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Via an per curiam ruling, the highest judicial body cleared the way for Texas to use a redrawn congressional map that may create up to five new Republican-leaning districts. The six-to-three order, issued on Thursday, approves a request by the state to lift a district court's injunction that had invalidated the new map in November.

Justices' Rationale

The lower court wrongly interjected itself into an active primary campaign, generating considerable confusion and upsetting the fine federal-state balance in elections, the supreme court said in justifying its action.

The district court had earlier ruled that Texas had likely grouped voters based on their race – a practice known as racial gerrymandering – when it adopted the boundaries. It had ordered the state to revert to the districts established after the last decennial survey for the next year's election.

Strong Opposition

Through a strongly worded dissent, Justice Elena Kagan objected to the majority's action. She stated that it disrespected the work of the lower court, noting that its ruling was actually authored by a judge nominated by ex-President Donald Trump.

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

Kagan added, Today's ruling ensures that Texas's new map, with all its increased partisan advantage, will control next year's elections. And it guarantees that many Texas citizens, for no good reason, will be sorted in electoral districts because of their race. And that result, as this court has pronounced repeatedly, is a breach of the U.S. Constitution.

National Redistricting Battle

This decision is part of a countrywide battle over the remapping of electoral maps. Texas is a key piece in campaigns to transform the U.S. House map to bolster a narrow Republican majority. Typically, map-drawing happens after a new decade's census. Yet the move by Texas Republicans to move ahead with a aggressive off-cycle redistricting earlier in the summer sparked a chain reaction among other states.

GOP lawmakers in states like North Carolina and Missouri have also enacted new maps that are estimated to yield a number of more conservative seats. Democrats, for their part, have pushed back with their own plans in states like California and Virginia, which could offset those projected gains.

Political Reactions

Lone Star State top lawyer praised the High Court's decision. In a statement, he said the order protected Texas's basic authority to draw a map that ensures electoral outcomes favorable to his party. Our state is leading the charge to reclaim the nation, one district and one state at a time, he added.

Conversely, Democratic officials decried the ruling. The Court's approval of this extreme, racially gerrymandered Texas GOP map is profoundly disappointing, said the head of a major Democratic campaign committee.

Another top House leader said the court had another time eroded its credibility by approving a race-based 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 added.