California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during a news conference Thursday, Aug. 14, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
A federal judge in Texas dismissed a GOP lawsuit against California’s new congressional redistricting plan ruling that the plaintiff, Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas), had no right to sue over another state’s election laws.
The decision is a victory for California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) who defended the state’s Election Rigging Response Act and upcoming Proposition 50 — a measure allowing voters to temporarily adopt a new congressional map for the 2026 election.
Jackson claimed that California’s plan was designed to “engineer a Democratic majority in Congress.” But U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee, said the court lacked power even to hear the case.
“The Court begins — and ends — with standing,” the judge wrote. “Because Plaintiff does not have standing, the Court lacks jurisdiction to reach the merits of this dispute.”
Kacsmaryk found that Jackson failed to show a personal injury — a constitutional requirement for bringing a federal lawsuit. His argument that California’s redistricting plan could weaken Republican control of the U.S. House, the judge wrote, was not enough.
“Plaintiff has failed to show that he will suffer a legally cognizable injury-in-fact,” Kacsmaryk wrote. “Plaintiff’s ‘claim of standing is based on a loss of political power, not loss of any private right, which would make the injury more concrete.’”
The court emphasized that any alleged harm to Jackson — such as losing committee leadership positions or political influence — was speculative and shared by other members of his party.
“Even if Plaintiff’s asserted injury—the ‘dilut[ion]’ of ‘his influence as a Texas Congressman’—were judicially cognizable, it is too attenuated from California’s passage of the ERRA to establish causation,” the judge added. “This is far too speculative to show causation.”
Jackson’s claim hinged on a long series of hypotheticals: that California voters would pass Proposition 50, that it would add enough Democratic seats to flip control of Congress and that Jackson would lose influence as a result.
The judge rejected that argument outright.
“It follows that enjoining California’s upcoming special election would not redress any injury Plaintiff may suffer,” Kacsmaryk wrote. “Far from being ‘an ingenious academic exercise in the conceivable,’ the standing inquiry requires the plaintiff to make ‘a factual showing of perceptible harm.’”
This is at least the second GOP lawsuit against California’s Prop 50 to be dismissed.
California’s Proposition 50 is set to appear on the state’s November ballot. If approved, it will implement a new congressional map through the 2030 election cycle, countering the GOP gerrymanders that have proliferated in Republican-led states, especially Texas.