A three-judge panel of district judges in Los Angeles voted to uphold the new California Congressional map, drawn to benefit Democrats in the upcoming midterm elections and approved by a state ballot initiative.
Judge Josephine Staton, an Obama appointee, and Judge Wesley Hsu, a Biden appointee, ruled in favor of the map and did not believe it was racially gerrymandered. Trump appointee Judge Kenneth Lee dissented.
The case was brought about by the California Republican Party and the Justice Department following the passage of Proposition 50, a state ballot initiative approved by voters in the 2025 off-year elections.
“We find that Challengers have failed to show that racial gerrymandering occurred, and we conclude that there is no basis for issuing a preliminary injunction,” Staton wrote in the majority opinion. “Our conclusion probably seems obvious to anyone who followed the news in the summer and fall of 2025.”
The California Republican Party or the Department of Justice could now seek emergency relief from the Supreme Court.
However, the Supreme Court in December ruled in favor of an update to the Texas Congressional map, allowing it to stand and rejecting similar arguments aimed at throwing it out.
In that case, Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch specifically wrote that Texas’s map update was motivated by “partisan advantage pure and simple.” Despite that, it was not racially gerrymandered, thus it can be allowed to stand.
The same principle would likely apply to a potential review of the California case, should it be appealed to the Supreme Court.
