The Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Governor Gavin Newsom over California’s Proposition 50, a redistricting plan allowing Democrats to pick up House seats.
According to the lawsuit, race drove the governor and state lawmakers to redraw the maps. “Race cannot be used as a proxy to advance political interests, but that is precisely what the California General Assembly did with Proposition 50 — the recent ballot initiative that junked California’s pre-existing electoral map in favor of a rush-job rejiggering of California’s congressional district lines,” the Justice Department claims in the filing.
“During the Legislature’s consideration and debate of Proposition 50, several legislators gave racial — not political — reasons in favor of their votes for the new map,” it adds. “They described other states’ redistricting efforts as efforts meant to suppress minority voters.”
Similarly, a federal lawsuit filed by the California Republican Party aims to block Prop 50, arguing that it “unconstitutionally gerrymanders districts in violation of the 14th and 15th Amendments.”
The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court against Governor Gavin Newsom and California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, declares that state lawmakers violated the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments upon drawing “new congressional district lines based on race, specifically to favor Hispanic voters, without cause or evidence to justify it.”
“Plaintiffs ask the Court to invalidate the unconstitutional racially gerrymandered Proposition 50 map and require that any future use of race in drawing lines comply with the Equal Protection Clause to ensure all Californians enjoy equal protection under the law,” the filing adds.
Attorney General Pam Bondi condemned Proposition 50 in a statement on X, calling it a “power grab.”
“Newsom should be concerned about keeping Californians safe and shutting down Antifa violence, not rigging his state for political gain,” she said.
