The brief filed to the Supreme Court by California officials on Thursday argues that the new map passed by voters last November has the same number of Latino-majority districts as the previous map.

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

“None of the stray statements invoked by plaintiffs—including statements from various state legislators, as well as Paul Mitchell, the consultant who drew the first version of the new map—reveals any race-based motive, let alone a racial motivation that predominates over all others. Nor is there any evidence that the most relevant state actors—the 7.4 million Californians who voted for Proposition 50—harbored any race-based intent whatsoever,” California’s brief continued.

The brief also dismissed the concerns of the California GOP, specifically about the 13th District’s lines being a racial gerrymander, claiming “that the lines around Stockton helped to shore up support for vulnerable Democratic incumbents while keeping communities of interest intact.”

“There is no basis in the record to hold that race was the predominant motivation for any lines drawn in District 13. And there is certainly no basis to grant plaintiffs’ far-reaching request to enjoin Proposition 50 [as a whole] based on a purported defect in a tiny part of just one of 52 districts,” the brief said.

The brief draws a comparison to Texas’s newly redrawn congressional map, which was designed to net the GOP up to five House seats and which the Supreme Court allowed to be used for the upcoming midterm elections.

“That is a natural political objective, just as it was natural for [Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA)] and California Democrats to want to counteract Republicans’ strategy. But what is deeply unnatural—indeed, contrary to fundamental principles of democracy and judicial impartiality—is plaintiffs’ request for this Court to step into the political fray, granting one political party a sizeable advantage by enjoining California’s partisan gerrymander after having allowed Texas’s to take effect,” the brief said.

The California GOP requested a ruling on the emergency petition by Feb. 9, the start of the candidate filing deadline for the 2026 election.

DOJ URGES SUPREME COURT TO BLOCK CALIFORNIA’S NEW CONGRESSIONAL MAP

If the Supreme Court decides to halt the use of California’s map, it would be another significant loss for Democrats at the courts in their efforts to counter GOP redistricting ahead of November’s elections.

Earlier this week, a Virginia court pumped the brakes on Old Dominion Democrats’ bid to have voters install new maps for the 2026 election, which would have wiped out as many as four GOP-held congressional seats. Virginia Democrats appealed the ruling, hoping to have an April referendum on new congressional districts for the November elections.