\n\t\t\t\t\t\tA panel of federal judges on Wednesday upheld California’s voter-approved measure that temporarily redraws congressional lines to favor Democrats.Proposition 50 was originally introduced as a countermeasure to Texas’ efforts to send more Republicans to the U.S. House of Representatives. Ahead of the midterm elections, where power shifts can often happen, President Donald Trump asked Texas to redraw its districts to send more Republicans to Congress.This prompted Gov. Gavin Newsom and other top Democratic leaders to ask voters in a special election whether the state should use district lines meant to favor Democrats by targeting five Republican strongholds, including the district held by the late U.S. House Rep. Doug LaMalfa.Once voters approved Prop. 50, Republicans against the new maps filed legal action, arguing that the proposition violated the Voting Rights Act by drawing maps to favor Hispanic and Latino voters.In a 2-1 decision, judges rejected that claim. Supporters and opponents of Prop. 50 now anticipate the case heading to the U.S. Supreme Court. Earlier, the Supreme Court upheld Texas’ redrawn maps.\u201cRepublicans\u2019 weak attempt to silence voters failed,” a statement from Newsom’s office shortly after the ruling read. “California voters overwhelmingly supported Prop 50 \u2013 to respond to Trump\u2019s rigging in Texas \u2013 and that is exactly what this court concluded.\u201dThe majority order denying the request for an injunction to put Prop. 50’s maps on hold stated, “The United States fails to show that the voters acted with discriminatory intent.”Read the full document here.\u201cCalifornia sullied its hands with this sordid business when it engaged in racial gerrymandering as part of its mid-decade congressional redistricting plan to add five more Democratic House seats,” read the dissenting statement from the Hon. Kenneth Lee. “We know race likely played a predominant role in drawing at least one district because the smoking gun is in the hands of Paul Mitchell, the mapmaker who drew the congressional redistricting map adopted by the California state legislature.\u201dAs part of Wednesday’s order, judges also denied a second motion for an injunction filed by California Assemblymember David Tangipa, who was part of the lawsuit attempting to halt the new maps.Under Prop. 50, the redrawn maps will be used for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections. California, since two voter-approved measures in 2008 and 2010, has been relying on a citizens-led independent commission to redraw maps after each census.The act of redrawing maps to specifically favor a political party is known as gerrymandering, a practice once kept subtle that is now at the center of the 2026 midterm elections. Several states, since the efforts by Texas and California, have either considered or pushed for their own gerrymandering efforts.See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tSACRAMENTO, Calif. \u2014 \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
A panel of federal judges on Wednesday upheld California’s voter-approved measure that temporarily redraws congressional lines to favor Democrats.<\/p>\n
Proposition 50 was originally introduced as a countermeasure to Texas’ efforts to send more Republicans to the U.S. House of Representatives. Ahead of the midterm elections, where power shifts can often happen, President Donald Trump asked Texas to redraw its districts to send more Republicans to Congress.<\/p>\n
This prompted Gov. Gavin Newsom and other top Democratic leaders to ask voters in a special election whether the state should use district lines meant to favor Democrats by targeting five Republican strongholds, including the district held by the late U.S. House Rep. Doug LaMalfa.<\/p>\n
Once voters approved Prop. 50, Republicans against the new maps filed legal action, arguing that the proposition violated the Voting Rights Act by drawing maps to favor Hispanic and Latino voters.<\/p>\n
In a 2-1 decision, judges rejected that claim. Supporters and opponents of Prop. 50 now anticipate the case heading to the U.S. Supreme Court. Earlier, the Supreme Court upheld Texas’ redrawn maps.<\/p>\n
\u201cRepublicans\u2019 weak attempt to silence voters failed,” a statement from Newsom’s office shortly after the ruling read. “California voters overwhelmingly supported Prop 50 \u2013 to respond to Trump\u2019s rigging in Texas \u2013 and that is exactly what this court concluded.\u201d<\/p>\n
The majority order denying the request for an injunction to put Prop. 50’s maps on hold stated, “The United States fails to show that the voters acted with discriminatory intent.”<\/p>\n
Read the full document here<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cCalifornia sullied its hands with this sordid business when it engaged in racial gerrymandering as part of its mid-decade congressional redistricting plan to add five more Democratic House seats,” read the dissenting statement from the Hon. Kenneth Lee. “We know race likely played a predominant role in drawing at least one district because the smoking gun is in the hands of Paul Mitchell, the mapmaker who drew the congressional redistricting map adopted by the California state legislature.\u201d<\/p>\n As part of Wednesday’s order, judges also denied a second motion for an injunction filed by California Assemblymember David Tangipa, who was part of the lawsuit attempting to halt the new maps.<\/p>\n Under Prop. 50, the redrawn maps will be used for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections. California, since two voter-approved measures in 2008 and 2010, has been relying on a citizens-led independent commission to redraw maps after each census.<\/p>\n The act of redrawing maps to specifically favor a political party is known as gerrymandering, a practice once kept subtle that is now at the center of the 2026 midterm elections. Several states, since the efforts by Texas and California, have either considered or pushed for their own gerrymandering efforts.<\/p>\n See more coverage of top California stories here<\/a> | Download our app<\/a> | Subscribe to our morning newsletter<\/a> | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A panel of federal judges on Wednesday upheld California’s voter-approved measure that temporarily redraws congressional lines to favor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133754,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,1751,4579,536,4416,5782,457,4059,68411,4973,26447,16969,1920,1362,4489,1361,991,62748,225,2214,564,1522],"class_list":["post-133753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-democrats","tag-district","tag-donald-trump","tag-effort","tag-federal-judge","tag-gavin-newsom","tag-gerrymandering","tag-legality","tag-midterm-election","tag-more-republicans","tag-new-map","tag-prop","tag-prop-50","tag-proposition","tag-proposition-50","tag-redistricting","tag-scotus","tag-state","tag-supreme-court","tag-texas","tag-voter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}