The Department of Justice urged the Supreme Court to take California Republicans’ case surrounding the state’s new congressional map. Solicitor General John Sauer wrote in the filing that the state’s recent redistricting is “tainted by an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.”
“But unlike Texas’s map, the Prop 50 map suffers from a fatal constitutional flaw: one of the districts (District 13) was clearly drawn ‘on the basis of race,'” Sauer added, noting that the “mapmaker himself confirmed as much.”
“Of course, California’s motivation in adopting the Prop 50 map as a whole was undoubtedly to counteract Texas’s political gerrymander,” he further wrote. “But that overarching political goal is not a license for district-level racial gerrymandering.”
According to the filing by California Republicans, state officials “expressly used race as the ‘predominant factor’ in placing ‘a significant number of voters within or without’ Congressional District 13.” If the matter is not addressed, the “pernicious and unconstitutional use of race will irreparably harm Applicants and the public.” The lawsuit argued that officials sought to maximize “Latino voting strength to shore up Latino support for the Democratic Party.”
A three-judge panel recently upheld California’s new redistricting maps approved through Proposition 50 last week, ruling against arguments that the maps favored Hispanics. In a 2-1 decision, the court found that “Challengers have failed to show that racial gerrymandering occurred, and we conclude that there is no basis for issuing a preliminary injunction. Our conclusion probably seems obvious to anyone who followed the news in the summer and fall of 2025.”
