The United States Supreme Court has cleared the way for the US state of California to use a new electoral map that favors Democrats, opening the way for the party to win up to five additional seats in Congress this year, the BBC reports.
The unsigned court decision did not state a reason.
Californians approved a referendum last year to change the state's electoral districts, designed to reverse Republican gains from Texas' redrawing of the state's electoral map. Each district sends one representative to the US House of Representatives.
The Republican Party is trying to retain a narrow majority in the House of Representatives in the November midterm elections. Historically, the party of current US President Donald Trump has lost seats in the House of Representatives in these congressional elections.
Reacting to the Supreme Court's decision, California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, said: "Donald Trump said he 'owns' five more congressional seats in Texas. He started this redistricting war. He lost, and he will lose again in November."
California Republicans and the Trump administration have filed an emergency petition with the Supreme Court to block the map while they fight a legal battle in a lower court. A lower federal court in California last month rejected a similar petition.
Attorney General Pam Bondi accused Newsom, a Democratic presidential contender, of "brazenly" usurping power by using electoral maps that she said were racially "gerrymandered."
However, in December, judges cleared the way for Texas to use its new map, after rejecting a lower court's ruling that the map was racially "gerrymandered."
In the US, gerrymandering - the redrawing of electoral boundaries to favor a political party - is illegal only if it is based on race.
California voters approved the new map in a special referendum in November, while members of the Texas legislature redrawn the state's electoral districts.
US President Donald Trump has backed the changes in Texas, as part of his national initiative to have Republican states "redraw" districts and help the party retain its congressional majority.
In turn, Newsom launched a campaign last August to suspend independently drawn electoral maps in California, in order to, as he put it, "fight fire with fire."
Gerrymandering is the deliberate redrawing of electoral district boundaries in a way that favors one party (or group) and disadvantages another, without changing the number of voters.
There are two basic forms of gerrymandering:
Packing, which is placing as many voters of the same political affiliation as possible in the same district (electoral unit) in order to reduce their influence in other electoral units.
Cracking, which represents the dispersion and mixing of voters of the same political beliefs into multiple constituencies in order to reduce the political power of a particular political orientation.
The term gerrymandering was created by combining the surname of Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry and the word salamander, which means newt in English.
Jerry was an American politician from Massachusetts, serving as Governor of that state (1810–1812) and later Vice President of the United States (1813–1814).
While he was governor, his party (then Democratic-Republican) pushed through a new map of Massachusetts Senate districts, which was drawn to increase their chances of winning the election.
Jerry signed the law that adopted those borders. Opponents attacked him for approving an unfair map.
One of the new districts resembled a salamander. The newspaper caricatured him and combined his last name, "Gerry" + "salamander" - "gerrymander".
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