Fed Judges Rejects GOP Claim That California Maps Were Racially Gerrymandered After SCOTUS Texas Ruling
The Trump administration’s pressure campaign to get red states across the country to engage in midcycle redistricting has hit another roadblock.
A panel of federal judges rejected a Trump DOJ and California Republican Party request to block California’s new map on Wednesday — once again calling into question the efficacy of the Trump administration’s larger gerrymandering crusade. And although Republicans may appeal, experts tell TPM that given the precedent of a recent Supreme Court ruling upholding Texas’ gerrymandered map, it would be unusual for the Supreme Court to step in.
In a 2-1 ruling on Wednesday, a panel of federal judges ruled in favor of Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and rejected Republicans’ argument that the maps were racially gerrymandered, specifically to favor Latino voters.
“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,” Judge Josephine Staton, a Barack Obama appointee, wrote.
“Having carefully reviewed and weighed the relevant evidence, we find that the evidence presented reflects that Proposition 50 was exactly what it was billed as: a political gerrymander designed to flip five Republican-held seats to the Democrats,” Staton continued.
In response to Republicans’ passage of a new gerrymandered map in Texas last year, Newsom worked with Democratic state lawmakers to spearhead a voter referendum known as Prop 50, allowing lawmakers to temporarily bypass the state’s independent map-drawing commission and approve new congressional district lines for several Republican-dominated and swing districts in the state.
Voters approved Prop 50 this past November, paving the way for new congressional maps that will likely flip five Republican-held seats in California for Democrats in the U.S. House — offsetting the impact of Texas’ maps that are expected to flip five Democratic seats for Republicans.
Wednesday’s ruling comes against the backdrop of a recent Supreme Court ruling that approved the use of a gerrymandered map in Texas for the midterm elections.
Wednesday’s ruling explicitly mentioned that California’s map is similar to Texas’ in that both are partisan, but not racially gerrymandered. That earlier Texas ruling seems to have laid the groundwork for Wednesday’s ruling on California’s map.
Last month, the Supreme Court put on hold a lower court ruling that had initially blocked Texas’ gerrymandered maps from being used in the midterms, finding instead that the District Court’s decision was made too close to the midterm elections. The Supreme Court also ruled that Texas’ map was indeed partisan, but not racially gerrymandered. The court found that a partisan motivation for the new congressional maps was acceptable, but a racial motivation for the map would violate the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.
In a concurring opinion on the Texas map, Justice Sam Alito, who was joined by Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, referenced California specifically, writing that “the impetus for the adoption map (like the map subsequently adopted in California) was partisan advantage pure and simple.”
Given this context, it is unlikely that the Supreme Court would step in and rule that California’s process was different than Texas’, experts say.
“The facts on the ground for the plaintiffs in Texas were always much stronger. And SCOTUS said there, despite an extraordinarily thorough opinion from the trial court, ‘not strong enough,’” Justin Levitt, professor of law at Loyola Marymount University, told TPM. “It’s not really credible for the Court to say that a much weaker set of facts in California are strong enough.”
