“We are a higher court, but not a better one”: Kagan rages at SCOTUS decision to allow Texas maps

The Supreme Court gave Texas the go-ahead to use Republican-favoring maps in the 2026 midterms on Thursday, staying a lower court’s ruling that the maps were likely the result of an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. In a blistering dissent many times longer than the court’s order, Justice Elena Kagan hammered the court’s conservatives for the casual way they tossed aside the lower court’s extensive work to determine that race was a key factor in the drawing of the maps.

“The District Court conducted a nine-day hearing, involving the testimony of nearly two dozen witnesses and the introduction of thousands of exhibits. It sifted through the resulting factual record, spanning some 3,000 pages. It assessed the credibility of each of the witnesses it had seen and heard in the courtroom. An