GOP sues to block new voting cards in California

from Maya S. Miller and Mikhail ZinsteinCalMatters

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Just last week, the California Secretary of State officially certified that more than two-thirds of the Californians voted to pass Proposition 50Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to temporarily shift the state’s congressional maps in favor of Democrats.

Regardless, Republicans and the Trump administration hope a federal district court hearing in Los Angeles this week will step in to bar the state from using the new maps next year.

California Republicans, who sued Newsom and Secretary of State Shirley Weber the day after the election, are basing their challenge on the argument that California’s chief map maker illegally used race as a factor in drawing district lines, giving Latino and Hispanic voters overwhelming influence at the expense of other racial and ethnic groups, including white voters.

That, Republicans argue, means the maps constitute illegal racial manipulation and a violation of the 14th and 15th Amendments. Although Section 2 of the federal Voting Rights Act allows for race redistricting, they add, case law and judicial precedent have established a strict standard that requires a minority group to prove it was systematically outvoted by a majority that consistently voted together to deny the minority their chosen candidate.

But the chances of opponents of Prop. 50 seems weak, especially after those of the US Supreme Court the conservative majority recently blessed The new Texas maps, overturning a lower court’s finding that Republicans there engaged in unconstitutional racial gerrymandering.

“It is undisputed that the impetus for the adoption of the Texas map (like the map subsequently adopted in California) was pure and simple partisan advantage,” conservative Justice Samuel Alito wrote in a concurring opinion supported by Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas.

And then there’s the looming possibility that the Supreme Court, in a separate case, could ban the use of race entirely in the redistricting process, which could make California’s new maps — as well as previous ones drawn by the independent citizen commission — unconstitutional. It would also give a big advantage to Republicans in southern states, where several districts designed to increase the voting power of black Americans are currently carried by Democrats.

Despite the long odds, the ailing California Republican Party there are no other options for resistance. Passage of Proposition 50 will likely mark the beginning of the end for several of California’s Republican House members, who have been forced to decide whether to run in their current, now less Republican-leaning districts, switch to new seats or drop out altogether.

One of them, Congressman Darrell Issa, who represents parts of San Diego County, even considered moving to Texas and running for a more Republican-friendly seat in Dallas, but the president reportedly refused to endorse him for the already contested Texas seat, so he decided to stay.

The legal challenge claims that the cards Prop. 50 cause “stigmatic and representational injury” by placing certain candidates, such as a member of the Republican Assembly David Tangipa of Fresno, who is Polynesian, in areas drawn with a specific racial or ethnic minority group in mind.

The case is in court in Los Angeles this week

The challengers, which include Tangipa, the California Republican Party, several Republican voters and the Trump White House, are asking three judges for the Central District of California to issue a preliminary injunction on the cards before Dec. 19, the date when candidates can begin collecting signatures to put their names on the primary ballot in 2026. A preliminary injunction would temporarily prevent the cards from being used in elections.

In court Monday, Republican challengers presented their case, arguing that because supporters of Prop. 50 publicly touted the maps as increasing representation of Latino voters, state legislators and the consultant Paul Mitchell who was hired to draw the maps took race into account. Therefore, they must justify how their new districts meet the standard for permissible racial gerrymandering, attorneys say.

“Under the Voting Rights Act, it’s legal to redistrict based on race. Section 2 protects that. But it also gives you guidelines,” Tangipa said in an interview with CalMatters after testifying in court Monday in Los Angeles. “They didn’t follow those guidelines in Sacramento.”

Tangipa argued that although Democratic Party lawmakers primarily intended to advance their party’s ranks based on political ideology, “they used race to justify that ultimate goal.”

The plaintiffs requested that Mitchell testify, but the court denied a request to compel him to take the witness stand to explain whether he intentionally sought to increase the voting power of certain racial and ethnic groups. Because Mitchell lives more than 100 miles from the courthouse, he was out of reach of a subpoena. Still, the judges questioned his use of “legislative privilege” to resist production of the documents requested by the plaintiffs.

At one point, a redistricting expert testified, the plaintiffs focused on a line from former Democratic Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuirepublic statement on after the Legislature passed the package of bills paving the way for the Nov. 4 special election.

“The new map makes no changes to historically black neighborhoods in Oakland and the Los Angeles area and preserves and expands the Voting Rights Act districts that give Latino voters the opportunity to elect candidates of their choice,” McGuire said in a statement.

McGuire announced this last month he will challenge Republican Rep. Doug LaMalfa in one of the newly configured Prop. 50 seats.

But proponents of the new maps argue that they were intended only to create a partisan advantage for Democrats and that any increase in voting power for certain ethnic or racial groups was incidental.

After all, “it was supported by the voters”

Also complicating the GOP challenge is that California voters overwhelmingly approved the maps.

“Even if we assume the Legislature got it wrong on race, it ended up going into effect because it was approved by the voters,” Emily Rong Zhang, assistant professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, previously told CalMatters. “They must show that the voters intended to create districts that disproportionately favored the voting rights of one racial group over another.”

One unknown is how the Supreme Court will rule on a case that questions whether it is constitutional to even consider race as a factor in redistricting.

The justices are weighing in another ongoing case, Louisiana v. Calais, whether to strike down part of the federal Voting Rights Act that requires the creation of districts in which racial and ethnic minorities have a chance to elect their preferred candidate. If the decision is retroactive, the decision to overturn it can invalidate both old and new California maps.

Regardless of the Supreme Court’s decision, other states have joined redistricting efforts or are considering entering the fray. In addition to Texas and California, four other states have already introduced new congressional maps, according to the The National Conference of State Legislatures. Virginia, Maryland and Florida have also taken some steps toward redistricting.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.