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In a per curiam order, the highest judicial body cleared the way for Texas to implement a newly configured congressional boundary scheme that may create up to five new Republican-leaning districts. The six-to-three order, issued on Thursday, approves a appeal by the state to overturn a lower court's block that had rejected the boundaries in November.

Court's Explanation

The lower court improperly inserted itself into an active primary campaign, creating much confusion and disrupting the fine federal-state balance in elections, the supreme court said in justifying its action.

The district court had earlier ruled that Texas had probably grouped voters by their race – a act known as illegal race-based districting – when it adopted the new maps. It had ordered the state to use the boundaries drawn after the 2020 census for the upcoming election.

Strong Dissent

In a strongly worded dissent, Justice Elena Kagan criticized the court's decision. She stated that it undermined the work of the lower court, pointing out that its opinion was written by a judge selected by former 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 stated in a dissent co-signed by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

She continued, This court's stay ensures that Texas's new map, with all its enhanced partisan advantage, will govern next year's elections. And it ensures that many Texas voters, unjustly, will be sorted in electoral districts due to their race. And that result, as this court has pronounced consistently, is a infraction of the constitution.

Countrywide Redistricting Battle

This decision occurs during a countrywide contest over the redrawing of electoral maps. Texas is a key piece in pushes to alter the U.S. House map to bolster a narrow Republican majority. Typically, redistricting happens after a new decade's census. Yet the action by Texas Republicans to move ahead with a aggressive mid-cycle redistricting earlier this year sparked a wave among other states.

GOP lawmakers in states like North Carolina and Missouri have also passed redistricting plans that might create several additional conservative seats. The opposition, in response, have responded with new maps in states like California and Virginia, which are intended to balance those potential gains.

Partisan Reactions

The Texas attorney general praised the High Court's decision. In a statement, he said the order defended Texas's prerogative to draw a map that ensures electoral outcomes supportive of his party. Texas is paving the way as we take our country back, district by district, state by state, he added.

In contrast, Democratic officials decried the decision. The Court's approval of this extreme, racially gerrymandered Texas GOP map is profoundly disappointing, said the head of a major Democratic election organization.

Another top Democratic figure argued the court had another time damaged its credibility by rubber-stamping 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 stated.