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Tag: new election map

  • Supreme Court, with no dissents, rejects GOP challenge to California’s new election map

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    WASHINGTON  — The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that California this fall may use its new election map, which is expected to send five more Democrats to Congress.

    With no dissents, the justices rejected emergency appeals from California Republicans and President Trump’s lawyers, who claimed the map was a racial gerrymander to benefit Latinos, not a partisan effort to bolster Democrats.

    Trump’s lawyers supported the California Republicans and filed a Supreme Court brief asserting that “California’s recent redistricting is tainted by an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.”

    They pointed to statements from Paul Mitchell, who led the effort to redraw the districts, that he hoped to “bolster” Latino representatives in the Central Valley.

    In response, the state’s attorneys told the court the GOP claims defied the public’s understanding of the mid-decade redistricting and contradicted the facts regarding the racial and ethnic makeup of the districts.

    Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed re-drawing the state’s 52 congressional districts to “fight back against Trump’s power grab in Texas.”

    He said that if Texas was going to redraw its districts to benefit Republicans so as to keep control of the House of Representatives, California should do the same to benefit Democrats.

    The voters approved the change in November.

    While the new map has five more Democratic-leaning districts, the state’s attorneys said it did not increase the number with a Latino majority.

    “Before Proposition 50, there were 16 Latino-majority districts. After Proposition 50, there is the same number. The average Latino share of the voting-age population also declined in those 16 districts,” they wrote.

    It would be “strange for California to undertake a mid-decade restricting effort with the predominant purpose of benefiting Latino voters and then enact a new map that contains an identical number of Latino-majority districts,” they said.

    Trump’s lawyers pointed to the 13th Congressional District in Merced County and said its lines were drawn to benefit Latinos.

    The state’s attorneys said that too was incorrect. “The Latino voting-age population [in District 13] decreased after Proposition 50’s enactment,” they said.

    Three judges in Los Angeles heard evidence from both sides and upheld the new map in a 2-1 decision.

    “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.

    In the past, the Supreme Court has said the Constitution does not bar state lawmakers from drawing election districts for political or partisan reasons, but it does forbid doing so based on the race of the voters.

    In December, the court ruled for Texas Republicans and overturned a 2-1 decision that had blocked the use of its new election map.
    The court’s conservatives agreed with Texas lawmakers who said they acted out of partisan motives, not with the aim of denying representation to Latino and Black voters.

    “The impetus for the adoption of the Texas map (like the map subsequently adopted in California) was partisan advantage pure and simple,” Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote in a concurring opinion.

    California’s lawyers quoted Alito in supporting their map.

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    David G. Savage

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

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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, 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.

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    David G. Savage

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