Two major decisions came down from the United States Supreme Court Thursday morning, both of which originated in Texas.
The high court rejected a challenge to the University of Texas’s affirmative action program, upholding the lower court’s ruling. Under the Texas affirmative action program, 10% of the top students in their class are automatically admitted to any public university in the state. After those students are accepted, race is taken into consideration for the remaining applicants.
The supreme court ruled 4-3 on Thursday that UT’s race-based admissions process is constitutional under the equal protection clause.
“Today you know it’s a little troubling over the Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action,” Michael Joyce, spokesperson for the Republican Party of Texas said. “We don’t believe in dividing Texans and dividing them by the color of their skin.”
Texas democrats said they’re happy with the high court’s decision, however Joyce said Texas republicans are calling this a major upset.
Moods quickly changed between the two parties when the supreme court handed down their second big ruling Thursday morning. The eight justices announced they were in deadlock over President Barack Obama’s controversial executive action on immigration order. A tie vote stops Obama’s immigration program from moving forward.
“Well it’s a huge victory for the Republican Party of Texas,” Joyce said. “This whole fight hasn’t been about immigration. Democrats are naive to believe that this is a battle over immigration. This is actually a battle over preventing executive overreach and restoring the rule of law and promoting separation of powers.”
Texas republicans now rejoicing over the second big ruling, however Manny Garcia with the Texas Democratic Party called it a tragedy.
“It’s quite frankly a human tragedy within this country and the result of a broken immigration system that must be fixed,” Garcia said.
Texas was one of 26 states that sued the Obama administration in 2014 over the president’s immigration program. The program would have allowed over 4-million undocumented immigrants to apply for temporary work authorization.
Monday morning the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to release another major decision on abortion and whether the Texas law known as House Bill 2 is constitutional. HB-2 requires abortion clinics to meet the same standards as surgical centers.
