California officials, Democrats and civil rights groups told the Supreme Court on Thursday the state should be able to use its new congressional map in the midterm elections this fall, arguing the lines were drawn for political rather than racial reasons.
The filings were in response to an appeal from the state Republican Party and Republican state officials, who have asked the justices to set aside a 2-1 lower court decision that allowed the state to use the map. That ruling found the evidence of gerrymandering in favor of the state’s Hispanic and Latino communities was “exceptionally weak.”
The Republican challengers asked for a decision by Feb. 9, a deadline for candidates to submit petitions to run in races under the new map. The Trump administration filed a brief last week supporting the emergency appeal, which the justices are teed up to decide in the coming days.
