Justice Department joins GOP lawsuit to block Proposition 50 map

The Department of Justice on Thursday joined a lawsuit to block new congressional district lines approved by California voters last week through Proposition 50.

Gov. Gavin Newsom championed the congressional maps as an attempt to help Democrats win more seats in the House of Representatives, countering Republican-led gerrymandering in states such as Texas. But California Republicans argued in a suit filed last week that the maps unfairly advantage Latino voters over other Californians.

The Trump administration joined that lawsuit, asking a judge in the Central District of California to block the new map from taking effect for the 2026 midterm elections.

“California Democrats are openly gerrymandering by race in this case,” Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote on social media platform X. “That’s immoral and illegal.”

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Proposition 50 was overwhelmingly approved last week, winning support from 64% of voters. The measure sets aside political lines drawn by an independent citizens commission and enacts a map that could help Democrats flip up to five seats currently held by Republicans — and protect a handful of incumbent Democrats from competitive challenges.

The measure’s passage was a political win for Newsom and Democrats in the midst of a nationwide fight over political maps. New district lines in Texas, Missouri and North Carolina could net Republicans a handful of additional seats, while states including Virginia, Indiana and Florida are considering their redistricting plans.

The lawsuit against the Proposition 50 map argues the new lines were designed to maximize the voting power of Latino residents, thereby violating the equal protection and voting rights of non-Latino voters. The DOJ argues that it is not necessary to draw districts where a majority of voters are Latino because white California voters often prefer candidates of various races and ethnicities.

“Recent elections show that Hispanics have not struggled to elect politicians of their choice in California,” the complaint said. “That is because results in California are largely driven by party-bloc voting, not race-bloc voting.”

An analysis by the Public Policy Institute of California found that the Proposition 50 map has the same number of majority-Latino districts (16) as the maps enacted by the independent commission in 2021, which have been used in the last two congressional elections.

While the lawsuit quotes supporters of Proposition 50 touting the Latino-majority districts, Newsom and Democratic leaders in the state Legislature argued throughout the campaign that the purpose of the maps was explicitly partisan: to help Democrats retake the House. That could help the state thwart a challenge under the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.

“These losers lost at the ballot box and soon they will also lose in court,” said Brandon Richards, a spokesman for Newsom, in a statement.

The passage of Proposition 50 has scrambled the electoral playing field ahead of California’s June primary. Sonoma State University professor David McCuan said the measure could face more legal challenges from Republicans facing political headwinds.

“You could see half a dozen to a dozen [lawsuits] … challenging both the process of how Prop. 50 got to the ballot and the constitutional legal questions related to Proposition 50 itself,” he said.