The Justice Department on Thursday filed a legal action against Governor Gavin Newsom and Secretary of State Shirley Weber in an effort to intervene and prevent the State of California’s newly adopted redistricting plan enacted with the passage of Proposition 50.
If the legal action by the federal government succeeds, it would obviate the effort by the California Legislature and Governor Newsom to rearrange the boundaries of California’s 52 congressional districts in a way that was calculated to produce an outcome in the 2026 mid-presidential term election such that five of the 12 Republicans now representing California in Congress would be replaced by Democrats. The cost to California’s taxpayers to hold the special Proposition 50 election, which was hastily arranged to be held in what in California is an election off-year after the Democrat-dominated legislature in Sacramento resolved to respond in kind to a similar move in Texas aimed at favoring the GOP. The cost sustained by California taxpayers to hold the Proposition 50 election is estimated at roughly $282.6 million, which includes the state’s administrative costs to schedule and carry out the balloting, along with reimbursement to counties for polling services.
Democrats and anti-Donald Trump political forces aligned with them expended $121 million on top of that in promoting Proposition 50, motivated in large measure by the goal of preventing the Republicans from retaining their current thin 219 to 213 seat majority in the House of Representatives in the November 2026 election. That was countered by approximately $44.5 million in spending by Republicans and their allies in a campaign opposing Proposition 50.
Proposition 50 was passed by over 64 percent of those participating in the election held on November 4. Proposition 50 dispensed with the State of California’s Congressional District Map, which was drafted by a nonpartisan Citizens Redistricting Commission in 2021 based upon data provided by the 2020 census. That map was supposed to remain in place during the 2022, 2024, 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections. The Citizens Redistricting Commission was created a a result of the passage, in 2010, of Proposition 20, which was intended to eliminate partisan bias in the drafting of electoral districts.
The day after the November 4 election, David Tangipa, a California resident and Republican Assemblyman from District 8; Eric Ching a California resident and Congressional Candidate and California residents Saul Ayon, Peter Hernandez, Roxanne Hoge, Joel Guiterrez Campos, Solomon Verduzco, Paul Ramirez, Jane Ortiz-Wilson, Vernon Costa, Rachel Gunther, Doug Buchanan, Sayrs Morris, Mike Netter, Christina Raughton, Kristi Hays, James Reid, Michael Tardif and Alex Galicia, along with the California
Republican Party sued Governor Newsom and Secretary of State Shirley Weber, alleging Prop. 50 violates the 14th and 15th Amendments.
The lawsuit alleged that the redistricting plan mandates racially gerrymandered congressional districts in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
On Thursday, the U.S. Justice Department, represented by Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jesus A. Osete Assistant United States Attorney Julie A. Hamill of the Civil Division’s Civil Rights Section and Trial Attorneys David Goldman, Joshua R. Zuckerman, and Greta Gieseke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division together with First Assistant United States Attorney Bill Essayli of the Central District of California entered a motion to intervene in Tangipa, et al. v. Newsom, et al. in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
According to a statement from the U.S. Department of Justice, “Substantial evidence, including that in the legislative record and public statements, indicate that the legislature created a new map in which Latino demographics and racial considerations predominated, in violation of the Equal Protection Clause.
“The race-based gerrymandered maps passed by the California legislature are unlawful and unconstitutional,” said Essayli, whose appointment as the U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California is on hold while awaiting confirmation by the U.S. Senate. “The U.S. Department of Justice is moving swiftly to prevent these illegal maps from tainting our upcoming elections. California is free to draw congressional maps, but they may not be drawn based on race.”
U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi weighed in. “California’s redistricting scheme is a brazen power grab that tramples on civil rights and mocks the democratic process,” she said. “Governor Newsom’s attempt to entrench one-party rule and silence millions of Californians will not stand.”
Osete said, “Race cannot be used as a proxy to advance political interests, but that is precisely what the California General Assembly did with Prop 50. “Californians were sold an illegal, racially gerrymandered map, but the U.S. Constitution prohibits its use in 2026 and beyond.”
The Sentinel was unable to reach Newsom, who earlier this week flew to Brazil to take part in the 30th annual United Nations Climate Change Conference being held in Belém, for his reaction to the federal motion to intervene in the matter. His office said the governor stands behind the statements he and his office made in reaction to the filing of the Tangipa, et al. v. Newsom, et al. Lawsuit last week. At that time, Newsom had tweeted “Good Luck, Losers,” suggesting the legal action was a sour grapes move by the Republicans who don’t have the political muscle to prevail at the polls.
The governor’s office said that the suit had no chance of prevailing in court, and it characterized the suit itself and its language as a “partisan hack job” on the part of lawyers aligned with the Trump Administration.
Tangipa, Ching, Ayon, Hernandez, Hoge, Guiterrez Campos, Verduzco, Ramirez, Ortiz-Wilson, Costa, Gunther, Buchanan, Morris, Netter, Raughton, Hays, Reid, Tardif, Galicia and the California
Republican Party are represented by the attorneys Michael Columbo, Shawn Cowles and Mark Meuser of the Newport Beach-based Dhillon Law Group. The founder of the Dhillon Law Group is Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon. In filing the motion to intervene, Dhillon, whose full title is assistant attorney general for civil rights, has recused himself from this case.
The Sentinel spoke with an attorney of more than 50 years’ standing, a Democrat and formerly a member of the Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation who served under two Democratic governors, with regard to the Tangipa, et al. v. Newsom, et al. Lawsuit and the U.S. Justice Department’s motion to intervene.
While he supported Measure 50, he said he and others had counseled the governor, members of the legislature and Democratic Party campaign consultants to refrain from framing the campaign in support of the measure as creating an electoral map that would be favorable to the state’s Latino population. “We told them to leave any reference to race or ethnicity out of it, “ the lawyer said. “We emphasized that it they brought that up, they were going to be raising constitutional issues that would complicate this down the road. They felt it was an important selling point to a large segment of the population, and they didn’t listen to us. It is important to remember that there was no mention of race or demographics or anything like that in the language of the resolution for the map change. But it looks like now we are going to see whether the courts are going to interpret the proponents discussing balancing representation along racial lines constitutes some kind of race-based voter preclusion.”
The motion for intervention cuts right to the heart of that matter, quoting verbatim, without attributing those quotes to any specific Democratic legislators what was said on the legislative floor during the discussion/debate on placing Proposition 50 on the ballot.
One such statement made by a California legislator, a Democrat, pertains to the map drawer the Democrats employed to redraft the district boundaries. “[T]he first thing” Mitchell “did in drawing the new map, [the] number one thing Mitchell first started thing about [was to create a new] “majority/minority Latino district.” Another statement of a state Democratic lawmaker was that Proposition 50 would serve as a “shield [against] racist maps.” The motion to intervene stated that during the legislature’s discussion, the Democratic legislators stated Proposition 50 would created “district lines in the name of bolstering the voting power of Hispanic Californians because of their race. Our Constitution does not tolerate this racial gerrymander.”
The motion cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s pronouncement in reaching a decision in the case of Miller v. Johnson, “At the heart of the Consitution’s guarantee of equal protection lies the simple command that the Government must treat citizens as individuals, not as simply components of a racial class.” According to the motion, Although the Supreme Court has allowed race-conscious redistricting to rectify prior violations of the Voting Rights Act, the Department of Justice has approved California’s preexisting election system as recently as President Barack Obama’s term. No one, let alone California, contends that its preexisting map unlawfully discriminated on the basis of race. Because the Proposition 50 map does, the United States respectfully request that this Court enjoin defendants from using it in the 2026 election and future elections.”
-Mark Gutglueck