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In a unsigned ruling, the nation's top court permitted Texas to employ a revised congressional district plan that could add several five new conservative-tilting districts. The 6-3 ruling, handed down on Thursday, approves a petition by the state to overturn a district court's ruling that had rejected the redistricting plan in November.

Court's Reasoning

The federal judge wrongly interjected itself into an active primary campaign, creating considerable confusion and disturbing the delicate federal-state balance in elections, the supreme court said in justifying its ruling.

The district court had previously found that Texas had probably sorted voters by their race – a method known as illegal race-based districting – when it enacted the redistricting plan. It had mandated the state to revert to the boundaries drawn after the last decennial survey for the next year's election.

Strong Dissent

With a forcefully written dissenting opinion, Justice Elena Kagan objected to the majority's ruling. She contended that it undermined the work of the lower court, observing 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 co-signed by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Kagan added, Today's ruling solidifies that Texas's redistricting plan, with all its boosted political tilt, will govern next year's elections. And it guarantees that many Texas residents, without justification, 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 law of the land.

Countrywide Redistricting Struggle

This decision is part of a countrywide fight over the redistricting of electoral maps. Texas is a key piece in pushes to reshape the U.S. House map to protect a fragile Republican hold. Usually, map-drawing happens after a new decade's census. Yet the move by Texas Republicans to initiate a aggressive off-cycle redistricting earlier in the summer sparked a wave among other states.

GOP lawmakers in including North Carolina and Missouri have also passed new maps that could add a number of more Republican-leaning seats. Democratic lawmakers, for their part, have pushed back with new maps in states like California and Virginia, which could offset those potential gains.

Partisan Responses

Lone Star State attorney general praised the supreme court ruling. In a statement, he said the order defended Texas's prerogative to draw a map that guarantees representation 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 outcome. It is deeply disheartening that the Court has endorsed this severely racially gerrymandered plan from Texas Republicans, said the chair of a major party campaign committee.

A senior House leader argued the court had yet again shredded its legitimacy by approving a race-based 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.