Trump lawyers urge Supreme Court to block California's new election map while upholding Texas'

David G. Savage, Los Angeles Times on Jan 23, 2026

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WASHINGTON — Trump administration lawyers have joined California Republicans in urging Supreme Court to block California’s new election map on the grounds that one district in the San Joaquin Valley was drawn to favor Latinos.

Two months ago, Donald Trump’s lawyers called on the court to uphold a new Republican-friendly election map in Texas, arguing that it was partisan gerrymander, not one driven by race.

“Plaintiffs bringing a racial-gerrymander claim have the heavy burden to show that race was the predominant factor motivating” how the map was drawn, Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer said then.

The Supreme Court agreed by a 6-3 vote and lifted a judges’ order that had blocked the Texas map which was drawn to win five more House seats for Republicans.

Voting rights advocates had sued, noting Gov. Greg Abbott said the goal to eliminate four “coalition districts,” which had a combined majority of Black and Latino voters and elected Democrats.

In a brief opinion, the justices said they presume state officials acted in “good faith” in drawing the maps of congressional districts.

“It is indisputable that impetus for the adoption of the Texas map (like the map subsequently adopted in California) was partisan advantage pure and simple,” wrote Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.

The justices also said it was too late in the election-year calendar for reshuffling the districts again.

Undeterred, Trump’s lawyers now stake out the near opposite view to support the GOP’s attack on the California map which was upheld by the voters in November.

“California’s recent redistricting is tainted by an unconstitutional racial gerrymander,” Sauer wrote.

He pointed to past comments from Paul Mitchell, the designated map maker, who said he hoped the Latino districts in the Central Valley could be “bolstered in order to make them most effective.”

Trump’s lawyer said District 13 in Merced County has an odd-looking “northern plume” that brings in Democratic voters near Stockton.

“California’s motivation in adopting the Prop. 50 map as a whole was undoubtedly to counteract Texas’s political gerrymander,” Sauer said. “But that overarching political goal is not a license for district-level racial gerrymandering.”

He advised the justices to declare the new California map unconstitutional and require the state to return to the former map.

The political impact of such a ruling is obvious. It would likely cost Democrats five seats in the House of Representatives.

Justice Elena Kagan, who oversees appeals from the West Coast, asked for a response from California by Thursday. That would suggest the justices may act on the GOP’s appeal in the first week of February.

Election law experts have been skeptical of the Republican arguments in the California case.

“I don’t think Republicans are likely to prevail here,” UCLA law professor Rick Hasen wrote on his Election Law Blog.

He said legal challenge “comes too late,” the proposed remedy is too broad, and it ignores the fact that the California’s voters were focused on partisanship, not race. It’s their intent that counts, he said.

Then, Hasen added, there’s “the optics. It would be a terrible look for the Court ... to allow Texas’s Republican gerrymander to go forward but stop California’s, especially if it’s a party line vote. That might be too much even for this Court.”

There is also a key legal difference in how the appeal arrived at the court.

In Texas, a three-judge panel heard the evidence, wrote a 160-page opinion and ruled against the state in a 2-1 decision.

In the California case, by contrast, a three-judge panel heard the evidence and rejected the racial gerrymandering claim in a 2-1 decision.

In December, Kagan dissented in the Texas case and argued the court should be reluctant to overturn the factual findings of the three judges who heard the case.

The two judges in the majority said they did not see evidence of a racial gerrymander.

“We find that the evidence of any racial motivation driving redistricting is exceptionally weak, while the evidence of partisan motivations is overwhelming,” said U.S. District Judges Josephine Staton and Wesley Hsu.