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In a unattributed decision, the highest judicial body cleared the way for Texas to employ a redrawn congressional map that is projected to include as many as five new GOP-friendly districts. The 6-3 order, handed down on Thursday, upholds a appeal by the state to lift a lower court's block that had struck down the redistricting plan in November.

Justices' Reasoning

The federal judge wrongly interjected itself into an active primary campaign, generating much confusion and disrupting the fine balance of power in elections, the supreme court said in justifying its ruling.

The federal court had determined that Texas had likely classified voters by their race – a practice known as unconstitutional racial sorting – when it passed the redistricting plan. It had ordered the state to use the maps created after the most recent national count for the forthcoming election.

Sharp Dissent

With a sharply worded dissent, Justice Elena Kagan objected to the court's decision. She stated that it disregarded the work of the lower court, pointing out that its ruling was written by a judge nominated by former President Donald Trump.

While our court is superior in jurisdiction, we are not superior in making these fact-intensive determinations, Kagan argued in a opinion joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

The justice went on, Today's ruling solidifies that Texas's new map, with all its boosted political tilt, will dictate next year's elections. And it guarantees that many Texas voters, unjustly, will be grouped in electoral districts due to their race. And that result, as this court has declared repeatedly, is a violation of the law of the land.

Countrywide Map-Drawing Fight

The ruling comes amid a national contest over the remapping of electoral maps. Texas is a crucial component in efforts to alter the U.S. House map to secure a fragile Republican majority. Typically, map-drawing takes place after a new decade's census. Yet the move by Texas Republicans to proceed with a brazen mid-cycle redistricting earlier this year triggered a series of events among other states.

Republicans in including North Carolina and Missouri have also approved redistricting plans that could add a number of additional GOP-friendly seats. Democrats, for their part, have countered with new maps in states like California and Virginia, which might neutralize those potential gains.

Political Responses

Lone Star State attorney general hailed the supreme court ruling. In a comment, he said the order defended Texas's fundamental right to draw a map that ensures electoral outcomes favorable to his party. Texas is paving the way as we take our country back, district by district, state by state, he stated.

Conversely, 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 leader of a major Democratic campaign committee.

A top Democratic leader argued 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.