The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected an emergency request from the California GOP to block a new congressional map that would make it easier for Democrats to pick up seats in the midterm elections.
The unsigned decision clears the way for the new map, which could help the Democrats flip five House seats in the state, to take effect.
California Governor Gavin Newsom, who proposed the new map last year after President Trump urged red states to redraw their own maps to boost Republicans, celebrated the court's ruling in a statement on Wednesday.
"Donald Trump said he was 'entitled' to five more congressional seats in Texas," Newsom said. "He started this redistricting war. He lost, and he'll lose again in November."
Newsom signed two redistricting bills into law in August and put a new Democrat-friendly map up for voter approval in a November 2025 special election.
Just hours after voters approved the plan, the state Republican Party sued, leading a three-judge panel to uphold the map. District Judge Josephine Staton authored the majority opinion that said evidence shows the new map "was exactly what it was billed as: a political gerrymander designed to flip five Republican-held seats to the Democrats."
The California GOP then appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that "under the guise of partisan line-drawing," California "expressly used race" in creating its new map, a "pernicious and unconstitutional" action.
The legal battle played out as the Court allowed Texas Republicans to move forward with their own redistricting efforts, after a panel of federal judges temporarily blocked that map.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote in a concurring opinion in that case in December that it was "indisputable" that "the impetus for the adoption of the Texas map (like the map subsequently adopted in California) was partisan advantage pure and simple." Those efforts therefore are legal, as the efforts to gerrymander are based on party politics rather than race.
In the California case, lawyers for the Trump administration submitted a brief in support of the state party that argued the California map is different from the Texas map because California's map was "tainted by an unconstitutional racial gerrymander," as the administration argued the new map was drawn to bolster Latino voters.
Newsom and California Secretary of State Shirley Weber dismissed the claims of race-based gerrymandering, arguing the number of Latino-majority districts in the state remained unchanged under the new map.
Commentaires
Enregistrer un commentaire
Thank you to leave a comment on my site