Republicans Are Suing to Kill California's Pro-Democratic Gerrymander. They Have a Huge Problem.

[In It to Win It]

California Republicans, now joined by the Trump administration’s Department of Justice, have sued California in federal court to stop implementation of Proposition 50, a voter-passed ballot measure that creates a Democratic gerrymander of the state’s congressional districts, adding up to five more Democratic seats. The lawsuit argues that the Legislature had an unconstitutional race-focused intent on the state’s Latino voters when it passed the maps. In fact, whatever the Legislature intended should be irrelevant to the Republicans’ claim, and they likely will lose because California voters were acting with a predominantly political, not racial, intent.

If Republicans lose the Prop 50 lawsuit and the United States Supreme Court does not interfere with a new federal district court ruling putting Texas’ new gerrymander on hold for 2026, Democrats could have an advantage going into 2026, even as the Supreme Court contemplates even more changes in redistricting rules in its pending case out of Louisiana.

The Republicans’ main argument in Tangipa v. Newsom is that “the California Legislature violated the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution when it drew new congressional district lines based on race, specifically to favor Hispanic voters, without cause or evidence to justify it.” Plaintiffs in particular argue that 16 California congressional districts are unconstitutional racial gerrymanders in violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

To succeed on such a claim, a plaintiff first must show that when a state drew district lines it made race the predominant factor in doing so, and second that no compelling reason justified it. When a state makes political considerations, traditional districting criteria, or something else the predominant factor in drawing the lines rather than race, a racial gerrymandering claim fails on the first prong.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/republicans-suing-kill-california-pro-220109148.html