Republicans file lawsuit challenging California’s redistricting measure | California

California Republicans filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday challenging a high-stakes redistricting measure that could help give Democrats as many as five congressional seats.

The suit, filed by Republican Assemblyman David Tangipa, 18 California electors and the state Republican Party in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, argues that the new maps are unconstitutional because they were drawn up to increase the voting power of a particular racial group. He asks the court to prevent the new maps from coming into force, at least temporarily.

The measure, Proposition 50, was approved by voters Tuesday night, constituting a decisive victory for Democrats. The plan temporarily gives the power to allocate congressional districts to the California Legislature, allowing it to pass maps that will help Democrats win five seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The plan is a direct response to gerrymandering in Texas, where Republicans, at the request of the US president, created several new safe Republican districts as part of an effort led by Donald Trump to keep the House under Republican control during the final two years of his second term.

Mike Columbo, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said California Democrats drew the cards to increase the power of Latino voters.

While the Supreme Court allows states to use race as a factor in drawing political maps, Columbo argued the intent is to help minority voters elect the candidates they want. In California, he noted, Hispanic voters represent the largest ethnic group.

“There is no majority race in California more than Hispanics,” Columbo said. “Hispanics have had fantastic success electing the candidates they want. As a result, California cannot meet this exception.”

Democrats said they were confident the maps would withstand a legal challenge.

The Republican challenge comes against the backdrop of a high-stakes voting rights case before the Supreme Court that could limit states’ ability to consider the racial makeup of voting populations when drawing district lines. During arguments last month, the court’s conservative majority appeared poised to weaken Section Two of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits racially discriminatory voting practices, as it applies to redistricting.

An analysis by the Public Policy Institute of California found that the new congressional boundaries created by Proposition 50 leave racial representation almost unchanged, maintaining the same number of majority-Latino districts as maps drawn by the state’s independent Citizens’ Redistricting Commission.

California’s retaliatory gerrymander is Democrats’ most significant response yet in the unprecedented mid-decade redistricting battle that spanned the entire country. On Tuesday evening, California Governor Gavin Newsom called on Democratic-led states to follow suit, after Trump persuaded several Republican legislatures to pass new maps favorable to his party.

The measure’s passage was so decisive that the Associated Press called the race as soon as polls in the state closed. With 75% of the votes counted on Wednesday, the yes campaign was well ahead, almost 64% to 36%.

The plaintiffs are represented by the Dhillon Law Group, founded by Harmeet Dhillon, now an assistant attorney general overseeing the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. The firm also represented California Republicans earlier this year in their unsuccessful attempt to prevent the special election from taking effect.

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