DOJ and California go to court over new congressional map designed to favor Democrats

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The fight over California’s new congressional map designed to help Democrats flip House of Representatives congressional seats will move to court Monday as a panel of federal judges considers whether district boundaries approved by voters last month can be used in the election.

The hearing in Los Angeles sets the stage for a high-stakes legal and political battle between the Trump administration and Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is eyeing a run for president in 2028. The lawsuit asks a three-judge panel to grant a temporary restraining order by Dec. 19 — the date when candidates can take the first formal steps to run in the 2026 election.

Voters approved California’s new U.S. House map in November through Proposition 50. It is designed to help Democrats win up to five House seats in next year’s midterm elections. It was Newsom’s response to a Republican-led effort in Texas supported by President Donald Trump.

The redistricting confrontation between the country’s two most populous states has spread nationally, as efforts aim to determine which party will control Congress in the second half of Trump’s term. Missouri, North Carolina, and Ohio adopted new district lines that could provide a partisan advantage.

Some plans face legal challenges, but the Supreme Court ruled earlier this month to allow Texas to use its new map for the 2026 elections. The Justice Department has only sued California.

Read more: The Texas Supreme Court allows the redrawn congressional map to be used to favor the GOP in 2026

The US Department of Justice, which joined a lawsuit brought by the California Republican Party, 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 prevent California from using the new map. Voters approved the map for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections. State Democrats said they were confident the lawsuit would fail.

“By allowing Texas to use its doctored maps, the Supreme Court indicated that California’s maps, like Texas’s, were drawn for legal reasons,” Newsom’s spokesman Brandon Richards said in a statement. “This should be the beginning and the end of this Republican effort to silence California voters.”

New U.S. House maps are drawn across the country after the census every 10 years. Some states, such as California, rely on an independent commission to draw maps, while other states, such as Texas, allow politicians to draw them. Efforts to create new maps in the middle of the decade are highly unusual.

Paul Mitchell, the redistricting consultant who drew the map for Democrats, is expected to testify. The Justice Department alleges that Mitchell and state leaders admitted they redrawn some districts to be majority Latino.

The lawsuit cites a press release from state Democrats saying the new map “retains and expands Voting Rights Act districts that empower Latino voters” while making no changes to majority-black districts in the Oakland and Los Angeles areas. The federal Voting Rights Act, passed in the 1960s, sets rules for drawing districts to ensure minorities have sufficient political power. The lawsuit also cites a Cal Poly Pomona and Caltech study that concluded the new map would increase Latino voting power.

“Race cannot be used as a proxy to advance political interests, but that is exactly what the California General Assembly did with Proposition 50 — a recent ballot initiative that eliminated California’s pre-existing electoral map in favor of realigning California’s congressional district lines,” the lawsuit said.

House Democrats need to pick up a few seats next year to gain control of the chamber, which would jeopardize Trump’s agenda for the remainder of his term and open the way for congressional investigations into his administration. Republicans hold 219 seats, compared to 214 for Democrats.

Nguyen reported from Sacramento.