The Center for Election Confidence (CEC) filed an amicus brief in Tangipa v. Newsom (No. 25-839), urging the Supreme Court to “grant the application for an injunction [of California’s new congressional maps] pending appeal and prohibit California continued reliance “on the VRA to justify [unlawful] race-based districting.”

The brief asserts that California cannot legitimately claim the Voting Rights Act requires engineering congressional seats based on race to protect Latino voters because doing so would be contrary to the important purpose underlying the VRA, that majority actions may not prohibit minority populations from electing candidates of their choice. Today, California Latinos are the largest racial or ethnic group in the state with 40% of the State’s population, hold 16 of 54 congressional seats, 43 of 120 state legislative seats, and routinely win statewide office. 

CEC begins by examining California’s claims that “fine-tuning the racial composition of various districts was justified in order to maintain and ‘bolster’ majority-Latino districts to comply with the Voting Rights Act (VRA).” Yet, as CEC “explain[s, ]purported concerns about avoiding VRA vote-dilution claims cannot justify setting aside safe Latino districts in modern-day California” because Latinos are not a minority population. Applying the VRA’s protections would not only be unlawful, it would undermine the law’s important protections for minority communities.

CEC argues that California’s claims are “yet another demonstration of how far removed modern VRA theory has strayed from the statute’s text and original meaning.”

As such, CEC analogizes California’s arguments to those in Louisiana v. Callais, No. 24-109, currently pending before the Supreme Court, where VRA compliance has been used “to justify affirmative action for candidates based on race, rather than a shield to protect voters of all races from. . . ‘a denial or abridgement of the right’ to vote ‘on account of race.’” (Read more about CEC’s efforts in Callais here). To this end, CEC urges the Supreme Court to“put this sordid tinkering to an end.”

CEC next “highlights the District Court’s error in . . . shielding mapmaker Paul Mitchell’s work from scrutiny” despite Mitchell and legislators themselves openly boasting that California’s new maps were drawn to “bolster” the strength of Latino voting districts. Specifically, CEC contends that these public statements “stand in contrast to California’s claim that its map-drawing decisions were driven simply (and solely) by partisan politics.” Further, “the District Court cherry-picked separate public statements to conclude that Mitchell’s intentions were pure” without permitting him to be subjected to examination by the plaintiffs. Under any standard, this decision violates principles of fundamental fairness and legal norms.

CEC urges the Supreme Court to grant an injunction against California’s Proposition 50 redistricting map pending appeal of the District Court’s decision.

The Center for Election Confidence thanks Bradley A. Benbrook and Stephen M. Duvernary of Benbrook Law Group for their representation in this matter.