A bombshell Supreme Court ruling Wednesday that struck down Louisiana’s congressional map and gutted the Voting Rights Act will have major ramifications for California’s gerrymandering fight over its own maps, multiple experts said in interviews with the California Post.
It’s not just California’s newly gerrymandered, anti-Trump congressional maps that could be affected — even down-ballot maps for the statehouse to county seats and city councils may fall under scrutiny for racially-motivated district lines, one expert told the Post.
“It changes redistricting law substantially and will likely impact most every corner of California,” said Matt Rexroad, president of firm Redistricting Insights, who has done redistricting for governments across the state.
The new ruling struck down Louisiana’s congressional map, finding the Pelican State unconstitutionally added a second majority-black House district. Louisiana had been forced by a federal judge to create a second majority-black district in 2024 to comply with Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA), which restricts states from diluting minority votes.
The Trump administration argued that the second district amounted to racial gerrymandering. The ruling said Section 2 still allows for race-based redistricting — but Louisiana’s situation didn’t meet that bar.
Effectively, being able to redistrict based on racial discrimination concerns — such as drawing out a district for more minority representation — became a lot more difficult in preference for partisan reasons, argued Kareem Crayton, vice president of the Brennan Center’s Washington D.C. office.
“What they’re saying is, race can’t drive the decision,” Crayton told the Post. “But what they’re saying is, it can be a factor, especially if you’re pursuing partisanship.”
Democrats were aghast at the ruling, saying it would hurt minority representation. Republicans cheered the decision.
California’s Prop 50 court fight
Last year, Newsom decided to fight Trump’s attempts to redraw congressional maps in red states. Voters passed a gerrymandered California map, under Proposition 50, to carve out more Democratic seats in Congress.
California Republicans immediately sued to try to block the maps.
The Louisiana ruling won’t have an impact on this year’s elections, as the Supreme Court refused to immediately block the Prop 50 map in time for November. However, the justices could still rule against the maps afterward.
In their lawsuit, state Republicans alleged the prop 50 map is racial gerrymandering that unfairly benefits Latinos over other racial groups.
Rexroad said that could spell trouble for Democrats.
“Some of the first lines that came out of the author of the maps, Paul Mitchell, was ‘We’ve created a new VRA district down in in Los Angeles County,’” said Rexroad. “Well, if it’s a VRA district, it wasn’t done for a political gerrymander. It was a racial gerrymander because that is now not allowed.”
“You don’t do VRA districts for politics. You do it for its race,” Rexroad added.
Mitchell declined to comment, citing the ongoing lawsuit.
Rexroad further noted that a number of Prop 50’s districts are similar to the previous congressional map drawn by the nonpartisan California Redistricting Commission, which took into consideration race.
Other experts, however, could see the ruling benefit Democrats in the Prop 50 lawsuit, as in court, Democrats have argued they were focused on partisan advantages.
“Partisanship was the motivation behind Prop 50, and this decision reaffirms that partisanship is a legitimate state interest,” said Jonathan Cervas, a professor at Carnegie Mellon Univerity.
Wider ramifications
Rexroad said he could see challenges pop up soon against others maps drawn by the Commission, which may have to reconsider how they redistrict in the future — including when they resume drawing congressional maps after Prop 50’s timeline ends.
He noted the Commission has explicitly labeled certain state Assembly or Senate districts as Voting Rights Act districts. Rexroad said he himself has drawn dozens of districts in California that had the Voting Rights Act be the primary reason.
“They’ve actually called it out and said, ‘We drew this district because of these circumstances,’ which are no longer required. In fact, they may even be illegal,” Rexroad said.
The Republican assemblymember who sued Newsom over Prop 50, David Tangipa, even hinted at a major redrawing of maps of all levels.
“Get ready to redistrict, California,” he said. “It’s time for just, race-neutral maps that represent all Californians not racial balancing.”
Others cautioned against such proclamations, saying there’s some unclarity.
“The court hasn’t also told us much about state Voting Rights Act, which California has one,” Crayton said. “If state law says, ‘Look, you have to think about discrimination and stop again in certain ways,’ it’s not obvious how this decision today takes that into account.”
