Ruling in Texas case favors GOP

Supreme Court leaves legislative voting maps largely intact

WASHINGTON — 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.

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.

In other decisions Monday, the high court:

Ordered Washington state courts to take a new look at the case of a florist who refused to provide services for a same-sex wedding, in light of the justices’ recent ruling in a similar case involving a Colorado baker.

Allowed the family of a California teenager who was fatally shot while holding a pellet gun to go forward with a lawsuit against authorities.

Allowed American Express to continue to bar merchants from steering customers to cards with lower fees.

Said it won’t weigh in on the case of a teenager, Brendan Dassey, convicted of rape and murder whose story was documented in the Netflix series “Making a Murderer.”

Chose not to take on a North Carolina case on partisan redistricting for now. Instead, the justices are sending a dispute over that state’s heavily Republican congressional districting map back to a lower court for more work.