California Republicans on Tuesday asked the Supreme Court to block the state’s new congressional map before it is used in the midterm election, arguing the newly redrawn congressional districts are an illegal racial gerrymander.
In an emergency filing to the justices, lawyers for state Republicans who are challenging the map argued that “under the guise of partisan line-drawing,” California had “expressly used race” to carve up voters into congressional districts, a “pernicious and unconstitutional use of race.”
California’s new map could eliminate as many as five Republican-held seats and significantly aid Democrats as they seek to win control of the House of Representatives in November.
The emergency application marks the latest voting map fight to reach the Supreme Court as pressure builds ahead of the midterm elections. In early December, the justices cleared the way for newly redrawn Texas congressional maps favoring Republicans to be used in the midterms.
Both maps stem from President Trump’s aggressive push for Republican-led states to redraw congressional voting map before the midterm elections. After Texas Republican lawmakers sought to increase the number of Republican seats, California Democratic leaders responded with a similar effort to redraw district lines in hopes of securing more Democratic seats.
The emergency filing in the California case, Tangipa v. Newsom, does not yet appear on the court’s docket, but state Republican leaders released it along with a statement about their request for Supreme Court intervention. The application is addressed to Justice Elena Kagan, who oversees emergency filings from that region of the country.
The California Republican Party has asked the court to immediately block a lower-court decision upholding the maps and reinstate the previous congressional map while the case proceeds through the lower courts. They requested that the justices to rule by Feb. 9, citing the start of the state’s candidate filing period.
The justices are also weighing a broader challenge to the use of race as a factor in drawing up voting maps. In the fall, they heard arguments in a challenge to Louisiana’s voting map. A group of white Louisiana voters had challenged the state’s new congressional district map, arguing that lawmakers improperly considered race in drawing the maps.
Although the case was initially brought as a typical racial gerrymander challenge, the justices announced over the summer that they would rehear the case, considering an expanded question of whether race could be used at all as a factor in drawing voting maps.
That announcement prompted speculation from legal experts about whether a majority of the court favored gutting the Voting Rights Act, landmark legislation from the civil rights era that has been interpreted to allow for legal challenges to ensure that the voting power of minorities is not diluted, so that racial minorities have the opportunity to select candidates of their choice.
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A decision in the Louisiana case could come anytime, and depending on the court’s decision and its scope, could impact other challenges involving the use of race in crafting voting maps, including those in Texas and California.
The justice’s decision in Texas overturned a lower-court ruling that the new state maps were likely an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The decision marked a victory for state Republicans and for Mr. Trump.
As a result, Texas is proceeding to use its new map in the midterm election, even as a legal challenge to it continues in the lower courts.
In that emergency ruling, the justices signaled an awareness of the California maps and analogized to the Texas situation. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., one of the court’s conservatives, wrote in a concurring opinion that it was “indisputable that the impetus for the adoption of the Texas map (like the map subsequently adopted in California) was partisan advantage pure and simple.”
Still, election law and voting rights experts will be watching closely to see if the court applies similar reasoning in the California case.
In November, California voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure to redraw the state’s congressional map. The plan had been pushed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom as a response to Mr. Trump’s own redistricting efforts in Republican states.
Hours after voters approved the measure, known as Proposition 50, California Republicans challenged it in federal court. They argued that the maps improperly considered voters’ race in drawing the district lines, favoring Latinos over other groups of voters.
Last week, a divided three-judge panel in Los Angeles rejected the Republicans’ argument, upholding the Democrats’ assertions that they crafted the districts to gain a partisan advantage, which courts have said is acceptable.
The two judges in the majority wrote that evidence showed California Republicans had criticized the Democrats’ plan as a partisan power grab throughout a campaign against the ballot measure but then abandoned that argument upon filing their lawsuit to instead cast the map as a racial gerrymander. Because California’s maps were approved by voters, the judges wrote that they had to evaluate whether voters intended to draw lines based on race. They found no evidence to support that idea.
In their decision upholding the California map, the two-judge majority also cited Justice Alito’s concurring opinion and his comparison with Texas and California.
Abbie VanSickle covers the United States Supreme Court for The Times. She is a lawyer and has an extensive background in investigative reporting.
The post California Republicans Ask Supreme Court to Block New Congressional Map appeared first on New York Times.
