Washington ? The Supreme Court told a lower court Monday to review a redrawing of Texas’ congressional districts that may cost Democrats up to six House seats, but the order won’t affect the Nov. 2 elections.

The justices’ one-sentence statement gave Republicans a short-term victory because the new district lines — engineered by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas — should help the GOP gain seats and extend its 10-year hold on the House. Republicans currently control the chamber by 227-205, plus an independent and two vacancies.

“The court’s decision has no impact on the current election,” said Rep. Tom Reynolds, R-N.Y., head of the House GOP campaign organization. “As I see it, the Democrats lose several incumbents come Nov. 2.”

But in the longer term, Monday’s order breathes fresh life into Democratic court challenges to the Texas redistricting plan. Democrats say the new lines were drawn to defeat Democratic lawmakers by putting them in the same districts as other incumbents or giving them thousands of new or Republican constituents.

“Any time you have an illegal process, you’re likely to get illegal results,” said Gerry Hebert, an attorney for Democrats in the suit. “Today’s decision sets the stage for a court to ultimately find that this map was illegal.”

Monday’s order ships the case back to a three-judge federal panel in Texas. However it rules, the case seems likely to end up before the Supreme Court again. “I see this as the Supreme Court punting right before the national election,” said Richard Hasen, an election law expert at Loyola Law School. “It buys the Supreme Court another term before it has to rethink the issue.”

At the dispute’s center is DeLay, one of Congress’ most powerful Republicans and a man whom Democrats have tried to cast as a symbol of GOP extremism.

The Constitution requires states to draw new congressional districts every 10 years to reflect population shifts measured by the census. Texas state legislators failed to pass a new map for the state’s 32 House seats in 2001, after the new census numbers were available, so a federal court drew up a plan.

Republicans won control of the state legislature in the 2002 elections and, with DeLay’s encouragement, started crafting another map in 2003. To try blocking GOP-written maps, Democratic lawmakers staged quorum-breaking walkouts and even fled to nearby states, but Republicans ultimately prevailed.

Congressional Democrats complained about DeLay’s role in the battle. Earlier this month, the bipartisan House ethics committee concluded DeLay raised “serious concerns” by contacting the Federal Aviation Administration last year to help locate Texas Democrats who flew to Oklahoma to try thwarting passage of the redistricting plan.