Federal appeals court upholds California's Prop 50 redistricting maps

• A federal appellate court upheld California's Proposition 50, a measure to redraw congressional maps to favor Democrats.
• The court dismissed Republican claims that the new maps were an act of racial discrimination.
• Prop 50 was a response to Texas's efforts to redraw its districts to favor Republicans.
• California Republicans have stated they plan to appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.

A federal appellate court has ruled in favor of the voter-approved Proposition 50, a measure that temporarily redraws congressional maps to increase the number of Democratic seats in California.

A panel of three judges in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Jan. 14 voted 2-1 to dismiss claims by the Trump administration and California Republicans that the maps favored Latino voters and other groups. The judges said the California Gov. Gavin Newsom-backed redistricting measure was legally drawn for political purposes and not as an act of racial discrimination, as the Republicans have argued.

"Challengers have failed to show that racial gerrymandering occurred," said the two judges who wrote the majority decision in its ruling. The state GOP has stated that it plans to appeal all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, if necessary.

But the nation’s high court has already shown signs it's unlikely to block the measure. The California Republican Party did not immediately respond to USA TODAY's request for comment.

Meanwhile, Newsom celebrated the court's decision.

"Republicans’ weak attempt to silence voters failed," Newsom said in a statement shortly after the court's ruling. "California voters overwhelmingly supported Prop 50 – to respond to Trump’s rigging in Texas – and that is exactly what this court concluded."

What is Prop 50? California's countermeasure to Texas's redistricting attempts

Prop 50 was originally introduced to counter Texas's efforts to send more Republicans to the U.S. House of Representatives after President Donald Trump urged several Republican-led states to redraw their districts ahead of the 2026 midterm elections to help decide who controls the House in the final two years of Trump's second term.

The move led Newsom and other top California Democrats to ask voters for a special election on whether the state should redraw district lines to favor Democrats. The redistricted maps would target five Republican strongholds, mostly in Northern California, including the district held by longtime GOP Congressman Doug LaMalfa, who died after suffering a medical emergency on Jan. 5.

The appellate ruling comes more than two months after more than 64% of California voters approved Prop. 50 on Nov. 4. The approval allows the nation's most populous state to temporarily stop using a nonpartisan commission to draw congressional district boundaries. Instead, California will use lines drawn by Democratic state lawmakers to increase the seats they hold in Congress.

After the 2030 U.S. Census, the state's nonpartisan commission will resume drawing the congressional lines.

On Nov. 5, Republicans filed legal action against the new maps, arguing that the proposition violated the Voting Rights Act by drawing maps favoring Latino voters in Southern California.

Republicans argued California's redistricting is a violation of the 14th and 15th Amendments and asked the court for a preliminary injunction that would block the maps from being used in 2026. 

But the two majority appellate judges rejected those claims. They cited the Supreme Court’s decision on Dec. 4 that allowed Texas Republicans to redraw their districts to gain five House seats this year and rejected arguments made by Democrats that those new lines were racially discriminatory.

"Proposition 50 was exactly what it was billed as: a political gerrymander designed to flip five Republican-held seats to the Democrats," U.S. District Judge Josephine Staton said in the Jan. 14 majority opinion. Staton was joined by U.S. District Judge Wesley Hsu, favoring the Democrats.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta said the court's ruling upheld the will of the people.

"It also means that, to date, every single challenge against Proposition 50 has failed," Bonta said in a statement. "I couldn’t be prouder of my team for successfully defending this ballot initiative in court on behalf of Governor Newsom and Secretary of State Weber. We remain confident in the legality of Proposition 50."