By Andrew Chung<\/p>\n
WASHINGTON, Jan 20 (Reuters) \u2013 California Republicans asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday to intervene in a bid to prevent the state from using a new congressional map designed to give the Democrats five more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.<\/p>\n
The state Republican Party and other challengers filed an \u200demergency request asking the Supreme Court to block California\u2019s new map, which was endorsed by voters as a counterweight to a similar redistricting effort in Texas aimed at boosting Republicans. A federal court on January 14 rejected the argument by the challengers that California illegally used race in redrawing the boundaries of the congressional districts.<\/p>\n
The dispute represents another front in an ongoing nationwide battle over redistricting that was begun last summer by President Donald Trump\u2019s request that Republican lawmakers redraw state congressional maps, starting with Texas, to help protect the \u200cparty\u2019s narrow U.S. House majority in the November 2026 midterm elections.<\/p>\n
The Supreme Court, which has \u200ca 6-3 conservative majority, ruled in December to let Texas proceed with its new map.<\/p>\n
Republicans currently hold slim majorities in both chambers of Congress. Ceding control of either the House or Senate to the Democrats in the November 2026 elections would endanger Trump\u2019s legislative agenda and open the door to Democratic-led congressional investigations targeting the president.<\/p>\n
The new Texas map could flip as many as \u200bfive currently Democratic-held House seats to Republicans. Democratic-governed California reacted to the Texas redistricting move by initiating its own effort that could flip five Republican-held districts in the state to Democrats. California voters last November approved a ballot measure to \u200dallow lawmakers to adopt the new map.<\/p>\n
The California Republican Party and other \u200bplaintiffs, joined by Trump\u2019s administration, sued in Los Angeles federal court to block the new \u200bmap, claiming it illegally used \u201crace as a predominant factor\u201d to favor Latino voters, in violation of the U.S. Constitution\u2019s 14th Amendment \u200dguarantee of equal protection under the law, 15th Amendment prohibition on racial discrimination in voting and the federal Voting Rights Act.<\/p>\n
That federal court on January 14 refused to block the map.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause we find that the evidence of any racial motivation driving redistricting is exceptionally weak, while the evidence of partisan motivations is overwhelming, challengers are not entitled to preliminary relief on any of their claims,\u201d the court said in a 2-1 decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur conclusion probably seems obvious to anyone who followed \u200dthe news in the summer and fall of 2025,\u201d the ruling stated.<\/p>\n
In their filing on Tuesday, the challengers to California\u2019s map said that state officials sought to \u201cshore up Latino support for the Democratic Party\u201d through the \u201cpernicious and unconstitutional use of race.\u201d<\/p>\n
Redrawing the \u200dboundaries of electoral districts in a state \u200dis a process called redistricting. States typically create new maps each decade to reflect \u200bnew census data, though the recent rounds of redistricting have been motivated by securing partisan \u200badvantage, a \u2060practice also known as partisan gerrymandering.<\/p>\n
The Supreme Court removed a key constraint against partisan \u200cgerrymandering, which critics have said warps democracy, in a major 2019 ruling that declared that such actions cannot be challenged in federal courts.<\/p>\n
The Supreme Court\u2019s decision to green-light the Texas redistricting effort, over the dissent of the court\u2019s three liberal justices, appeared to acknowledge the political motivations of both that state and California.<\/p>\n
Conservative Justice Samuel Alito additionally wrote in a concurring opinion that it was indisputable that the \u201cimpetus for the adoption of the Texas map (like the map subsequently adopted in California) was partisan advantage pure and simple.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Andrew \u2060Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Andrew Chung WASHINGTON, Jan 20 (Reuters) \u2013 California Republicans asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":142334,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-142349","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-california-headlines","10":"tag-california-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142349","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=142349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}