California redraws its congressional district lines to compete with Texas’ new boundaries. Voters approved the new boundaries in November
California passes Proposition 50 to redraw congressional boundaries
Californians voted with Democrats to redraw the state’s congressional maps.
The Department of Justice is joining a lawsuit against California Governor Gavin Newsom over the redrawing of state House districts for the 2026 midterm elections.
The Trump administration has accused California of violating the Constitution by gerrymandering, using race as a factor to favor Hispanic voters in new maps. On November 13, the state asked a federal judge to bar California from using the new map in future elections.
“Race cannot be used as a proxy to advance political interests, and that is exactly what the California Legislature did with Prop. 50, the latest voting plan to override California’s existing electoral maps in favor of abrupt changes to California’s congressional district boundaries,” the complaint states.
Voters overwhelmingly approved the use of new maps in the Nov. 4 election and agreed to revert to non-gerrymandered districts after the 2030 Census.
“These losers lost at the ballot box and will soon lose in the courts,” Newsom spokeswoman Izzy Gurdon said in a statement.
The new lines that Proposition 50 allows Congress to draw effectively nullify five new Republican-leaning congressional districts that Texas created earlier this year at the request of President Donald Trump.
The Justice Department wants to join a lawsuit filed by California Republicans shortly after the election.
The lawsuit filed by the California Republican Party and its co-plaintiffs says the new congressional map was drawn to increase the voting power of Hispanic voters by creating two new districts “to allow Latino voters to elect candidates of their choice.”
Republicans argue in their lawsuit that there is no evidence that Hispanic voters are being prevented from electing their preferred representatives, a key standard for judges in racial redistricting cases. They also point out that Latinos are California’s largest population group.
“However, California’s Hispanic voters successfully elected their preferred candidates to both state and federal office, unencumbered by racial majority voting as a bloc,” the complaint states. “This is not surprising since Latinos make up the largest population in the state, and California voters almost always vote based on party affiliation rather than race.”
State legislatures are allowed to consider race when drawing district lines, but they must be able to justify their reasons if the boundaries are challenged in court.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said on social media that the Justice Department has filed charges against Newsom over “proposition 50’s brazen redistricting initiative.”
“Mr. Newsom should be concerned with keeping Californians safe and stopping Antifa violence, not rigging the state for political gain,” Bondi said.
California’s move to redraw district lines comes in response to the Texas Legislature’s redrawing of district lines to lean Republican. Several lawsuits have been filed over the effort, but the Justice Department is not participating.
Several other states are redrawing district lines in a race to use electorate composition to determine which party controls the House after the 2026 election.
What is Prop 50?
Proposition 50 is a constitutional amendment that would allow the nation’s most populous state to temporarily suspend its use of bipartisan commissions to draw congressional district lines. Instead, California will use the lines drawn by Democratic state lawmakers to gain more seats in Congress.
The new lines were drawn and made public when voters passed a constitutional amendment. The lawsuit does not challenge Proposition 50, only the new district boundaries.
After the 2030 U.S. Census, a bipartisan commission will resume drawing the lines.
More than 5.6 million Californians voted for Prop. 50, while about 3.2 million voted against it, according to the California Secretary of State’s Office.
Sarah D. Wire, USA TODAY’s senior national political correspondent, can be reached at swire@usatoday.com.
