The U.S. Supreme Court on Feb. 4 allowed California to use its newly redrawn congressional map that aims to give Democrats five extra seats in the upcoming midterm elections.

The decision in Tangipa v. Newsom came in an unsigned order. No justices dissented. The court did not explain its ruling.

California Republicans had filed an emergency application with the court on Jan. 20, asking the justices to block the map that gives Democrats an electoral advantage.

The new ruling comes after the court on Dec. 4, 2025, upheld a redrawn election map that aimed to increase Republican representation in Texas’s U.S. House delegation by five seats.

Republicans had argued that the new California map, which voters authorized in November 2025 by approving Proposition 50, constitutes unlawful racial gerrymandering that the federal Voting Rights Act prohibits.

Gerrymandering is the manipulation of electoral district boundaries to favor a particular party or constituency. The Supreme Court has previously ruled that race-based gerrymandering violates the U.S. Constitution but that redrawing district boundaries to boost partisan fortunes passes constitutional muster.

In a 2–1 ruling delivered on Jan. 14, a three-judge federal panel in California rejected GOP arguments, describing the referendum as a proportional and legal reaction to Republicans undertaking redistricting efforts in Texas.

“We find that Challengers have failed to show that racial gerrymandering occurred, and we conclude that there is no basis for issuing a preliminary injunction,” the court said in its written opinion.

The judges said California’s move was a reaction to similar moves undertaken in Texas that President Donald Trump encouraged.

“The stated goal of [the legislation authorizing the referendum] was to counter the actions of Texas and pick up an additional five Democratic seats,” the court wrote. “The new map drawn by a private consultant, paid for by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and incorporated into Proposition 50, met that goal exactly.”

When the Texas application came to the Supreme Court, Justice Samuel Alito wrote a concurring opinion in the case, known as Abbott v. League of United Latin American Citizens, that seemed to foreshadow the high court’s Feb. 4 ruling in the California case.

“It is indisputable … that the impetus for the adoption of the Texas map (like the map subsequently adopted in California) was partisan advantage pure and simple,” Alito wrote on Dec. 4, 2025.

“Texas needs certainty on which map will govern the 2026 midterm elections,” he wrote.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch joined Alito’s opinion at the time.

The Supreme Court’s emergency rulings in the California and Texas cases did not formally uphold the congressional maps in those two states, but allowed the maps to remain in place for the time being.

Litigation may continue in the two cases, which could return to the nation’s highest court in the future.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, celebrated the new ruling that left the California map in place.

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

The Epoch Times reached out for comment to attorneys for lead applicant David Tangipa, a Republican member of the California State Assembly, and the U.S. Department of Justice, which supported the challenge to the California map. No replies were received by publication time.

Republicans currently hold a 218–214 majority over Democrats in the U.S. House. There are 435 seats in the House, but three are vacant.

Joseph Lord contributed to this report.

This article by Matthew Vadum appeared Feb. 4, 2026, in The Epoch Times.

Photo: California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), at center