Court battle begins over California's new congressional map designed to
favor Democrats
[December 16, 2025]
By MICHAEL R. BLOOD and TRÂN NGUYỄN
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The fight over California's new congressional map
designed to help Democrats flip a string of U.S. House seats kicked off
in court Monday, where a panel of federal judges is considering whether
the rejiggered districts approved by voters last month can be used in
elections.
The hearing in Los Angeles sets the stage for a high-stakes legal and
political fight between the Trump administration and Democratic Gov.
Gavin Newsom, who’s been eyeing a 2028 presidential run. The lawsuit
asks a three-judge panel to grant a temporary restraining order blocking
the new map by Dec. 19 — the date candidates can take the first official
steps to run in the 2026 elections when GOP control of the House will be
in play.
Voters approved California's new House map in November in so-called
Proposition 50. It's designed to help Democrats flip as many as five
seats in the midterm elections. It was Newsom's response to a
Republican-led effort in Texas backed by President Donald Trump.
The showdown between the nation’s two most populous states has spread
nationally, with efforts aiming to determine which party controls
Congress for the second half of Trump’s term. Missouri, North Carolina
and Ohio have adopted new district lines that could provide a partisan
advantage.
Some plans are facing legal challenges, but the Supreme Court ruled
earlier this month to allow Texas to use its new map for the 2026
election. The Justice Department has only sued California.
The Justice Department, joining a case brought by the California
Republican Party, has accused California of gerrymandering its map in
violation of the Constitution by using race as a factor to favor
Hispanic voters. Republicans want the court to prohibit California from
using the new map. Voters approved the map for the 2026, 2028 and 2030
elections. State Democrats said they’re confident the lawsuit will fail.
“In letting Texas use its gerrymandered maps, the Supreme Court noted
that California’s maps, like Texas’, were drawn for lawful reasons,”
Newsom’s spokesperson Brandon Richards said in a statement. “That should
be the beginning and the end of this Republican effort to silence the
voters of California.”
The lawsuit cites a news release from state Democrats that says the new
map “retains and expands Voting Rights Act districts that empower Latino
voters” while making no changes to Black majority districts in the
Oakland and Los Angeles areas. The federal Voting Rights Act, passed in
the 1960s, sets rules for drawing districts to ensure minority groups
have adequate political power. The lawsuit also cites a Cal Poly Pomona
and Caltech study that concludes the new map would increase Latino
voting power.
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks at a session at the We Mean
Business Pavilion during the COP30 U.N. Climate Summit, Tuesday,
Nov. 11, 2025, in Belem, Brazil. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano, File)
“Race cannot be used as a proxy to advance political interests, but
that is precisely what the California General Assembly did with
Proposition 50 — the recent ballot initiative that junked
California’s pre-existing electoral map in favor of a rush-job
rejiggering of California’s congressional district lines,” the
lawsuit said.
The Justice Department alleges that Paul Mitchell, a redistricting
consultant who drew the map for Democrats, and state leaders
admitted that they redrew some districts to have a Latino majority.
The hearing began with a dense, technical discussion spotlighting
how one of the districts — the 13th, in the state's Central Valley —
was designed, touching on issues like the Hispanic voting age
population, census population blocks and different software used
manage and massage the data.
“Race was the predominant interest in drawing the district,”
elections analyst Sean Trende, called by the plaintiffs, told the
judges. He pointed to a thumb-like appendage jutting out of the
northern end of the new district, which he characterized as a
precise knife cut to capture certain voters.
Defense attorneys picked away at his analysis, questioning in part
whether political shifts in the region could have dictated how lines
were drawn rather than racial considerations. At one point Trende
acknowledged that the thumb-like bump in the district boundary was
not as extreme as congressional maps seen in other states.
New U.S. House maps are drawn across the country after the Census
every 10 years. Some states like California rely on an independent
commission to draw maps, while others like Texas let politicians
draw them. The effort to create new maps in the middle of the decade
is highly unusual.
House Democrats need to gain just a handful of seats next year to
take control of the chamber, which would imperil Trump’s agenda for
the remainder of his term and open the way for congressional
investigations into his administration. Republicans hold 219 seats,
to Democrats’ 214.
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Nguyễn reported from Sacramento.
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