California urges Supreme Court to allow new congressional map

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Source: Roll Call

Posted January 29, 2026 at 5:19pm


California officials, Democrats and civil rights groups told the Supreme Court on Thursday the state should be able to use its new congressional map in the midterm elections this fall, arguing the lines were drawn for political rather than racial reasons. The filings were in response to an appeal from the state Republican Party and Republican state officials, who have asked the justices to set aside a 2-1 lower court decision that allowed the state to use the map.

That ruling found the evidence of gerrymandering in favor of the state’s Hispanic and Latino communities was “exceptionally weak.” The Republican challengers asked for a decision by Feb. 9, a deadline for candidates to submit petitions to run in races under the new map. The Trump administration filed a brief last week supporting the emergency appeal, which the justices are teed up to decide in the coming days.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in its filing defended the map as “an openly partisan effort to aid Democratic Party candidates in California as a counterbalance to similar efforts by the Republican Party in Texas,” noting the Supreme Court previously has allowed that kind of partisan gerrymandering.

All three filings Thursday leaned heavily on the fact that the state’s election process has already started, making it too late for courts to intervene. California officials argued in their filing that tossing the map would “wreak havoc” on the congressional primary campaigns, since candidates have started to collect signatures and the state starts counting mail ballots in May. “To be clear, any changes to the district boundaries at this late stage — even changes to two districts — would be quite burdensome for state and local officials and would threaten interference with the orderly administration of the upcoming election,” the state officials wrote.

Read more: https://rollcall.com/2026/01/29/california-urges-supreme-court-to-allow-new-congressional-map/