Feds join lawsuit challenging California’s US House map, claiming racial gerrymandering
Caroline MolloyThe Department of Justice (DOJ) intervened Nov. 13 in a lawsuit challenging California’s newly passed congressional map that could hand Democrats up to five additional House seats, arguing that the map amounts to unconstitutional racial gerrymandering.
In court filings, DOJ attorneys said state lawmakers used race as a proxy to engineer districts favorable to Democrats, violating the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
The department pointed to aspects of internal discussions, floor debates, and public statements as evidence that lawmakers prioritized racial targets — focusing particularly on Latino population concentrations — over traditional redistricting criteria.
“In the press, California’s legislators and governor sold a plan to promote the interests of Democrats in the upcoming midterm elections,” the department wrote. “But amongst themselves and on the debate floor, the focus was not partisanship, but race.”
The California Republican Party filed the original lawsuit, Tangipa et al. v. Newsom et al., on Nov. 5, the day after Proposition 50 passed with 64.6% of the vote. The Democrat-backed measure allows lawmakers to bypass the state’s independent redistricting commission and produce a new congressional map ahead of the 2026 midterms.
“Race cannot be used as a proxy to advance political interests,” DOJ lawyers wrote, “but that is precisely what the California General Assembly did with Proposition 50 — the recent ballot initiative that junked California’s pre-existing electoral map in favor of a rush-job rejiggering of California’s congressional district lines.”
