California GOP sues to block the redistricting measure Proposition 50

A group of Republican lawmakers is asking the California Supreme Court to remove a redistricting initiative from the November ballot, arguing Democrats violated the law when they rushed the measure through to redraw congressional districts ahead of the 2026 midterm election.

Democrats, led by Gov. Gavin Newsom, last week placed Proposition 50 on a special November ballot. The initiative asks voters to throw out the maps drawn by the state’s independent redistricting commission and approve new congressional districts, including five that are likely to flip from Republican to Democratic. It was written in response to Texas’ decision to redraw its own congressional districts to flip five seats from blue to red.

The lawsuit was filed as an emergency petition to the state Supreme Court on behalf of four GOP members of the state Legislature, three California voters and a former member of the state’s independent redistricting commission, which has been tasked with drawing congressional districts for the past decade.

Proposition 50 would temporarily suspend the independent commission and approve new maps created by the Legislature. Under the measure, those maps would stay in place until after the 2030 census, when the independent commission would resume drawing districts.

“They’re trying to destroy democracy in California — that’s not good for anybody,” Sen. Tony Strickland, R-Huntington Beach, said. He said he does not believe that redistricting would revert to the independent commission after 2030 if Proposition 50 passes, even if the law requires it. “Once politicians get that power — I don’t believe for one second this would be temporary.”

He placed the blame squarely on Democrats and Newsom.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signs legislation calling for a special election on a redrawn congressional map.

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Godofredo A. Vásquez

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AP Photo

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“It’s authoritarian to predetermine elections in California, and that’s exactly what will happen if Gavin Newsom is successful in November,” Strickland said.

Republican President Donald Trump set off the mid-decade redistricting scramble this summer, calling on red states to redraw their lines and to give his party an edge in the next year’s midterm elections.

The lawsuit argues that Proposition 50 violates state law in several ways, including by usurping the power of the Citizens Redistricting Commission and seeking to redraw congressional lines twice in one decade. The commission was created by voters in 2008 to draw state legislative districts and expanded to include congressional districts in 2010.

“The constitutional provisions in force now say that redistricting has to be done by the Independent Citizens Commission. It has to involve transparency and public participation. And it can’t be for partisan gerrymandering,” said Mike Columbo, an attorney representing Republicans. “By engaging in the redistricting process already, before asking for voters to grant them the power to do so, the Legislature has exceeded its power under the Constitution. The Legislature cannot break the law and ask for the people later to retroactively give it the power to redistrict.”

Loyola Marymount University law professor Jessica Levinson noted that voters are being asked to weigh in.

“If you think about what this proposal is trying to do, it’s trying to change our state Constitution,” she said. “The lawsuit is essentially arguing that these changes violate the Constitution as it stands. That’s true — and that’s why the voters are being asked to amend the Constitution to change it.”

More broadly, Levinson believes the suit faces a “serious uphill battle,” in part because judges are generally reluctant to get ahead of voters and prevent them from considering a question.

“At this point, if the California Supreme Court granted relief, they would be essentially prohibiting the voters from weighing in on this question,” she said. “So in a sense, we should remember that all pre-election reviews in some way face an uphill battle.”

The lawsuit also alleges more technical legal violations, including that the ballot measure violates a state law prohibiting initiatives from posing questions on more than one subject.

And it rehashes an argument that the state Supreme Court already declined to take up last week: whether the legislation creating Proposition 50 was illegally passed because the bill was not in print for 30 days.