Plaintiffs challenging California’s mid-decade redistricting scheme filed an emergency application for injunctive relief with the Supreme Court on Tuesday, asking that SCOTUS block the state from using the Proposition 50 map in the 2026 elections and instead use the maps created by the Citizens Redistricting Commission (CRC) in 2021 while the challenge works its way through the courts.
The California Republican Party and several individual plaintiffs filed a lawsuit challenging the maps and a motion for preliminary injunction the day after the November special election. A three-day hearing was held in December in which the mapmaker, DCCC-paid consultant Paul Mitchell, refused to testify, citing legislative privilege. Plaintiffs presented unrebutted evidence that both Mitchell and California legislators created the maps based on race, not partisan affiliation; however, the three-judge district court panel last week ruled against plaintiffs, stating that plaintiffs had to show that California voters, who had no role in drawing the maps, were motivated by race – which is illegal – and not politics when they voted for Proposition 50.
The majority holds that plaintiffs and the DOJ needed to prove that the VOTERS acted with improper racial intent when enacting Prop 50, not the map-drawer or the Legislature.
The majority concedes that this is a novel question of law. pic.twitter.com/yjgtwRx5Yv
— SCOTUS Wire (@scotus_wire) January 14, 2026
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The application notes several instances, which they presented in the December hearing, in which legislators asserted race-based reasoning for district boundaries. For example, in August 2025 press release Senate Pro Tem Mike McGuire said:
“The new map makes no changes to historic Black districts in Oakland and the Los Angeles area, and retains and expands Voting Rights Act districts that empower Latino voters to elect their candidates of choices.”
Asm. Mark Gonzalez said during floor debate on August 21, 2025:
“If Florida wants to silence voters of color, we will not sit quietly. . . . This is about whether a Latino child in Texas, a black family in Florida, or an immigrant community in California, has a voice in their own democracy members. . . . It’s not just a bill, it’s [a] shield. A shield against racist maps . . . .”
Mitchell, an unabashed liberal who’s married to the head of Planned Parenthood of California, admitted his racial motivation in multiple public appearances. Speaking to Hispanas Organized for Political Equality (“HOPE”) in August, Mitchell said that the first thing he did was to create a “Latino district,” adding, “[T]he Prop 50 maps I think will be great for the Latino community” as “they ensure that the Latino districts are bolstered in order to make them most effective, particularly in the Central Valley.”
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On social media, Mitchell stated that the “proposed Proposition 50 map will further increase Latino voting power” and “adds one more Latino influence district.”
District 13, in the Central Valley, demonstrates that the boundaries were drawn on the basis of race, not politics, according to plaintiffs. Dr. Sean Trende, a recognized redistricting expert, testified to such in the December hearing. As stated in the emergency application:
Dr. Trende concluded that District 13’s “twisted shapes cannot be explained by traditional redistricting principles, nor can they be explained by politics,” and he identified the district map’s protrusion into the city of Stockton as the clearest example. Instead of drawing lines to capture the most proximate Democratic precincts, which would most directly advance the Legislature’s professed partisan objective, the District 13 map bypassed those precincts in favor of less-Democratic Latino neighborhoods,
Plaintiffs’ lead attorney Mark Meuser told RedState, “You cannot divide voters by race and then pretend it’s lawful just by calling it politics. The Constitution requires equal treatment, and it does not allow lawmakers to choose winners and losers based on skin color.”
In a statement, California Republican Party Chairwoman Corrin Rankin said:
“California cannot create districts by race, and the state should not be allowed to lock in districts that break federal law. Our emergency application asks the Supreme Court to put the brakes on Prop. 50 now, before the Democrats try to run out the clock and force candidates and voters to live with unconstitutional congressional districts. Californians deserve fair districts and clean elections, not a backroom redraw that picks winners and losers based on race.”
Plaintiffs are requesting that SCOTUS grant the injunction prior to February 9, 2026, when congressional candidates in California will start filing paperwork to qualify for the June ballot.
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