DOJ joins lawsuit to stop California’s new anti-GOP congressional map

The Justice Department on Thursday joined a lawsuit challenging California’s new congressional map, saying the state was too focused on race when it drew its lines.

The government sided with the California Republican Party, which sued last week to challenge the map that voters approved in the Nov. 4 election.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and fellow Democrats, who control the state, drew the map to cut Republicans’ share of the congressional delegation from nine to four seats out of 52.

The Legislature, which drew up the map and put it to voters in a referendum last week, cast the debate as one of racial representation as much as it was about political parties, the Justice Department said. The result was a map that took pains to carve out Hispanic-heavy districts to counter Texas, which earlier this year redistricted away several majority-minority districts.

The Justice Department said focusing on race renders the maps invalid.

“Our Constitution does not tolerate this racial gerrymander,” the department said in its intervening complaint.

It asked the federal court in Los Angeles to block the use of the maps for next year’s elections and into the future.

The department’s attorneys pointed to one newly drawn district that was crafted to snare Hispanic voters, including in Republican areas, while leaving out White Democrats.

They said that if the goal was purely party politics, those White Democrats would have been placed in the same district as the Hispanic voters and the Hispanic Republican areas would have been left out.

The referendum to adopt the new map won easily, with roughly 65% of the vote.

Justice Department attorneys said California’s consultant to draw the maps has boasted publicly about his intention to use race in crafting the lines. The department also pointed to members of the State Assembly who said they were acting to counter Texas’ move to delete majority-minority districts.

The Supreme Court is deciding a case out of Louisiana involving race and map drawing.

Under current interpretations of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, states have been compelled to create “opportunity districts” that maximize the voting power of racial and ethnic minorities.

Louisiana, whose population is roughly one-third Black, was ordered by a lower court to craft two of its six U.S. House districts to give Black voters majority power. Non-Black voters challenged that map. The justices were sharply divided on the matter during oral arguments last month.

In its complaint filed Thursday, the Justice Department said the situation in California didn’t reach the threshold where carving out another district for Hispanic voters was necessary under the Voting Rights Act.

That would mean proving that the state risked violating the law if it didn’t focus so heavily on race. The Justice Department said California can’t make that showing, given that the Justice Department under the Obama administration had approved the basic outlines of its previous map.

“California’s redistricting scheme is a brazen power grab that tramples on civil rights and mocks the democratic process,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in announcing the government’s intervention. “Governor Newsom’s attempt to entrench one-party rule and silence millions of Californians will not stand.”

The Justice Department said it has the right under the law to intervene because the case involves equal protection clause issues and Ms. Bondi has declared it to be “a case of general public importance.”

Mr. Newsom’s office mocked the lawsuit.

“These losers lost at the ballot box and soon they will also lose in court,” the governor’s office said.

The case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Josephine Staton, an Obama appointee.

She said the nature of the case demanded a three-judge panel.Tthe 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals late Thursday assigned a Trump appointee and a Biden appointee to join her on the case.

Judge Staton had already granted the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the political arm of U.S. House Democrats, the right to intervene and defend the new map alongside California.

An independent commission drew California’s previous map.

The state’s effort this year was spurred by Texas, which redrew its map this summer as it sought to reduce the number of Democratic seats from 13 of the state’s 38 to eight, or 21% of its seats. Vice President Kamala Harris won 42% of the vote in Texas in the 2024 presidential election.

In California, President Trump won 38% of the vote. The new map could reduce Republicans to just 8% of the state’s delegation.

Civil rights groups challenged Texas’ new map under a previous lawsuit, saying that the state broke the Voting Rights Act by eliminating the majority-minority districts.