U.S. Supreme Court rejects challenge to Republican-drawn Texas electoral district

Nov 21 (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court docket on Monday turned away an enchantment by Black and Hispanic voters accusing the Republican-led Texas legislature of deliberately redrawing a state Senate district to decrease their political clout, a part of broader problem to congressional and state legislative maps within the state.

The justices declined to evaluate a ruling by a three-judge federal district court docket panel denying an injunction in opposition to the reconfigured state Senate district sought by the challengers. The plaintiffs have argued that the district’s redrawn boundaries resulted from intentional racial discrimination in opposition to them in violation of the U.S. Structure’s 14th Modification assure of equal safety underneath the legislation.

The dispute facilities on a state Senate district that features a part of the town of Fort Price in north-central Texas.

The district is at present held by Democratic state Senator Beverly Powell. However she dropped her re-election bid final April, calling the race “unwinnable” due to the way in which the legislature had redrawn the district’s boundaries. Following the Nov. 8 election, the newly configured district shall be represented by Republican Phil King, who ran unopposed.

Black and Hispanic plaintiffs sued after the Texas legislature authorised new electoral maps in 2021. They argued that they’d been “splintered” into different Senate districts the place they are going to be “overpowered” by white voters.

Whereas Powell’s state Senate district was beforehand confined inside a single county, it’s now unfold throughout seven others that the three-judge panel mentioned are “populated largely by rural Anglos who have a tendency by a big margin to vote Republican.”

Redistricting, carried out every decade after the completion of the U.S. census, is an more and more contentious course of in the USA. It’s usually managed by politicians already in workplace who could draw strains for partisan acquire.

The Supreme Court docket in 2019 blocked federal courts from reviewing claims of so-called partisan gerrymandering, a apply that in line with critics warps democracy by crafting electoral districts in a manner that reduces the voting energy of some voters whereas boosting the clout of others.

The Texas case represents considered one of many authorized challenges to reconfigured electoral maps across the nation.

The Supreme Court docket is about to listen to arguments in a significant case on Dec. 7 that would forestall state courts from second-guessing state legislatures’ guidelines and maps for federal elections.

The Texas lawsuit is considered one of a number of which were consolidated earlier than the three-judge panel. President Joe Biden’s administration sued Texas over the brand new maps final December. The panel denied an injunction that will have blocked the usage of the newly devised district boundaries. In its ruling final Could, the panel agreed that, given racially polarized voting patterns, the brand new map has a disproportionate impression leading to “the lack of a seat by which minorities had been in a position to elect candidates they most well-liked.”

However the court docket mentioned there was no direct proof that the legislature was motivated by an intent to racially discriminate.

Of their enchantment to the Supreme Court docket, the plaintiffs mentioned decision was wanted previous to the 2024 election.

Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York; Modifying by Will Dunham

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