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NPR- A bitterly divided Supreme Court on Monday upheld the redrawing of congressional and state legislative maps in Texas. The decision reversed earlier court findings that intentional racial discrimination had infected the way that some statehouse and congressional districts were drawn — and came five years to the day after the high court struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act.
The Texas decision comes in a case that has lasted so long and is so complicated that even election experts find it daunting to discuss. The case has pinged and ponged between two separate three-judge federal courts and the U.S. Supreme Court.
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The bottom line, though, is that even though the lower court in Texas ruled that districts in and around the state’s biggest cities had been drawn to minimize minority voting power, the Supreme Court only agreed with the lower court about one state legislative district, in Fort Worth.
As the state’s Republican Gov. Greg Abbott gleefully tweeted Monday, “Our legislative maps are legal. Democrats lost their redistricting & Voter ID claims.”
