California Republicans filed their second legal challenge in a week to block state Democrats and Gov. Gavin Newsom from moving forward with a ballot measure this fall to redraw congressional lines.
The emergency petition was filed before the California Supreme Court on Monday. Eight Republican lawmakers are asking the court to keep Proposition 50 off the Nov. 4 ballot.
In the filing, the Republicans argue that the Democrats’ push runs afoul of state constitutional requirements that maps be drawn by an independent redistricting committee, Bloomberg Law reported.
“The Constitution’s guardrails on redistricting are essential to ensuring that Californians are spared from the political influence and inherent turbulence of perpetual map-drawing in the hands of the legislature,” the suit reads.
Newsom has cited the Texas legislature’s redistricting move for a tit-for-tat measure in his state. Both states’ redrawn maps would likely flip five seats — red in Texas and blue in California. The difference is that California must put it before voters, whereas in Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott can enact it with a stroke of his pen.
“As our petition to the Supreme Court, filed an hour ago, says, they broke the rules in multiple ways. One, they combined two unrelated subjects into one measure, forcing voters into an illegal take-it-or-leave-it choice on two separate subjects,” said plaintiff attorney Mike Columbo, a partner at Dhillon Law Group, The Hill reported.
“Two, the constitutional provisions in force now say that redistricting has to be done by the independent citizens’ commissions. … By engaging in the redistricting process already before asking for voters to grant it the power to do so, the legislature has exceeded its power under the Constitution,” Columbo said.
President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday that he plans to have the Justice Department file a lawsuit against the redistricting effort in California.
“I think I’m going to be filing a lawsuit pretty soon, and I think we’re going to be very successful in it,” Trump said. “We’re going to be filing it through the Department of Justice. That’s going to happen.”
If allowed to proceed and passed, the GOP would go from nine to four seats out of the 52 congressional districts in California. Republican Reps. Kevin Kiley, Doug LaMalfa, Darrell Issa, Ken Calvert, and David Valadao would be affected.
The same court last week denied the first lawsuit, issuing a two-sentence ruling that Republicans didn’t establish cause for the legislation to be blocked, Bloomberg Law reported.
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