A federal court ruled in favor of California’s new congressional map Wednesday, saying the fact that the lines were approved by voters as a way to give Democrats more political power shields it from any questions about being an illegal racial gerrymander.
The 2-1 ruling upholds a very Democrat-friendly map that the state pursued to counter a GOP-friendly map adopted by Texas.
The court said California may have been engaged in a partisan power grab, as opponents have claimed, but the map is not an illegal racial gerrymander.
“We find that the evidence presented reflects that Proposition 50 was exactly what it was billed as: a political gerrymander designed to flip five Republican-held seats to the Democrats,” wrote U.S. District Judge Josephine Staton, an Obama appointee to the court in central California.
The ruling is a major loss for the Republican Party and a legal loss for Attorney General Pam Bondi, who ordered the Justice Department to intervene, siding with the GOP in challenging the new map.
Unless a higher court overturns the decision, experts expect the GOP to lose perhaps five U.S. House seats in the state in November’s election. That would reduce Republicans to just four of the state’s 52 seats.
That would be a huge victory for Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat with White House ambitions, who led the unusual mid-decade redistricting as retaliation for Texas’s own redistricting.
California’s map is usually drawn by a commission, but Mr. Newsom led the Democrat-controlled legislature in passing legislation to toss aside the commission and put the new Democrat-dominant map before voters last November as Proposition 50.
It passed with more than 64% of the vote.
Mr. Newsom gloated over Wednesday’s victory.
“Republicans’ weak attempt to silence voters failed. California voters overwhelmingly supported Prop 50 – to respond to Trump’s rigging in Texas – and that is exactly what this court concluded,” he said.
The case was heard by a three-judge panel make up of two district judges and one circuit appeals judge.
That member, U.S. Circuit Judge Kenneth K. Lee, a Trump appointee, dissented.
He said the evidence was clear that Paul Mitchell, the mapmaker who drew the eventual map adopted by the legislature and voters, looked to race to create at least one of the new districts.
“To be sure, California’s main goal was to add more Democratic congressional seats. But that larger political gerrymandering plan does not allow California to smuggle in racially gerrymandered seats,” Judge Lee wrote.
He said the state could have created a similarly Democrat-tilted map without carving out one particular new Hispanic-heavy district. Judge Lee speculated that Mr. Mitchell drew the district to win back Latinos who are drifting from the Democratic Party.
Judge Staton, though, said there was no such evidence presented in the case to back up those claims.
Texas’s map has already survived a court challenge that went all the way to the Supreme Court, where the justices allowed the new GOP-friendly map to be used this year.
Republicans hope that map will net five GOP seats. Democrats currently hold 13 of the state’s 38 seats, or 34%, in a state where Democratic nominee Kamala Harris won 42% of the vote in 2024.
California’s gerrymander could be even more extreme, reducing the GOP to just 8% of the state’s congressional seats in a state where President Trump won 38% of the vote two years ago.
North Carolina, Missouri and Ohio have also adopted new maps in favor of the GOP. A court ruling, meanwhile, has delivered a more Democrat-friendly map in Utah.
Virginia is still pursuing a Democratic gerrymander and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis last week announced a push to redraw his state’s lines.
