GOP senators push for challenge to House maps in Democratic states [View all]

Source: Roll Call

Posted May 19, 2026 at 5:46pm


Senate Republicans used a hearing Tuesday to push the Trump administration to file lawsuits challenging congressional maps in California, Illinois and other Democrat-controlled states in the wake of a Supreme Court decision rolling back the Voting Rights Act. The hearing comes weeks after the Supreme Court’s six-justice conservative majority in Louisiana v. Callais overturned a Louisiana congressional map with a second Black opportunity district drawn to satisfy the Voting Rights Act.

The decision supercharged a nationwide redistricting arms race. Experts and members of Congress have said the decision changes long-standing redistricting standards and makes discrimination in redistricting harder to prove.

At the opening of the hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution, subcommittee Chair Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., urged the Justice Department and any possible private litigants to challenge maps in states such as California and Illinois, arguing that efforts to have the maps maximize minority representation violate the Constitution.

“These maps do not become constitutional because they’re already in use; they do not survive because politicians call them voting rights maps, and they will not disappear on their own,” Schmitt said.

Read more: https://rollcall.com/2026/05/19/gop-senators-push-for-challenge-to-house-maps-in-democratic-states/