WASHINGTON — The US Supreme Court on Monday upheld Texas Republicans’ redrawn congressional map — a controversial redistricting that kicked off a gerrymandering race around the country.
A lower court had previously blocked the map, but the nation’s top court last year ended up issuing a stay of that ruling, which temporarily allowed Texas to keep the map in place.
Then Monday, the high court officially rejected the lower court’s block of the map, with Democrat-appointed Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissenting.
The high court cited its December stay as justification for its decision, without elaborating.
Republicans currently have 24 congressional seats out of Texas, compared to the Democrats’ 13, but with the new map, GOPers are hoping to squeeze out as many as five additional seats.
Democrats have argued that the new map, which was unveiled last year, illegally spreads their voters around too thinly.
The League of United Latin American Citizens led the challenge against the GOP map, alleging that race was too much of a factor in the redistricting.
A three-judge panel on the US District Court of the Western District of Texas sided with the league in its earlier 2-1 decision.
But Republican-appointed US Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito had argued in his stay concurrence, which the high court cited Monday, that the lower court “failed to honor the presumption of legislative good faith” and that the plaintiffs failed to “produce a viable alternative map that met the State’s avowedly partisan goal.”
Traditionally, redistricting takes place every decade after a federal census. But a rare mid-decade redistricting race broke out after the new Texas map surfaced.
In response to Texas’ redistricting push, Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom championed a referendum in the Golden State to neutralize the GOP’s potential gains in Congress.
Earlier this year, the nation’s top court rebuffed a challenge from a California GOP group against the measure.
Democrats recently notched a victory in Virginia when voters greenlit a referendum allowing the state legislature to put in place a map under which they could gain up to four seats. That state’s highest court is weighing a GOP challenge to the move.
The GOP is also looking at redistricting opportunities in Florida and Mississippi in response.
