The justices asked California lawmakers and the GOP in a case redistricting Prop. 50

Three federal judges questioned Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California Republican Party on Wednesday in a landmark case that will determine the fate of California’s new congressional districts approved by voters in the 2026 midterm elections.

Attorneys for the California Republican Party and the Trump administration’s Justice Department during the hearings reiterated the argument they made in their legal complaint, blaming Democratic lawmakers and also rejecting racist experts who illegally favored Latinos.

State lawmakers, on the other hand, said their main goal was not racism but politics — they worked to weaken the voting power of Republicans in California to end similar abuses in Texas and other GOP-led states.

But Wednesday was the first time the public heard three California Central District judges challenge that narrative as they weighed whether to grant the GOP’s request for a temporary injunction blocking the redistricting congressional districts approved by voters in November under Proposition 50.

The GOP repeatedly held public comments from Paul Mitchell, a redistricting expert for California’s Democratic-led Legislature who drew the 50 congressional districts, that the “No. 1 thing” he started thinking about was “drawing a Latino majority/minority district in central Los Angeles.”

On Wednesday, District Court Judge Josephine Staton suggested that GOP attorneys focused too much on the goals of Mitchell and Democratic lawmakers and not enough on the voters who ultimately approved Proposition 50.

“Why don’t we look at their intentions?” Staton asked Michael Columbo, a California Republican attorney. “If the target of the relative is the voters, you have nothing.”

Nearly two-thirds of California voters approved a new Proposition 50 congressional district map in a Nov. 4 special election after Newsom pitched the idea as a way to combat partisan gerrymandering after President Trump pressured Texas to redraw maps to include a small GOP House majority.

The numbers for California and the nation are high.

If the new map is used for the 2026 midterms, it could give California Democrats up to five US House seats. That would allow them to roll back Republican gains due to redistricting in strong GOP states and increase the Democrats’ chance of taking the House and shifting control of Congress.

A Democratic win could boost Newsom’s national clout and help him establish himself as Trump’s strongest critic in the country as he enters his final year as governor of California and weighs a bid for the White House.

During closing arguments Wednesday, a US Justice Department attorney said the race-dependent part of redistricting began with the creation of the House bill that led to Proposition 50 being put on the ballot.

However, Staton seemed unconvinced.

“These maps have no effect,” he said, “until voters make them work.”

GOP can’t challenge map on political hacking grounds: Supreme Court it decided 2019 that such appeals have no recourse in federal court. That leaves them focused on races.

But proving that race outweighs bias is challenging, legal experts say, and racial bias, in and of itself, is not prohibited under current law. To prove that race was a significant motivation, plaintiffs must show that there was another way for the mapmakers to achieve their desired political result without the influence of race.

During the hearing, Staton emphasized that the burden is on those opposing Proposition 50 to prove racial intent.

To that end, the GOP brought in RealClearPolitics election analyst Sean Trende, who said the new 13th Congressional District in the San Joaquin Valley has an “appendage” that ran north into Stockton. Such twisted shoots, he said, “often reflect racial prejudice.” Trende produced another district map that he said kept Democratic representation independent of race.

But Staton questioned whether Trende’s map is so different from Mitchell’s, noting that both seem to fall within the same range of Latino representation.

US District Judge Wesley Hsu lashed out at Columbus for what he called a “strawman” in an effort to select one district, the 13th Congressional District, to charge that there was a racial bias in the effort to flip five seats in favor of Democrats.

Jennifer Rosenberg, the state’s attorney, also pointed out that Trende’s analysis is too narrow.

“Dr. Trende failed to do the county’s research,” Rosenberg said. “And as we can see, he spoke to two sub-sections of District 13 and only focused on one of the sub-sections.”

US District Judge Kenneth Lee asked Rosenberg how much he believed Mitchell’s public statements about wanting to build a Latino district in Los Angeles influenced his redistricting.

“He was talking to interest groups,” Rosenberg said. “He did not mention that intention to the lawyers.”

However, Lee said Mitchell’s closeness to Democratic interest groups is an important factor. Mitchell “delivered” the “demands” of Latino interest groups he contacted, Lee said, based on his public statements and a lack of evidence.

Lee also argued that Mitchell did not testify during the trial and repeatedly invoked the privilege during pretrial depositions.

Abha Khanna, who represented the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said there was no racism in Mitchell’s statement.

He showed jurors a copy of Proposition 50, the official voter guide, and statements from Newsom, arguing they were clear declarations of his partisanship. He also pointed to instances in which Republican senators discussed Proposition 50 in purely partisan terms.

If federal judges grant the preliminary injunction, California will be temporarily barred from using the newly drawn map in the 2026 election. Attorneys for the state will likely appeal the case to the US Supreme Court.

Just two weeks ago, the nation’s highest court allowed Texas to temporarily keep its new congressional districts — which have also faced racial discrimination complaints — after a federal court blocked the Texas map, finding that racial discrimination made it unconstitutional.

The US Supreme Court has indicated that it views the Texas redistricting ban as largely motivated by partisan politics. In its decision, it clearly pointed out the connection between Texas and California, noting that several states, including California, have redrawn their congressional maps “in ways that are predicted to favor the State’s dominant political party.”