SACRAMENTO — California Republicans announced Wednesday they are suing over California’s new congressional maps a day after voters passed them overwhelmingly.
Assembly Member David Tangipa, 18 California voters and the California Republican Party say they filed a lawsuit in federal court in Los Angeles Wednesday morning challenging newly passed Proposition 50, which they say violates the Constitution.
Mike Columbo, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said that California Democrats who drew the maps admit that the maps increase the power of Hispanics. Precedent set by the Supreme Court allows states to draw districts to increase the voting power of a particular racial group, but Columbo said that’s only allowed for a racial minority that is in jeopardy of having its voting power diluted by another group. That’s not the case with Hispanic voters, Columbo said, because they are the largest ethnic group in California.
“There is no majority race in California more than Hispanics,” Columbo said. “Hispanics have had fantastic success in electing candidates of their choice.”
The lawsuit asks the court to block the Prop 50 maps at least temporarily so that California’s original maps, which were drawn by a nonpartisan commission, stay in effect for the 2026 midterms.
The firm leading the lawsuit is Dhillon Law Group, which was founded by Harmeet Dhillon, who is now currently the assistant attorney general for civil rights at the federal Department of Justice.
“We’re proud to have signed onto this lawsuit,” said Corrin Rankin, chair of the California Republican Party. “This is about the Constitution. This is about the rights our ancestors have fought so hard for in this country.”
It’s not clear how the lawsuit will hold up in court. The California Democrats who drew the maps have said that even though they are designed to benefit their party, they comply with all requirements in federal law. California Republicans and Dhillon Law Group previously sued unsuccessfully in state court to try to block Prop 50 from going to voters in the first place.
The California Republican Party led one of the two main campaigns against Prop 50, which passed with about 65% of the vote in early returns Tuesday night.
Their lawsuit comes amid a push by Republican President Donald Trump to delegitimize Tuesday’s election, including by criticizing California’s mail voting system, pushing for voter ID laws, sending election monitors to polling places and saying as polls opened on Election Day that the vote was “RIGGED.”
“The Unconstitutional Redistricting Vote in California is a GIANT SCAM in that the entire process, in particular the Voting itself, is RIGGED,” Trump wrote on his social media website Tuesday morning.
During an interview with the Chronicle’s editorial board last month, representatives for the other main campaign opposing Prop 50 said they believed the measure was probably on solid legal footing, even if they opposed it.
“They’ve probably had fairly good legal advice in putting these maps together,” said Cynthia Dai, a former Democratic member of the Citizens Redistricting Commission and leading opponent of Prop 50. “I don’t know what the probability of a lawsuit is. The Constitution does give the people the ultimate authority if they want to change it.”
To invalidate the maps, courts would need to act quickly. The deadline for politicians to declare their candidacy for Congress in the 2026 midterms is fast approaching. California’s primary elections will take place June 2.
