The legal battle over the redrawing of U.S. House districts in California is headed to the U.S. Supreme Court. A federal appeals court kept in place a congressional map long criticized as favoring Democrats, but a dissenting judge sharply criticized the map as unconstitutional racial gerrymandering.
On the 15th, local time, according to Fox News, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected claims by the California Republican Party and Republican-leaning voters that a voter-approved congressional redistricting plan in California violated the federal Voting Rights Act. The panel upheld the map in a 2-1 decision, allowing California to use it in the next U.S. House elections. The map has been viewed as expanding Democratic-leaning districts, potentially adding up to five House seats.
The lawsuit stemmed from California redrawing districts midcycle rather than through the once-a-decade redistricting that follows the census. California passed a ballot initiative, "Proposition 50," through a referendum to allow midcycle redistricting, a move seen largely as a response to Texas pushing Republican-favored redistricting.
The majority held that the map could not be deemed a Voting Rights Act violation merely because it strengthened representation for Hispanic and Latino voters. Even if a particular racial group's political influence expanded, that does not automatically amount to unconstitutional racial discrimination, the panel said. The court also noted that voters themselves approved the map.
But Judge Kenneth Lee, in dissent, reached the opposite conclusion. "California made race a core criterion in drawing districts to increase Democratic House seats," Lee said. He said it was likely that race played a decisive role in at least one district, calling it a blatant case of racial gerrymandering.
Lee particularly took issue with the role of Democratic strategist Paul Mitchell, who designed the map. He noted that Mitchell, who did not appear at formal public hearings on the mapmaking, had publicly told political insiders that he "designed the map to guarantee Latino-majority districts." Lee said that showed race was not merely a consideration but the starting point of the design.
Lee also concluded that the Democrat-led midcycle redistricting went beyond a simple political response and actively leveraged racial factors to maximize partisan gain. "The rationale of responding to Texas's redistricting cannot justify political engineering that mobilizes race," he said.
With the ruling, the controversy over California's redistricting now moves to the U.S. Supreme Court. The California Republican Party said immediately after the decision that it would seek an emergency injunction from the Supreme Court to temporarily halt the map's effect.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom welcomed the appeals court decision, saying, "Voters chose to restore political balance." He argued the redrawing was a legitimate response to redistricting led by Republican-run states.
Experts say the case could be a major watershed for how far race and political representation can be considered in redistricting. Depending on what the U.S. Supreme Court decides, there could be significant ripple effects on redistricting in other states.