The Kentucky Supreme Court hands state Democrats a defeat in their challenge to new Republican drawn legislative and congressional maps.

The Kentucky Democratic Party, members of the Democratic state House and four Kentucky voters brought the redistricting case before the state's high court.

They argued the Republican drawn maps for congressional and state House districts passed in 2022 amounted to Partizan gerrymandering and violated the state Constitutions guarantee of, quote, free and equal elections.

The Supreme Court justices were asked to weigh in on the case after a lower court ruled that taking partizan interests into consideration when redistricting new maps was not a violation of the state constitution.

The justices sided with the lower court in their ruling, saying in part, quote, They allege Partizanship and the crafting of the apportionment plans does not rise to the level of a clear, flagrant or unwarranted deviation from constitution limitations or a threat to our democratic form of government, end quote.

Democratic Governor Andy Beshear was asked his reaction to today's ruling.

I saw just one line that said, you know, if people don't like the way the districts are redrawn, they should vote the people out.

Well, wait.

The districts are redrawn to make it harder to vote people out.

And so way the ruling is what it is and we'll have to move forward.

But we've got to get to a point where redistricting is about the people and not the politics.

Also commenting on today's ruling, Kentucky's secretary of state, Republican Michael Adams, in a statement, he called the lawsuit frivolous and said it, quote, sought to impose a different set of election rules through the courts.

Following Democrats loss of legislative control that they had previously won for decades under those very rules and quote, a spokesman for the Republican Party of Kentucky also reacted to today's news, saying, quote, The court rightfully rejected the Democrat effort to manipulate the political process and sue their way into the Congress and the state House and quote, Maine.

While Democratic caucus leaders in the Kentucky House say they disagree with the court's decision.

They say the ruling, quote, gives legislative majorities much more authority to protect themselves at the expense of many voters while guaranteeing more political polarization for decades to come, unquote.

We'll have more analysis of today's ruling when we go inside Kentucky politics tomorrow right here on Kentucky Edition.