{"id":134504,"date":"2026-01-15T09:33:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T09:33:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/134504\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T09:33:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T09:33:17","slug":"federal-judges-uphold-californias-new-congressional-maps-favoring-democrats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/134504\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal judges uphold California\u2019s new congressional maps favoring Democrats"},"content":{"rendered":"

A three-judge panel ruled Wednesday that the new congressional maps created by California voters<\/a> in the fall are legal and should remain in place, handing a win to state Democrats who hope the new districts will swing five congressional seats for their party next year.<\/p>\n

The ruling denies a request by California Republicans and the Trump administration for the federal court in Los Angeles to issue a preliminary injunction blocking the maps created by Proposition 50<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the 117-page ruling<\/a>, the federal judges rejected GOP arguments that the new maps amounted to racial gerrymandering, which has been prohibited by the U.S. Supreme Court. The panel ruled 2-1, with the two Democratic appointees ruling for California and Judge Kenneth K. Lee, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, dissenting.<\/p>\n

In the opinion, Judge Josephine Staton wrote that the panel\u2019s conclusion \u201cprobably seems obvious to anyone who followed the news\u201d about Proposition 50 last year. She noted that during the campaign, no one ever described the new maps as racially motivated \u2014 including the Republican plaintiffs.<\/p>\n

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\u201cNo one on either side of that debate characterized the map as a racial gerrymander,\u201d the opinion states, noting that the California Republican Party called it a \u201cpolitical power grab to help Democrats retake Congress and impeach Trump,\u201d and Attorney General Pamela J. Bondi deemed it a \u201credistricting power grab\u201d for political gain.\u201d<\/p>\n

The judges also rejected Republican arguments that the voters\u2019 intent did not matter. The majority wrote that voters clearly were endorsing the argument that both sides were making: that this was a partisan power grab, aimed at giving Democrats a leg up in the midterm elections and counteracting what GOP-led states were doing with their own districts.<\/p>\n

Democrats celebrated the ruling.<\/p>\n

\u201cRepublicans\u2019 weak attempt to silence voters failed. California voters overwhelmingly supported Prop 50 \u2014 to respond to Trump\u2019s rigging in Texas \u2014 and that is exactly what this court concluded,\u201d Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Newsom pushed lawmakers to put Proposition 50 on a special statewide ballot<\/a> after Trump set off a mid-decade redistricting scramble by demanding Texas redraw its maps to benefit Republicans.<\/p>\n

In his dissenting opinion, Lee wrote that race \u201clikely played a predominant role in drawing at least one district because the smoking gun is in the hands of Paul Mitchell,\u201d referring to a Democratic consultant who helped draw the new lines.<\/p>\n

Lee argued that Mitchell publicly \u201cboasted\u201d about boosting Latino voting power in the 13th Congressional District in theCentral Valley, and that voter intent should not be the only basis for the court\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be sure, California\u2019s main goal was to add more Democratic congressional seats. But that larger political gerrymandering plan does not allow California to smuggle in racially gerrymandered seats,\u201d said Lee, who wrote that Democrats likely wanted to create a Latino majority district \u201cas part of a racial spoils system to award a key constituency that may be drifting away from the Democratic party.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ruling could be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

Congressional candidates have until March 6 to file papers to run for office in the June primary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A three-judge panel ruled Wednesday that the new congressional maps created by California voters in the fall are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134505,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[21021,7,9,8,68681,2817,1282,1920,68682],"class_list":["post-134504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-21021","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-congressional","tag-maps","tag-new","tag-prop","tag-upheld"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134504","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=134504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}