By\u00a0Tran Nguyen<\/p>\n
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) \u2014 California Republicans filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday to block a new U.S. House map that California voters\u00a0decisively approved<\/a>\u00a0at the ballot.<\/p>\n Proposition 50, backed by\u00a0Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom<\/a>, is designed to help Democrats flip as many as five\u00a0congressional House seats in the midterm elections<\/a>\u00a0next year. The lawsuit claims the map-makers illegally used race as a factor to favor Hispanic voters, and asks the court to block the new boundaries ahead of the 2026 elections. The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.<\/p>\n The lawsuit was filed by The Dhillon Law Group, the California-based firm started by Harmeet Dhillon, who is now an assistant attorney general for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Justice.<\/p>\n \u201cThe map is designed to favor one race of California voters over others,\u201d Mike Columbo, whose plaintiffs include a state Republican lawmaker and 18 other voters, said at a news conference Wednesday. \u201cThis violates the 14th Amendment, guarantee of equal protection under the law, and the right under the 15th Amendment.\u201d<\/p>\n Newsom\u2019s office said on a social media post that the state hasn\u2019t reviewed the lawsuit but is confident the challenge will fail. \u201cGood luck, losers,\u201d the post reads.<\/p>\n It\u2019s unclear whether a three-judge panel convened to hear such cases would grant a temporary restraining order before December 19, the date when candidates can start collecting voters\u2019 signatures to lower the costs of their filing fee. It\u2019s essentially the first step in officially running in the 2026 midterm elections. Columbo said he\u2019s hoping to get a decision in the upcoming weeks.<\/p>\n Republicans have filed multiple lawsuits in California to block Democrats\u2019 plan with little success so far.<\/p>\n \n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By\u00a0Tran Nguyen SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) \u2014 California Republicans filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday to block a new U.S.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40618,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6588,7,9,8,6198,2929,17423,18818,27237,1361,27578,27579,27580,6392],"class_list":["post-40617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-ap","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-california-republicans","tag-governor-gavin-newsom","tag-harmeet-dhillon","tag-midterm-elections","tag-mike-columbo","tag-proposition-50","tag-state-republican-lawmaker","tag-the-dhillon-law-group","tag-u-s-house-map","tag-voters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}