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The stay will remain in place until the Supreme Court receives and acts on an appeal expected to be filed by the State of Texas. | Getty Images Supreme Court blocks ruling against Texas redistricting

A sharply divided Supreme Court has blocked a lower court ruling that congressional district maps Texas adopted in 2013 violate the Constitution and are the product of intentional racial discrimination.

The high court announced Tuesday night that the justices voted 5-4, along partisan lines, to block a three-judge panel’s ruling that Texas needed to redraw the maps or face having them redrawn by the court.

The stay will remain in place until the Supreme Court receives and acts on an appeal expected to be filed by the state of Texas.

As is customary in such cases, the high court announced no reason or rationale for its action. The court’s five Republican-appointed justices voted to grant the stay, while the four Democratic-appointed justices voted to deny it.

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The three-judge panel ruled 2-1 in August that the drawing of two Texas congressional districts, the 27th and 35th, violated both the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act. The panel issued a similar ruling on maps for the Texas state House of Representatives.

Justice Samuel Alito temporarily stayed both rulings last month at the request of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton while the high court considered what to do next in the cases.

Paxton applauded Tuesday’s ruling.

“The Supreme Court confirmed what the rest of us already knew: Texas should be able to use maps in 2018 that the district court itself adopted in 2012 and Texas used in the last three election cycles,” Paxton said in a statement. “In 2012 the Supreme Court ordered the district court to adopt lawful maps, and we believe it did so. We are eager to proceed with this case in the high court.”

</s>AUSTIN - A divided U.S. Supreme Court blocked two lower court rulings late Tuesday that had required Texas to redraw certain congressional and state House districts after the lower courts ruled the district lines discriminate against minorities.

The 5-4 ruling almost surely means the 2018 elections will be conducted in the disputed congressional and legislative districts that federal judges have said were intentionally drawn to discriminate against Latino and African-American voters.

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.

But the court's liberals signaled their unhappiness by noting they would not have agreed to Texas' 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.

"I can't say that I am pleased with this. I can't say that I am surprised either," said Jose Garza, counsel to the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit. "At the end of the day it may all work out. Maybe it's better to have this discriminatory plan in front of the court and have the state of Texas try to defend it sooner rather than later."

The court was split over ideological lines, with liberal Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan in the minority.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who sought the stay, did not return a request for comment.

Chad Dunn, the Texas Democratic Party's general counsel, said he believes the evidence of discriminatory intent is so strong, the Supreme Court will agree.

"Getting a final resolution to this matter, that has essentially been pending since 2011, is a step in the right direction," he said.

One possibility is that the March elections are delayed. In 2012, the state was forced to postpone primary elections in the wake of legal challenges from civil rights groups and minority advocates to political maps drawn the year before.

Advocacy groups argue the maps in question intentionally dilute minorities' voting power, by cramming them into a single district, or splitting them up across too many.

The state has been operating under temporary court-ordered maps drawn for the 2012 elections and adopted by the Legislature in 2013. This summer, a three-judge federal panel in San Antonio invalidated some of those districts, finding they violate the U.S. Constitution and the U.S. Voting Rights Act.

The panel ruled that Texas' Congressional District 27, now held by Blake Farenthold, R-Corpus Christi, and District 35, now held by Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, were drawn with discriminatory intent aimed at diluting minorities' voting strength.

Chronicle wire services contributed to this report.</s>On Tuesday, a previous order handed down by a Texas state court requiring lawmakers to redraw some of its districts earlier this year was blocked by the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS).

The state ruling in question held certain Texas congressional districts organized in 2010 were purposefully drawn to disadvantage minority voters – a holding SCOTUS disagreed with.

RELATED: This Texas Court Case on Gerrymandering of Congressional Districts Could Change the Entire United States

Texas’ ruling stated the use of these maps constituted “a litigation strategy designed to insulate the 2011 or 2013 plans from further challenge, regardless of their legal infirmities.”

Temporary districts were made in 2012 and adopted in 2013, but the districts were never officially redrawn; the 2012 maps were adopted under similar circumstances to the present, with an election looming in the near future, but were never meant to be permanently used.

According to the New York Times, the latest High Court ruling in the back-and-forth case makes it more likely Texas’ 2018 elections will continue to use the districts the state found to be outdated and discriminatory.

Ultimately, the SCOTUS decision was 5-4 in favor of blocking the ruling while the state’s appeal in the case is considered.

Originally the state gave lawmakers until October 1 to submit new maps, but the appeal request submitted to the Supreme Court described the deadline as arbitrary and unnecessarily constricting.</s>WASHINGTON -- Texas likely will hold 2018 elections under current congressional and state house maps after the Supreme Court Tuesday night blocked a lower court ruling calling for changes in the maps.

Separate rulings from a three-judge in federal court in San Antonio last month had called for revisions to several congressional and statehouse districts found that the maps violated the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act.

The Supreme Court's brief order split 5-4 along ideological lines and is the latest ruling in the years-long legal battle over maps drawn after the 2010 census. The high court's order will remain in effect while it considers the Texas' appeal.

The court in San Antonio ruled that a congressional district in Corpus Christi held by Republican Blake Farenthold denied Hispanic voters an opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice. The court also rejected another congressional district stretching from San Antonio to Austin -- currently held by Democrat Lloyd Doggett. The judges ruled that race had been the primary factor in drawing it.

Plaintiffs in the case -- which include minority lawmakers and civil rights organizations -- had also challenged the fairness of districts drawn in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, arguing that the state had "packed and cracked" minority communities in North Texas. But the judges made no changes in D-FW districts.

"Packing" refers to a process of including as many minorities in one district as possible to dilute their voting power, while cracking means the state had selectively taken minorities out of certain districts to achieve the same goal.



In another decision, the San Antonio panel found similar issues in state legislative districts, including some in Dallas-Fort Worth.

In its ruling, the judges said the intentional discrimination from 2011 carried over into parts of the 2013 maps. The ruling would have affected five districts in the Dallas-Fort Worth area: state House Districts 103, 104 and 105 in western Dallas County and Districts 90 and 93 in Tarrant County. The judges also ruled that Districts 32 and 34 in Nueces County and Districts 54 and 55 in Bell County should be redrawn.

State Rep. Rafael Anchia, D-Dallas, of the Mexican-American Legislative Caucus, said Tuesday night that the group wants a hearing before the Supreme Court.

"We look forward to seeking justice before the highest court in the land," Anchia said in a written statement. "After nine findings of intentional discrimination by bipartisan federal judges, [the Supreme Court] has the opportunity to protect Texas voters."

In 2013, the court provided the Legislature with an interim fix to its discrimination for elections that were coming up after the Supreme Court rejected those and told judges to come up with new maps. The state mostly stuck to those maps, which have been used for the last three election cycles.

Texas officials, including Attorney General Ken Paxton, who appealed the ruling, noted that the judges "held that maps they themselves adopted violate the law." 



The state argued that maps must be in place by Oct. 1 for 2018 elections to proceed with a Nov. 11-Dec. 11 primary filing period and a March 6 primary. The plaintiffs said that was an artificial deadline.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. had granted temporary stays while the full court considered the stay application.



The New York Times and Associated Press contributed to this report.

In August, after three election cycles using the interim maps, the court ruled that they were flawed. "Although this court had 'approved' the maps for use as interim maps, given the severe time constraints it was operating under at the time of their adoption," the court said, that approval was "not based on a full examination of the record or the governing law" and was "subject to revision."

The court concluded that Texas's adoption of the interim maps was part of "a litigation strategy designed to insulate the 2011 or 2013 plans from further challenge, regardless of their legal infirmities."

State officials then filed emergency applications in the Supreme Court, asking the justices to block the district court's order until their appeal was heard.

"The same map the three-judge court thought sufficient to comply with the Constitution and" the Voting Rights Act "when adopted by the court as a remedial map has now been declared unconstitutional when subsequently enacted into law by the branch of government responsible for redistricting under our Constitution," state officials wrote in their application concerning the congressional districts. "That is both remarkable and unprecedented."

"If repealing a purportedly discriminatory law in its entirety and replacing it with a law that has received the imprimatur of a federal court does not suffice to remove any lingering 'taint'" from the 2011 maps, the brief said,"then it is difficult to imagine what could."

The state said it must have maps in place by Oct. 1 to allow the 2018 elections to proceed as scheduled. The challengers said that deadline was self-imposed and premature.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. had granted temporary stays while the full court considered the stay application.</s>A sharply divided Supreme Court has blocked a lower court ruling that a congressional district map Texas adopted in 2013 violates the Constitution and is the product of intentional racial discrimination.

The high court announced Tuesday night that the justices voted, 5-4, along partisan lines to block a three-judge panel's ruling that Texas needed to redraw the maps or face having them redrawn by the court.

The stay will remain in place until the Supreme Court receives and acts on an appeal expected to be filed by the State of Texas.

As is customary in such cases, the high court announced no reason or rationale for its action. The court's five Republican-appointed justices voted to grant the stay, while the four Democratic-appointed justices voted to deny it.

The three-judge panel ruled, 2-1, in August that the drawing of two Texas Congressional districts, 27 and 35, violated both the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act. The panel issued a similar ruling on maps for the Texas state House of Representatives.

Justice Samuel Alito temporarily stayed both rulings last month at the request of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton while the high court considered what to do next in the cases.

"The Supreme Court confirmed what the rest of us already knew: Texas should be able to use maps in 2018 that the district court itself adopted in 2012 and Texas used in the last three election cycles," Paxton said in a statement. "In 2012 the Supreme Court ordered the district court to adopt lawful maps, and we believe it did so. We are eager to proceed with this case in the high court."</s>Yesteday, the Supreme Court blocked a ruling from three judges in Texas that invalidated two Congressional districts as un-Constitutional. The vote was 5-4.

This is the background.

Texas has been embroiled in six years of litigation over the congressional districts drawn after the 2010 Census.

A federal court invalidated two of Texas’ congressional districts on Tuesday, concluding that they violated the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act by diluting the voting power of minorities. In a 107-page ruling — part of a long-running legal battle — a three-judge panel of the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas found that District 27, which includes Corpus Christi, had been drawn to deny voters in a heavily Hispanic county “their opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice,” and that race had been the primary factor in drawing District 35, a narrow strip that stretches from San Antonio to Austin. The judges, however, upheld the validity of other districts, including ones that had been challenged in Houston and in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. The panel, in San Antonio, ruled that state officials had adopted the map in question in 2013 as part of a deliberate strategy to maintain “discrimination or unconstitutional effects” while preventing voters from challenging those effects. If Texas legislators do not begin a redistricting process, the court will hold a hearing on Sept. 5 to discuss remedies.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton appealed and Justice Alito halted the order for redistricting.

In a one-sentence order issued this afternoon, Justice Samuel Alito blocked an order by a federal district court in Texas that had invalidated two congressional districts in that state. Officials in Texas had asked the district court to put its order on hold to give it time to appeal to the Supreme Court, but the lower court had declined to do so. Last week state officials went to the Supreme Court, where they found a more sympathetic audience in Alito, who handles emergency appeals from the geographic area that includes Texas. Today’s order – which came from Alito himself, rather than the full nine-member court – relieves the state of its obligation to comply with the deadlines imposed by the district court. Instead, Alito instructed the challengers to respond to the state’s request by the afternoon of September 5; the order indicates that the district court’s order will remain on hold until the response is received and either the Supreme Court or he takes further action on the state’s request.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday blocked rulings from a federal court in Texas that had called for revisions to congressional and state legislative districts in the state after the court found that the districts violated the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act. The Supreme Court’s brief order, in a long-running dispute over legislative maps drawn after the 2010 census, made it more likely that the 2018 election will be held using maps rejected by a three-judge panel of the Federal District Court for the Western District of Texas, in San Antonio. The Supreme Court’s order will remain in place while it considers the state’s appeal. The vote was 5 to 4 and divided along ideological lines, with the court’s more conservative members in the majority.

Two things to keep in mind here. The idea of “minority-majority” districts is simply a racist idea that has been used by Democrats and Republicans to create a political spoils system for minority politicians. The second point is that courts are increasingly saying that party=race and so a map that would be completely legal if it were all white suddenly becomes illegal because of the degree to which black voters are in thrall to the Democrat party.

The Democrats are carrying out a concentrated attack on redistricting because they hold a distinct minority of state houses and governor’s mansions and have been on the losing end too often. So they are attacking the process at every point. The Texas case uses race, there is a case in Wisconsin that tries to ensure districts mirror the voter make-up of the state. Essentially, the Wisconsin case tries to make party registration an impermissible criteria in redistricting…while keeping race and ethnicity.

The only legal consideration in constructing districts should be ‘one-man-one-vote.’ Beyond that it is a political and a partisan issue.</s>WASHINGTON (AP) — A divided Supreme Court is blocking lower court rulings that ordered Texas to redraw some congressional and legislative districts.

The 5-4 order issued late Tuesday means the state almost certainly will hold elections next year in districts that were struck down as racially discriminatory.

The court’s four liberal justices, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, would have allowed the redrawing of the affected districts.</s>WASHINGTON (AP/KXAN) — A divided Supreme Court is blocking lower court rulings that ordered Texas to redraw some congressional and legislative districts.

The 5-4 order issued late Tuesday means the state almost certainly will hold elections next year in districts that were struck down as racially discriminatory.

The court’s four liberal justices, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, would have allowed the redrawing of the affected districts.

In a statement Tuesday night, Congressman Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, said he has always said the Supreme Court would have final say on his 35th Congressional District, which he has served for almost five years.

“Now there is certainty that [my district] will remain precisely the same for the next election. Filing for that election begins in only two months. I will maintain my active involvement in San Antonio, Austin, San Marcos, Lockhart and the other communities along I-35,” Doggett said.

Attorney General Ken Paxton celebrated the decision, saying the Supreme Court confirmed what everyone already knew: “Texas should be able to use maps in 2018 that the district court itself adopted in 2012 and Texas used in the last three election cycles.”

Attorney General Ken Paxton released the following statement tonight after the U.S. Supreme Court, in separate rulings, blocked two lower court rulings that invalidated parts of Texas’ House and congressional maps.

He continued, “In 2012 the Supreme Court ordered the district court to adopt lawful maps, and we believe it did so. We are eager to proceed with this case in the high court.”

The attorney general’s office say the justices’ 5-4 decisions stay a San Antonio district court’s rulings as the Supreme Court takes up Attorney General Paxton’s appeal. The lower court invalidated two of Texas’ 36 congressional seats (27 and 35) and nine of Texas’ 150 House seats.</s>The Supreme Court keeps the current map in place pending further appeal.

AUSTIN – The U.S. Supreme Court in a 5-4 ruling blocked a move by a lower court that would have led to the drawing of at least two Texas congressional districts.

The high court essentially keeps in place the order handed down late last month by Justice Samuel Alito that said the districts can stay in place until the challenge to the congressional maps can play out in court.

On Aug. 15, a three-judge panel ruled that Republican U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold's 27th District and the 35th District held by Austin Democrat Lloyd Doggett were drawn deliberately and illegally dilute the voting strength of minorities.

That ruling set in motion plans that would have forced the Legislature or the federal court to remedy the maps.

The two districts share a small common border near the town of Lockhart east of Austin. Redrawing them to lessen the effect on minority voters would likely mean that several other districts not directly addressed in the ruling by the three-judge panel also would have to be altered.

The court’s four-member conservative faction – Chief Justice John Roberts, Justices Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch – was joined by the centrist Anthony Kennedy to keep Alito’s order in place. The liberal faction – Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Ellen Kagen – would have allowed the redrawing of the districts to go forward.

John C. Moritz covers Texas government and politics for the USA Today Network in Austin. Contact him at John.Moritz@caller.com and follow him on Twitter @JohnnieMo.</s>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to take up a fresh challenge to a commission in Arizona that draws legislative districts just a day after ruling on a related case.

The new case, brought by a group of voters, questions some of the decisions made by the commission, including the consideration of minorities in drawing state legislative boundaries.

The court’s 5-4 ruling on Monday rejected a constitutional challenge to the commission’s role in drawing congressional districts.

In that decision, the court found that the ballot initiative tha6t set up the commission did not violate the U.S. Constitution’s requirement that state legislatures set congressional district boundaries.

The new case focuses on state districts drawn for the 2012 election based on 2010 census numbers. The challengers say the new districts favored Democrats over Republicans by overpopulating Republican-leaning districts. They say the commission violated the U.S. Constitution’s principle of “one person, one vote.”

A federal court in Arizona upheld the districts in a 2014 ruling, saying the commission had made a “good faith attempt” to comply with the federal Voting Rights Act, which protects minority voters.

In addition to the new Arizona case, the court has already agreed to hear a similar case concerning redistricting in Texas.

The court will hear oral arguments and decide both cases in its next term, which starts in October and ends in June 2016.

The case is Harris v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 14-232.
The United States Supreme Court confirms (5–4) a temporary stay of a lower court ruling which would have required Texas to undergo new redistricting of congressional districts with large Hispanic and African American populations. The ruling was made in advance of a formal hearing on the gerrymandering case, Abbott v. Perez, which has no scheduled hearing date yet.