California Republicans Sue to Overturn Voter-Backed Prop 50 Redistricting Vote

California Republicans are suing state officials in hopes of invalidating a ballot initiative that passed on Tuesday, which is aimed at combating the effects of a nationwide Republican gerrymandering scheme.

The initiative, known as Proposition 50, seeks to temporarily suspend California’s independent redistricting commission in order to craft maps that would likely give Democrats an additional five seats in the House of Representatives following the 2026 midterm races.

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) promoted the idea in response to the proposal and passage of new maps by Republicans in states across the country — a gerrymandering scheme by the GOP and President Donald Trump’s political team to mitigate losses in next year’s elections, with hopes of retaining the House for Republicans.

With over 6 million ballots now counted, 63.8 percent of California voters backed the measure in Tuesday night’s election, with only 36.2 percent voting against it.

On Wednesday, mere hours after the vote occurred, Republicans sued in federal court to invalidate the new maps, arguing that they violate the 14th and 15th amendments to the U.S. Constitution by unfairly gerrymandering and giving Latinx voters a supposedly undue political advantage.

The California Republican Party, Assemblymember David Tangipa and 18 state residents are listed as plaintiffs in the lawsuit. Newsom and California Secretary of State Shirley Weber are named as defendants.

“Hispanics make up the most voters in the state. … Hispanics have had fantastic success in electing candidates of their choice,” said Mike Columbo, a lawyer for the plaintiffs who works for a law firm founded by Republican activist Harmeet Dhillon.

Responding to the lawsuit, Newsom’s office indicated that they were confident the new maps would hold up to judicial scrutiny.

“We haven’t reviewed the lawsuit, but if it’s from the California Republican Party and Harmeet Dhillon’s law firm, it’s going to fail,” a spokesperson for Newsom said.

Republicans have indeed sued the state previously, hoping to block Proposition 50 from even being allowed on the statewide ballot. Nicholas Stephanopoulos, a law professor at Harvard, told The New York Times that he, too, is skeptical that California Republicans will be successful in blocking the new maps.

“If there’s a properly adopted map and there’s some uncertainty over the law, typically the map will stay in effect, and it’s the plaintiffs’ case that will be deferred or delayed until there’s some resolution of the legal standard,” Stephanopoulos said.

But the new maps could be upended in the future, even before the 2026 midterms, if the Supreme Court rules a certain way in a case involving Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which allows the redrawing of maps to consider race in order to aid marginalized communities in getting proper representation in Congress. In a hearing on the case last month, the court appeared likely to overturn that rule.

Experts say that the Supreme Court potentially undermining Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act may not only affect California’s maps, but political boundaries in other states, too.

“If the high court finds Section 2 unconstitutional, we may well see the elimination of the 11 Black-majority districts — all Democratic — in Republican-controlled Southern states,” Marjorie Cohn, professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and dean of the People’s Academy of International Law, wrote in an op-ed for Truthout in August.