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Via an per curiam order, the highest judicial body has allowed Texas to implement a newly configured congressional district plan that is projected to include as many as five additional GOP-friendly districts. The 6-3 decision, released on Thursday, upholds a request by the state to set aside a federal judge's ruling that had rejected the new map in November.

Justices' Reasoning

The lower court wrongly interjected itself into an ongoing primary campaign, causing significant confusion and upsetting the fine federal-state balance in elections, the order stated in detailing its decision.

The district court had earlier ruled that Texas had likely sorted voters based on their race – a act known as unconstitutional racial sorting – when it passed the boundaries. It had mandated the state to employ the maps established after the most recent national count for the upcoming election.

Sharp Dissent

With a sharply worded dissent, Justice Elena Kagan criticized the majority's ruling. She contended that it undermined the work of the lower court, pointing out that its ruling was actually authored by a judge nominated 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 joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

She continued, The majority's order solidifies that Texas's redistricting plan, with all its boosted political tilt, will govern next year's elections. And it means that many Texas voters, without justification, will be sorted in electoral districts due to their race. And that result, as this court has stated consistently, is a violation of the constitution.

National Map-Drawing Battle

The ruling occurs during a national contest over the redistricting of electoral maps. Texas is a key piece in campaigns to reshape the U.S. House map to bolster a fragile Republican majority. Usually, boundary revision takes place after a decennial population count. Yet the move by Texas Republicans to initiate a brazen mid-cycle redistricting earlier in the summer set off a wave among other states.

GOP lawmakers in states like North Carolina and Missouri have also passed new maps that are estimated to yield several additional Republican-leaning seats. The opposition, meanwhile, have countered with revised boundaries in including California and Virginia, which might neutralize those projected gains.

Partisan Reactions

Lone Star State attorney general praised the High Court's decision. In a release, he said the order defended Texas's fundamental right to draw a map that guarantees electoral outcomes supportive of the GOP. Texas is paving the way as we take our country back, district by district, state by state, he added.

On the other hand, Democratic leaders criticized the ruling. The Court's approval of this extreme, racially gerrymandered Texas GOP map is profoundly disappointing, said the head of a major party campaign committee.

Another leading Democratic figure said the court had yet again eroded its legitimacy by rubber-stamping a racially gerrymandered map. This decision from the Court's far-right bloc proves extremists are willing to rig elections. The Texas map is a discriminatory power grab targeting Black and Latino voters, he concluded.