California Republicans asked the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down a new congressional map they say was racially gerrymandered to offset a Texas map expected to improve GOP election performance.
A three-judge federal panel ruled Jan. 14 that the GOP failed to prove racial gerrymandering in California’s redistricting plan, rejecting the Republicans’ bid to block the plan. The Republicans filed an emergency application with the Supreme Court Jan. 20.
The dispute is tied to Texas’ redistricting fight, where the Supreme Court allowed a challenged map — which Democrats decried as racist — to remain in place without ruling on its constitutionality.
California Republicans have asked the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) to strike down a new congressional map that they argue was illegally gerrymandered based on race and deliberately designed to counter a redrawn congressional map in Texas that could give Republicans five additional seats in the House this November.
SCOTUSblog reported that California’s new map — which could add five Democratic seats — was adopted in August, the same month Texas approved its own congressional map. After the California Republican Party sued to block the plan, a three-judge federal panel ruled Jan. 14 that the party had “failed to show that racial gerrymandering occurred,” according to local outlet ABC30.
According to SCOTUSblog, the panel wrote that its conclusion “probably seems obvious to anyone who followed the news in the summer and fall of 2025,” when legal disputes erupted over Texas’ redistricting. In Texas’ case, a lower court ruled that the map was unconstitutional for relying on race in drawing district lines, but SCOTUS issued an emergency stay in December, allowing the map to remain in effect for the upcoming election without ruling on its merits, as Zeale previously reported.
In granting the stay, the justices said the lower court had acted too close to the election. In a concurring opinion, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that Texas’ redistricting effort was motivated by “partisan advantage pure and simple,” which, unlike racial gerrymandering, does not violate the Constitution.
California Republicans filed their emergency application with SCOTUS Jan. 20, seeking an injunction to block the state’s new map and requesting additional briefing and oral arguments, SCOTUSblog reported. They argue that “from the outset of California’s redistricting efforts, the aim of offsetting a perceived racial gerrymander in Texas was explicit,” citing public statements from the mapmaker that the new map “would maintain, if not expand, Latino voting power in California.”
“The majority’s notion that a state can launder racial discrimination simply by putting its discrimination to a vote of the people would offer a clear path for States to bypass the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of racial equality,” the Republicans wrote in their application.
The outlet reported that the application first goes to Justice Elena Kagan, who addresses emergency requests from the region that includes California. She has the choice between settling the matter herself or referring it to the full court.