🔗 Share this article High Court Backs Redrawn Lone Star State Congressional Electoral Boundaries. Via an per curiam order, the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for Texas to use a newly configured congressional district plan that is projected to include as many as five new GOP-friendly districts. The 6-3 decision, handed down on Thursday, grants a request by the state to lift a federal judge's injunction that had rejected the boundaries in November. Justices' Rationale The federal judge erroneously placed itself into an active primary campaign, generating significant confusion and disrupting the fine federal-state balance in elections, the justices wrote in detailing its ruling. The district court had determined that Texas had probably classified voters according to their race – a practice known as illegal race-based districting – when it passed the redistricting plan. It had instructed the state to use the districts created after the 2020 census for the upcoming election. Strong Dissent Through a strongly worded objection, Justice Elena Kagan took issue with the majority's ruling. She stated that it disregarded the work of the district court, observing that its ruling was written 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 argued in a opinion supported by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson. The justice went on, This court's stay solidifies that Texas's redistricting plan, with all its enhanced political tilt, will govern next year's elections. And it guarantees that many Texas voters, for no good reason, will be placed in electoral districts due to their race. And that result, as this court has stated consistently, is a violation of the constitution. Countrywide Map-Drawing Struggle The court's action occurs during a nationwide contest over the remapping of electoral maps. Texas is a crucial component in pushes to alter the U.S. House map to secure a fragile Republican hold. Typically, boundary revision takes place after a new decade's census. Yet the move by Texas Republicans to proceed with a aggressive mid-cycle redistricting earlier this year set off a chain reaction among other states. Conservative legislators in including North Carolina and Missouri have also approved redistricting plans that are estimated to yield a number of additional Republican-leaning seats. The opposition, for their part, have responded with new maps in states like California and Virginia, which are intended to balance those projected gains. Partisan Responses The Texas top lawyer hailed the High Court's decision. In a comment, he said the order protected Texas's prerogative to draw a map that guarantees representation supportive of Republicans. We are setting the precedent for restoring our country, through each electoral district and individual state, he added. On the other hand, Democratic officials lamented the decision. It is deeply disheartening that the Court has endorsed this severely racially gerrymandered plan from Texas Republicans, said the chair of a major Democratic election organization. Another top Democratic figure stated the court had once again damaged its standing by upholding a discriminatory 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.