California GOP Takes Redistricting Battle to Supreme Court with Emergency Appeal

In a significant legal maneuver, plaintiffs have escalated their challenge against California’s mid-decade redistricting plan by submitting an urgent request to the Supreme Court. This emergency application for injunctive relief aims to prevent California from employing the Proposition 50 map in the 2026 elections. Instead, the plaintiffs are advocating for the use of maps crafted by the Citizens Redistricting Commission (CRC) in 2021 as the legal battle continues to unfold in the courts.

The California Republican Party, along with several individual plaintiffs, initiated this lawsuit immediately following November’s special election, contesting the legitimacy of the new maps. They also filed a motion seeking a preliminary injunction. During a three-day hearing in December, a key figure in the map’s creation, Paul Mitchell—a consultant funded by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC)—declined to provide testimony, invoking legislative privilege as his defense.

The California Republican Party and several individual plaintiffs filed a lawsuit challenging the maps and a motion for preliminary injunction the day after the November special election. A three-day hearing was held in December in which the mapmaker, DCCC-paid consultant Paul Mitchell, refused to testify, citing legislative privilege. Plaintiffs presented unrebutted evidence that both Mitchell and California legislators created the maps based on race, not partisan affiliation; however, the three-judge district court panel last week ruled against plaintiffs, stating that plaintiffs had to show that California voters, who had no role in drawing the maps, were motivated by race – which is illegal – and not politics when they voted for Proposition 50.

The majority holds that plaintiffs and the DOJ needed to prove that the VOTERS acted with improper racial intent when enacting Prop 50, not the map-drawer or the Legislature.

The majority concedes that this is a novel question of law. pic.twitter.com/yjgtwRx5Yv

— SCOTUS Wire (@scotus_wire) January 14, 2026