LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – California Republicans, backed by the Trump administration, launched a legal challenge Monday against the state’s newly approved congressional district map, arguing it unlawfully relies on race and would hand Democrats as many as five additional seats in the U.S. House. The lawsuit seeks to block the map from being used in next year’s elections, with Republicans requesting a preliminary injunction while the case proceeds. They contend the map amounts to unconstitutional racial gerrymandering rather than permissible political line-drawing.
A three-judge federal panel is hearing the case in Los Angeles, with testimony scheduled over three days. The panel includes judges appointed by Presidents Trump, Obama, and Biden, and will decide whether race or politics was the dominant factor in how the districts were drawn. The stakes are high, as the outcome could significantly influence the balance of power in the House during the upcoming midterm elections. Governor Gavin Newsom championed the ballot measure, known as Proposition 50, after Texas lawmakers redrew their own congressional map to gain additional Republican seats.
Republicans opened the evidentiary hearing by calling election analyst Sean Trende, who testified that the redrawing of California’s 13th Congressional District—an area that supported Trump in the last election—suggested a deliberate effort to boost Hispanic voter representation rather than simply consolidate Democratic voters. Trende pointed to the district’s irregular boundaries, arguing they appeared designed to pull in heavily Hispanic neighborhoods near Stockton while excluding nearby areas with high concentrations of Democratic voters.
He described the district’s shape as evidence of a racial objective, asserting that such boundaries could not be explained by political considerations alone. Racial gerrymandering is generally prohibited unless narrowly tailored to comply with the Voting Rights Act, whereas partisan gerrymandering remains largely permissible under Supreme Court precedent. As a result, Republicans must prove that race—not politics—was the primary driver behind the mapmaker’s decisions.
Under cross-examination, Trende acknowledged that the overall map favors Democrats and that some of the urban areas added to the 13th District may also lean Democratic. He also conceded that in earlier testimony before the California Supreme Court, he had characterized the redistricting effort as politically motivated. That admission could complicate the Republican case, which hinges on demonstrating racial intent rather than partisan advantage.
The legal challenge faces additional hurdles following a recent Supreme Court decision declining to block Texas’s redistricting map. In that ruling, the Court criticized lower courts for intervening too close to an election, warning against disrupting ongoing campaigns and upsetting the balance between federal and state authority over elections. That precedent could weigh heavily as the panel considers whether to halt California’s new map ahead of next year’s vote.