a chain reaction among other states.

GOP lawmakers in including North Carolina and Missouri have also passed redistricting plans that are estimated to yield several more GOP-friendly seats. Democrats, in response, have pushed back with revised boundaries in including California and Virginia, which might neutralize those projected gains.

Partisan Reactions

The Texas AG hailed the supreme court ruling. In a comment, he said the order defended Texas's prerogative to draw a map that secures representation favorable to his party. Our state is leading the charge to reclaim the nation, one district and one state at a time, he added.

In contrast, opposition party representatives criticized the ruling. 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.

A top Democratic leader argued the court had once again damaged its credibility by approving 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 added.