California urges court docket to allow it to make use of congressional map enacted to counter Republican beneficial properties in Texas

Attorneys for the state of California on Thursday urged the Supreme Court to depart in place a brand new congressional map supposed to provide Democrats 5 extra seats within the U.S. Home of Representatives. Christopher Hu, the deputy solicitor common of California, known as the need by Republicans to retain a majority within the Home a “pure political goal.” However it’s “deeply unnatural,” the state contended, for a bunch of California Republicans difficult the map to ask the justices “to step into the political fray, granting one political social gathering a sizeable benefit by enjoining California’s partisan gerrymander after having allowed” Texas to implement a map supposed to permit Republicans to choose up 5 extra seats in that state.

The submitting was the newest chapter within the battle by each political events to attempt to acquire a bonus within the Home – the place Republicans at the moment have a majority by solely a slim margin – by redistricting. As a common rule, states solely redraw their maps each 10 years, in response to the decennial census. However in August, underneath strain from the Division of Justice, Texas adopted a brand new map that it hoped would give Republicans 5 extra seats within the Home.

In November, a three-judge district court docket – which Congress has charged with listening to congressional redistricting challenges – ruled that there was “[s]ubstantial proof” that Texas had relied too closely on race in drawing the map, and it prohibited the state from utilizing the brand new map within the 2026 elections.

Texas went to the Supreme Court, which on Dec. 4 granted the state’s request to place the decrease court docket’s ruling on maintain. The court docket’s three Democratic appointees dissented from that call.

In August, the California Legislature adopted the Election Rigging Response Act to create a congressional map with 5 new Democratic seats. A 2010 modification to the state’s structure gave an impartial fee, fairly than the Legislature, the ability to redistrict. The act thus proposed a brand new poll initiative, generally known as Proposition 50, that might amend the state structure to permit using the brand new map from 2026 by 2030. On Nov. 4, 2025, voters in California accredited the measure in a particular election, with 64% of the roughly 11 million voters casting ballots in favor of the momentary redistricting.

A bunch of California Republicans went to court docket three days later, looking for to dam using the map. Just like the challengers within the Texas case, they contended that the map violated the Structure by counting on race as the first think about drawing 16 congressional districts, impermissibly favoring Latinos there.

A divided three-judge district court docket in Los Angeles declined to do so. The bulk opinion, written by U.S. District Decide Josephine Staton, concluded “that the proof of any racial motivation driving redistricting is exceptionally weak, whereas the proof of partisan motivations is overwhelming.” The bulk additionally rejected the challengers’ competition that “even when the voters supposed to undertake the Proposition 50 Map as a partisan counterweight to Texas’s redistricting, their intent doesn’t matter, as they have been merely dupes of a racially-motivated legislature.” As a substitute, the bulk decided that “the voters’ intent in adopting the Proposition 50 Map … was precisely as one would suppose:  it was partisan.”

The challengers got here to the Supreme Court on Jan. 20, asking the justices to intervene. They argued that “[f]rom the outset of California’s redistricting efforts, the intention of offsetting a perceived racial gerrymander in Texas was specific.” Additionally they contended that almost all of the three-judge district court docket ought to have given extra weight to the testimony by the non-public marketing consultant who drew the California map – who “boasted publicly and on social media,” they mentioned, that the brand new map “would preserve, if not broaden, Latino voting energy in California.” They additional informed the justices that they have been merely looking for a “slender injunction” that might protect the established order by requiring California to make use of the congressional map in place for the final two federal election cycles. Lastly, they requested the court docket to behave by Feb. 9, when the window opens in California for congressional candidates to file paperwork declaring their candidacies.

Two days later, the Trump administration (which had additionally sought to dam the brand new map within the district court docket) filed a brief supporting the challengers’ request. U.S. Solicitor Common D. John Sauer conceded that “California’s motivation in adopting the … map as a complete was undoubtedly to counteract Texas’s political gerrymander. However that overarching political objective,” he argued, “is just not a license for district-level racial gerrymandering.”

In its temporary on Thursday, the state contended that the challengers “have all however deserted any concept that Proposition 50 as a complete was adopted to profit Latino voters.” Certainly, it mentioned, the brand new map has the identical variety of majority-Latino districts – 16 – because the previous one. “It will be passing unusual for California to undertake a mid-decade effort with the predominant objective of benefitting Latino voters after which enact a brand new map that comprises an similar quantity of Latino-majority districts,” the state wrote. And even to the extent that the challengers now concentrate on alleged racial gerrymandering in only one district, the state continued, there too “the Latino voting-age inhabitants decreased after Proposition 50’s enactment.”

The state additional argued that the challengers “are asking the Court docket to deal with California’s map otherwise from the way it handled Texas’s map, thereby permitting a Republican-led State to have interaction in partisan gerrymandering whereas forbidding a Democratic-led State from responding in form.” Within the Texas case, the state advised, “there was no less than some controversial proof that race performed a task in redistricting.” However right here, it countered, “there’s nothing remotely near direct or circumstantial proof that race was the predominant motivation for any of Proposition 50’s districts.”

The state pushed again towards the challengers’ suggestion that the district court docket relied solely on the voters’ intent in holding that there was no racial motive behind the brand new map. That court docket additionally thought of statements by the non-public marketing consultant and state legislators, however it nonetheless didn’t discover sufficient proof of racial motive, the state wrote.

The state cautioned the court docket towards intervening, telling the justices that placing the decrease court docket’s determination on maintain “would nullify the selection of over 64% of California voters and thrust the Court docket right into a hotly contested, ongoing partisan dispute amongst a number of States, the present federal administration, and our Nation’s two main political events”

And in any occasion, the state concluded, it’s too late for the court docket to step in now. California, it emphasised, is now lower than 4 months away from its major election. Candidates have begun “fundraising in earnest and introducing themselves and their platforms to voters—all on the belief that they are going to be operating within the new districts. Forcing California to desert its new map would wreak havoc on these campaigns,” the state wrote.

Each the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the League of United Latin American Citizens, which joined the case under to defend the map, additionally filed briefs urging the court docket to disclaim the challengers’ request and hold the brand new map in place.