Over the objections of four liberal justices, the Supreme Court ruled Tuesday night that Texas does not immediately have to redraw electoral districts that a lower court found diminished the influence of minority voters. 
 
 The 5-to-4 ruling almost surely means the 2018 midterm elections will be conducted in the disputed congressional and legislative districts. 
 
 The justices gave no reasons in their one-paragraph statement granting a request from Texas that it not be forced to draw new districts until the Supreme Court reviewed the lower court's decision. 
 
 [After losses on voting rights and districts, Texas looks to Supreme Court] 
 
 But the court's liberals — Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — signaled their unhappiness by noting they would not have agreed to Texas's request. 
 
 The court's intervention was a victory for Texas Republicans, who had drawn the districts. It disappointed civil rights groups, who had noted that even though growth in the state's Hispanic population was the reason for additional congressional seats, none were drawn to favor minority candidates. 
 
 The decision was yet another indication of the influence of President Trump's nominee to the Supreme Court, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, who joined the court in April. Without a full complement of five conservative justices, the court likely would have tied 4 to 4, and Texas's request for a stay would have failed. 
 
 The state has been in the midst of an extraordinary losing streak in federal courts over the way it conducts elections. 
 
 Over the latter part of the summer, federal judges in four separate cases ruled that the Texas Legislature discriminated against minorities in drawing congressional and legislative districts, setting ID requirements for voters and even regulating who can assist voters whose first language is not English. 
 
 Two courts are considering whether the actions were intended to discourage African American and Hispanic voters. If the courts find that the efforts were intentional, it could return Texas to the kind of federal oversight from which the Supreme Court freed it and other mostly Southern states in the landmark 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder. 
 
 Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) called the rulings "outrageous" and "astonishing." 
 
 A lower court overseeing the redistricting cases called for a special session of the Texas Legislature to redraw the electoral lines. But Paxton went quickly to the Supreme Court, saying it would be a waste of time if the Supreme Court ultimately agreed with Texas that the districts did not have to be redrawn. 
 
 The decision by a three-judge panel ordering new districts "is not just wrong, but egregiously so," Paxton told the court in a brief. 
 
 Without a special session or a court redrawing the legislative and congressional district lines, it would seem impossible to have the new districts in place in time for the 2018 elections. Redrawn districts probably would have increased the chances for Democrats and minorities to capture them. ||||| (CNN) A closely divided Supreme Court ruled in favor of the state of Texas on Tuesday night, freezing a lower court opinion that had invalidated two congressional districts and state house districts in four counties. The ruling means the current state electoral maps will stay in effect pending appeal. 
 
 The ruling is a victory -- for now -- for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who had argued that the lower court opinion would have thrown "the electoral process in disarray" because districts must be determined by October 1. 
 
 "The lower court here struck down the maps as an intentional racial gerrymander," said Joshua A. Douglas an election law expert at the University of Kentucky College of Law. "Although just a preliminary decision that puts the lower court's decision on hold, the 5-4 split indicates that the map's challengers may have a tough time before the Justices when the (Supreme) Court eventually hears this case." 
 
 The four liberal justices on the court -- Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan -- noted that they would have denied Texas' request. 
 
 Allison Riggs, senior voting rights attorney for the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, who represents the challengers in the case, said she was disappointed by the "inexplicable ruling." 
 
 Read More ||||| WASHINGTON (AP) — A divided Supreme Court kept Texas' voting maps largely intact Monday, dealing an election-year blow to Democrats by reversing earlier findings that intentional racial discrimination continues to stain several statehouse and congressional districts. 
 
 The 5-4 decision comes nine months after Democrats had celebrated lower court rulings that invalidated parts of Texas' electoral maps and a revised voter ID law. But the voter ID law was also restored in April, and Texas Republicans now have another key victory in long-running battles over voting rights in a state with a booming Hispanic population. 
 
 "Our legislative maps are legal. Democrats lost their redistricting & Voter ID claims," Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott tweeted. 
 
 The decision also dampened Democrats' case that Texas should once again need federal approval before changing voting laws, a requirement the Supreme Court eliminated in 2013 when it gutted the heart of the federal Voting Rights Act. 
 
 In August, a federal court in San Antonio agreed with Democrats and voting rights groups that current electoral districts in Texas were tainted by earlier and intentionally discriminatory map lines first approved by the GOP-controlled Legislature in 2011. 
 
 But Justice Samuel Alito said for the court's conservative majority that the lower court made a mistake by striking down two congressional and seven state house districts. The high court struck down one safe Democratic House district in Fort Worth because the state relied too heavily on race when it increased the district's Latino population. 
 
 "We now hold that the three-judge court committed a fundamental legal error," Alito wrote. The lower court ignored evidence showing that the legislature adopted districting plans in 2013 primarily to try to end the litigation over the districts, Alito said. 
 
 The court's liberal justices dissented. 
 
 "The court today does great damage to that right of equal opportunity," Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote. She said her colleagues had blinded themselves "to the overwhelming factual record below. It does all of this to allow Texas to use electoral maps that, in design and effect, burden the rights of minority voters." 
 
 Democrats are outnumbered nearly 2-1 in the Texas Legislature and have long contended that unfair maps have accelerated that imbalance. In 2009, Republicans had only a slim two-seat majority in the Texas House. 
 
 "The rules were changed today," said Democratic state Rep. Rafael Anchia, chairman of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus. 
 
 Texas' congressional and legislative districting plans have been embroiled in court action for years, beginning in 2011. 
 
 After the state's original maps were tossed out as probably unconstitutional, a three-judge federal court produced interim districting plans that were used in the 2012 elections. 
 
 In 2013, Republicans who control the state government rushed to permanently adopt those maps to use for the rest of the decade, until a new round of redistricting after the 2020 census. But opponents criticized the adopted maps as a quick fix that didn't purge all districts of the impermissible use of race. 
 
 "This is a huge win for the Constitution, Texas, and the democratic process. Once again, Texans have the power to govern themselves," Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Weber reported from Austin, Texas.
– Texas likely won't be forced to redraw electoral districts a court found were intentionally designed to weaken the influence of minority voters before the 2018 midterm elections. In a 5-4 decision along partisan lines Tuesday, the Supreme Court granted a request from Texas that it keep its congressional map, instituted by Texas Republicans in 2013, until the Supreme Court reviews a lower court's decision, reports the Washington Post. In a 2-1 decision, a three-judge panel ruled in August that two Texas congressional districts and state house districts in four counties discriminated against minority voters, who typically vote for Democrats, and therefore violated the Constitution and Voting Rights Act, per CNN. The Supreme Court gave no reason for its Tuesday decision as is normal in such cases, per Politico. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton had argued a different outcome would've put "the electoral process in disarray" since districts must be decided by Oct. 1. A voting rights attorney representing the case's challengers says she is disappointed by the decision but hopes the court later "realizes that Texas sought to purposefully minimize the political power of voters of color." One law expert tells CNN, however, that "the 5-4 split indicates that the map's challengers may have a tough time before the Justices when the (Supreme) Court eventually hears this case." Texas must first file an appeal to the August ruling.