Politics
Supreme Court Weighs In On Texas Map That Could Decide Midterm Elections
The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday temporarily reversed a lower court ruling that blocked Texas’ new congressional map, which claimed that it likely discriminated on the basis of race.
Texas’ new map draws out five congressional districts currently held by Democrats by making them radically more-Republican leaning, an effective net gain of five seats. This has already been offset by California’s Proposition 50, however, which draws in five new Democrat-controlled districts and makes the Golden State the most gerrymandered in the country.
On Friday, an order signed by Justice Samuel Alito temporarily blocked the lower court ruling, thus reinstalling the Texas map for the time being, while the high court decides whether to allow the new map to be used in the upcoming midterm elections. The court’s conservative majority has previously blocked similar lower court orders on grounds that they were handed down too close to elections.
The order was handed down after the state called on the high court for immediate action in order to avoid confusion as March primary elections approach. It was signed by Alito because he is the justice who handles emergency appeals from Texas, the New York Post reported.
Texas moved forward with its new maps this past summer after the Trump Administration raised concurs about race-based districts and census “errors” that overcounted several Democrat-controlled states and undercounted Republican ones, including Texas. The new maps were designed to provide Republicans with an additional five House seats in the Lone Star state, but a three-panel judge federal court in El Paso ruled 2-1 Tuesday in favor of left-wing and “civil rights” groups that claimed to represent black and hispanic voters.
If that ruling ultimately holds, Texas could be forced to hold elections next year using the map drawn by the GOP-controlled legislature in 2021, which is based on the 2020 census.
Texas’ moves kicked off a nationwide redistricting war that saw Democrats directly counter it with Proposition 50, while GOP-controlled Missouri and North Carolina each redrew their own congressional maps to draw in one additional Republican-controlled seat each. All three maps in the respective states are facing their own legal challenges.
Democrats have vowed to retaliate further by drawing out additional Republican-controlled districts in Virginia and also Illinois, which could prove difficult in the latter state due to current district boundaries and sizable Republican vote share. President Trump is also lobbying state senators in Indiana to vote in favor of new maps that would draw in two additional Republican-controlled districts.
