The right-wing justices on the Supreme Court handed Republicans a win on Thursday evening by allowing Texas’ extreme mid-decade gerrymander of its congressional seats to take effect, staying a lower three-judge panel’s finding that it was illegally determined using racial criteria. But buried in a concurrence by the three farthest-right justices was a clear indicator that the GOP’s efforts to stop California’s retaliatory map will also fail.
The line came in a passage written by Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch.
“The dissent does not dispute — because it is indisputable — that the impetus for the adoption of the Texas map (like the map subsequently adopted in California) was partisan advantage pure and simple,” said the passage.
What this indicates, some legal experts flagged, is that if a lower court also tries to block Proposition 50 — a voter-approved referendum in California that draws out five Republican congressional seats there in response to Texas — it will also get reversed by the high court.
“NOTABLE: Alito, Thomas and Gorsuch say they view California’s new map as ‘indisputably’ driven by the pursuit of partisan advantage, as opposed to impermissible race-based goals,” wrote Politico’s Kyle Cheney. “Could bode well … in legal challenges to the CA map.”
Proposition 50 was the brainchild of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who demanded Democrats must respond to GOP efforts to rig congressional maps by offsetting those gains in blue states.
Republicans have filed multiple lawsuits against the referendum in response, arguing that the approved new map, too, relies illegally on racial criteria. One of these lawsuits came from the Justice Department itself, even as DOJ lawyers at Trump’s direction gave the original legal warnings to Texas Republicans that they must redraw their maps to eliminate minority districts.
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