Court rejects challenge to California's new congressional map

Michael Macagnone, CQ-Roll Call on Jan 14, 2026

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WASHINGTON — A panel of three federal judges in California declined to halt the state’s new congressional map Wednesday, rejecting claims the new lines were racial gerrymanders and allowing the map for this year’s midterm elections.

The 2-1 decision, written after the judges held a three-day evidentiary hearing, rejected claims that the new congressional lines gerrymandered in favor of the state’s Hispanic and Latino communities. The map targets five Republican-held seats, part of a mid-decade partisan redistricting arms race started when Texas adopted a new map that targets five Democrat-held seats.

“Because we find that the evidence of any racial motivation driving redistricting is exceptionally weak, while the evidence of partisan motivations is overwhelming, Challengers are not entitled to preliminary relief on any of their claims,” the decision said.

The majority states the conclusion “probably seems obvious to anyone who followed the news in the summer and fall of 2025.”

California’s legislature passed a measure putting a new congressional map on last fall’s ballot after the Texas legislature passed a map meant to target five Democrat-held seats.

The ballot measure, known as Prop 50, overrode the state’s normal redistricting commission to draw a new congressional map that would last until 2030. California voters adopted the measure with more than 60 percent of the vote in last year’s election.

In California, the day after the election, the state Republican Party and state officials filed the lawsuit, alleging that the new lines violated the Constitution’s bar on racial gerrymandering. The lawsuit cited the map’s increase in Latino or Hispanic-majority districts, up to 16 from the previous 14.

Judge Josephine L. Staton of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California wrote the opinion, and was joined by Judge Wesley L. Hsu of the Central District of California.

Judge Kenneth K. Lee, a Trump-appointed judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, dissented from the decision. Lee wrote that the mapmakers and the map itself violated the Constitution by showing favoritism to the Latino communities in the state, including by drawing new Latino-majority congressional districts.

“This court should have acted to prevent California from following an unlawful path that will inevitably sow racial divisions and upset the melting pot that makes California great,” Lee wrote.

The legal avenue chosen by the state party allows a direct appeal to the Supreme Court. Last month, the Supreme Court issued a decision allowing Texas to use its congressional map despite a lower court ruling finding the map was likely racially discriminatory.