Gavin Newsom’s Prop 50 vanity project gets green light from Supreme Court

The US Supreme Court gave the green light Wednesday to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s redrawn California’s congressional maps — handing Democrats a major victory before the midterm elections.

The Newsom-backed Proposition 50, which was approved by Golden State voters on their election ballots last year as gerrymandering fights in states across the US could sway the balance of power in Congress and the federal government for years to come.

California Republicans had filed an emergency appeal to the nation’s highest-court after lower courts refused to block the map favored by Democrats that could help them flip five GOP-held districts to blue.

Newsom celebrated the decision by SCOTUS not to step in after he took on the new maps as a pet project in response to Texas redrawing its own district maps in a way that could hand Republicans up to five extra seats.

“Donald Trump said he was ‘entitled’ to five more Congressional seats in Texas,” Newsom wrote in an X post. “He started this redistricting war. He lost, and he’ll lose again in November.”

The decision could make major waves in the midterm battle as Democrats have their sites on winning back the House of Representatives, aiming to cash in on voter frustration with the Trump administration and congressional Republicans.

Prediction markets and analysts believe Democrats are in a good position to reclaim the House and the SCOTUS ruling makes their potential path to victory a little less bumpy.

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The Supreme Court justices’ decision not to step in on Prop 50 is the latest blow in the national redistricting battle between the two major parties dating back to last summer when Texas first redrew their maps with support from President Trump.

Prop 50 passed in the deeply blue Golden State by a huge margin — with over 64% of the statewide vote. The Trump administration called the Newsom-favored maps “tainted by an unconstitutional gerrymander.”

Republicans vote Prop 50 out of the gate and claimed the new map would unfairly benefit Latino voters at the expense of other racial groups. The architect of the Democratic maps had “boasted” that race played a role in the new district lines, Republicans argued in lower courts.

“The map drawer’s plain statements acknowledging that he racially gerrymandered the Proposition 50 maps, which he and the legislature refused to explain or deny, in addition to our experts’ testimony, established that the courts should stop the implementation of the Prop 50 map,” state GOP Chair Corrin Rankin said as they faced a loss in the state Court of Appeals. “We look forward to continuing this fight in the courts.”