Yesterday, the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) filed a federal challenge in the U.S. District Court to California’s Proposition 50, saying it violates both the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act.
The complaint states CA Democrat legislators intentionally used race to redraw congressional districts – a clear violation of federal law.
“The California legislature crossed a red line when it redrew the map, violating Fifteenth Amendment provisions which prohibit denying the right to vote based on a citizen’s race or color,” said PILF President J Christian Adams. “The US Constitution leaves no room for state officials to sort votes by race.”
The man who drew the new congressional map admitted in interviews to drawing district lines with intentional racial goals.
In total, 16 of CA’s 52 congressional districts (nearly 1/3 of the entire map) were deliberately redrawn to favor one racial group. Yet there was no Voting Rights Act violation to remedy. Under the prior map, racial minorities were already electing 27 members of Congress, and independent analysts confirmed the old map fully complied with federal law.
The complaint points out:
1. CA’s new congressional map was drawn with illegal racial intent and with illegal racial considerations in violation of the Fifteenth Amendment.
2. CA’s 2025 congressional map unconstitutionally draws racial districts in violation of Plaintiffs’ civil rights protected by the 15th Amendment to the US Constitution and Section 2(a) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
3. The 15th Amendment states: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” U.S. Const. amend. XV. California’s 2025 congressional map violates this prohibition.
4. The Voting Rights Act forbids enforcing election procedures enacted with a racial intent or that results in a denial, or abridgment, of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote, on account of race. 52 U.S.C. § 10101(a). Outside the context of a remedial map under the Voting Rights Act, drawing district lines to preserve specific racial percentages, maintain racial majorities, or the deliberate preservation of racial influence districts violates the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act.
5. By intentionally distorting district boundaries along racial lines to preserve a specific number of Hispanic majority districts and two Black influence districts, California violated the 15th Amendment and Voting Rights Act.
Yesterday’s suit follows a Nov 5 lawsuit filed by a coalition of CA Republicans also seeking to block the U.S. House map that voters passed as Proposition 50 in last month’s election. A few days later, the DOJ intervened on the side of the plaintiffs, amplifying the challenge.
That lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of CA, is still in pretrial stages, and similarly claims the new map illegally uses race and racial gerrymandering to favor Democrats and violates the Constitution’s equal protection and voting rights guarantees.
The 2025 election has been mired in controversy, as most CA counties used mail-in ballot envelopes with precisely located “see-through” holes allowing anyone to see how an enclosed ballot was voted.
The Prop 50 measure redraws congressional boundaries in CA-01, CA-03, CA-22, CA-41, and CA-48 by shedding conservative-leaning counties and absorbing more Democratic-leaning areas to flip these 5 seats in next year’s 2026 midterm elections. Republicans hold a narrow 219-213 U.S. House majority, meaning a net loss of just six seats would cost them control of the chamber.
If the Democrats gain the House, they will be able to control the passage of key legislation and act as a roadblock to the Trump administration’s priorities.
Last summer, CA Democrats scrapped the nonpartisan Citizens Redistricting Commission’s map and replaced it with one drawn by a political consultant hired by the DCCC. Republicans say the Legislature had no evidence and no legal basis to sort millions of Californians by race.
That suit argues the Prop 50 map violates both the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause and the 15th Amendment’s ban on race-based abridgment of voting rights. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that states may not use race as the predominant factor in drawing districts unless strict scrutiny is met, and California cannot satisfy that standard here.
OF NOTE: California elections have been under much scrutiny for many years, with new reports showing 18.4% of CA voters are either nonexistent or ineligible under the law (including illegal immigrants). CA policies allow for easy manipulation of voter rolls and elections. E.g., in the 2021 Newsome gubernatorial recall election, thousands of voters reported going to vote in person, but when they arrived at the polls, they were told they had already voted.
Bill Bruch
Bill Bruch is the WA State GOP Election Integrity Committee Chairman (5th year), WAGOP Executive Board Member (5th Year), Skagit County GOP Chairman (9th year), Citizen Journalist, Olympic Conference 2021 Activist of the Year Award Winner, Business Owner, 2020 WA State House Representative Candidate, Former Council Member, and WA State 2016 and 2024 RNC National Convention Delegate.
