California Voting Map Suit Under Time Crunch Ahead of Midterms

California Republicans quickly raised a constitutional challenge to the state’s newly approved congressional maps, with deadlines for the 2026 mid-term election fast approaching and a cloud of of legal uncertainty about racially-based districts.

Prop. 50 was approved overwhelmingly by California voters Tuesday, after Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) championed the ballot initiative as necessary to counter Texas’ mid-decade gerrymander intended to add Republican seats in 2026. The outcome of the California case will help decide which party controls Congress in the final years of Trump’s second term.

The lawsuit from the California Republican lawmakers and candidates, filed in the US District Court for the Central District of California, said the new map was drawn along racial lines, boosting Latino voters without any justification.

Their effort could be bolstered by the US Supreme Court’s pending ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, a case that could upend the standard for unconstitutional gerrymandering. While several justices indicated during recent arguments that they would narrow the Voting Rights Act and restrict the creation of majority-Black or Hispanic voting districts, a ruling may come too late to impact the new challenge to California’s maps.

“We’re a year out now and litigation will take time,” said election law professor Emily Rong Zhang at UC Berkeley School of Law of the 2026 election. “We are operating here with some legal uncertainty.”

The Supreme Court heard arguments in the Louisiana case in October. An opinion is expected at some point during the court’s term, which typically ends in late June.

Race-Based Challenge

The lawsuit points to press releases from state legislators saying the new map will “empower Latino voters” in two new districts that will likely elect a candidate preferred by Latino voters. The suit also said the consultant who drew the new lines explained that he was adding a “Latino District” and altering the lines of another district to make it a “Latino-influenced district.”

“The map is designed to favor one race of California voters over others,” Mike Columbo, an attorney for the plaintiffs and partner at the Dhillon Law Group, told reporters during a press conference Wednesday.

The challengers attacked the new maps as a violation of both the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause and the Fifteenth Amendment, asking a federal trial court to block their use in any future elections.

Under the current legal standard, the plaintiffs will need to prove race was the predominant factor the California legislature used in creating the new map, and that there was no compelling interest in making race a predominate factor, said elections law professor Richard Hasen of UCLA School of Law.

Those legal prongs will be difficult to meet, Hasen said, pointing to ample evidence that California Democrats drew the maps out for pure partisan intent in an effort to add five new likely Democratic House seats in a crucial midterm election.

Voting Rights Act

Even if the plaintiffs show race was predominate factor in creating the map, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act currently presents a hurdle. That law, enacted in 1965 an effort to curb rampant discrimination against Black voters in the South, allows states to draw race-conscious maps to protect minority voting power.

The plaintiffs are using the mapmaker’s discussion about complying with the Voting Rights Act as evidence that race was a predominate factor, Hasen said.

“There’s a bit of a tension here,” he said.

The prospects of Republican’s success in blocking the California map could be bolstered if the US Supreme Court overturns that part of the Voting Rights Act in the Louisiana case. During oral arguments in that case just weeks ago, the conservative justices they appeared receptive to Louisiana’s argument that race shouldn’t be a factor at all in drawing districts.

“The plaintiffs I think are anticipating that Louisiana wins,” Zhang said of the California Republicans’ lawsuit. “If it doesn’t go that way, I think the claims are much, much weaker.”

Deadlines Approach

Regardless of the Supreme Court’s decision, the plaintiffs still need to show California drew a racial map and not a purely partisan one. This is an argument before a panel of judges in Texas over that state’s recently redrawn maps, where a decision is expected any day.

Similar litigation would play out all around the country if the Supreme Court significantly curbs Section 2, said David Carrillo, executive director of the California Constitution Center at UC Berkeley.

Apart from the looming legal uncertainty, the case would need to proceed quickly to impact the 2026 election. Some of the earliest candidacy deadlines are in February 2026.

Under the legal doctrine known as the Purcell principle, courts generally decline to change election rules too close to an election, and it is unclear if the lower court can move fast enough.

“At a certain point, ballots need to be printed, primary elections need to be held, people need to know what districts they’re running in,” Zhang said.

The case is Tangipa v. Newsom, C.D. Cal., No. 2:25-cv-10616, 11/5/25.