WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration sued California on Thursday over its new redistricting maps after a ballot measure adopting new congressional districts passed in the state last week.
The measure could give the Democratic-led state five more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and was intended as a counterweight to Republican efforts to give their party more congressional seats in Texas and elsewhere amid a push by Trump.
The Justice Department intervened as a plaintiff in a November 5 lawsuit by the California Republican Party and 19 registered voters in the state. The case challenges California’s ballot initiative Proposition 50, which allows temporary use of new congressional district maps.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi in a statement said “California’s redistricting scheme is a brazen power grab that tramples on civil rights and mocks the democratic process.”
A spokesperson for California Governor Gavin Newsom said, in response to the lawsuit, “these losers lost at the ballot box and soon they will also lose in court.”
Newsom in a prior statement said Californians had been “uniquely targeted” by Trump and that the redistricting would provide “much needed accountability to Trump’s efforts to undermine the democratic process.”
In August, Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed a new Republican-backed map into law that was aimed at flipping five Democratic-held seats.
Civil rights groups have sued over the new Texas map, claiming it reduces the electoral power of minority voters.
The Republican-led lawsuit in California alleged that the state’s redistricting effort violates provisions of the U.S. Constitution. It said California illegally drew new congressional district lines based on race to favor Hispanic voters.
The Justice Department in its complaint said California’s map “manipulates district lines in the name of bolstering the voting power of Hispanic Californians because of their race.”
(Reporting by Mike Scarcella and Jan Wolfe in Washington and Christian Martinez in Los Angeles; Writing by Susan Heavey; Editing by Chris Reese and Matthew Lewis)
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