If voters approve Prop. 50, Democrats could gain up to five more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2026.
President Donald Trump’s administration has joined a lawsuit against the state of California over the state’s redistricting plan, which was approved in a landslide in the Nov. 4 election.
On Thursday, the Justice Department announced it will seek to overturn California’s new congressional district maps, which were passed via a ballot initiative with about 64 percent support.
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“California’s redistricting plan is a brazen power grab that tramples on civil rights and makes a mockery of our democratic process,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement.
She accused California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) of trying to stifle Republican voices in the state. “Governor Newsom’s attempts to entrench one-party rule and silence millions of Californians will not work.”
The ballot measure, known as “Proposition 50,” is poised to redraw district lines to favor Democrats in next year’s midterm elections.
The proposal was designed as a counterattack to President Trump’s gerrymandering in Republican states.
In Texas, for example, President Trump’s White House asked the state Legislature to pass new districts that would give Republicans the chance to pick up five more House seats in 2026.
In August, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed a new map favoring Republicans.
Republicans also expect to pick up one new seat each in Missouri and North Carolina, and potentially pick up two more seats in Ohio. Civil rights advocates argue that the new border between Texas and Missouri will illegally disadvantage minority communities at the polls.
California’s Proposition 50 means Democrats could pick up five more seats in the House in 2026, in an apparent attempt to offset Texas’ new congressional map.
But the California Republican Party and 19 registered voters sued the state in federal court on November 5, the day after the election.
They argued that California’s redistricting efforts illegally favored the Hispanic community and violated provisions of the U.S. Constitution.
The Justice Department echoed these concerns in its complaint. The paper alleges that California’s maps “manipulate district lines in the name of increasing the voting power of Hispanic Californians on racial grounds.”
Tonight, California sent a powerful message to Donald Trump. We fight for democracy. And we will win. pic.twitter.com/tEcPlxVbi4
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) November 5, 2025
In response, Governor Newsom’s press secretary Brandon Richards said, “These losers are losing at the polls, and they’re going to lose in the courts.”
Newsom has emerged as a prominent Democratic critic of Trump, calling the president’s opposition to California’s voting law “the ramblings of an old man who knows he’s going to lose.”
Newsom has admitted that he will consider running for the White House in 2028 after the 2026 midterm elections.
California’s new district boundaries apply to the 2026, 2028, and 2030 elections.
Typically, California’s congressional districts are determined by an independent commission based on the results of the decennial census.
Proposition 50 would suspend the commission’s activities for the next three national elections and instead adopt maps drawn by state legislatures.
In theory, electoral maps should reflect the people living in a particular state. In reality, most boundaries are readjusted by the political party in power in a process called gerrymandering. Many state legislatures decide how electoral districts are drawn.
California’s new congressional map is aimed at weakening Republican voters, in one case by consolidating rural, conservative-leaning areas in California’s far north with Marin County, a well-known liberal coastal stronghold just across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco.
The Justice Department is asking a judge to bar California from using the new maps in future elections.
