The California Republican Party announced an emergency court challenge to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to cast aside the congressional map drawn by the state’s independent commission in favor of a partisan one.
According to the California GOP, Newsom’s plan is illegal and unconstitutional, for several reasons: it violates a 30-day requirement for the posting of new legislation; it violates the state’s existing, independent system for drawing congressional districts; it violates the state constitution by redrawing districts between Census years; and it will ask the voters to approve multiple legal questions within a single referendum in November.
It is unclear whether the Republican challenge will succeed. Already, the California Supreme Court allowed Newsom to proceed with the legislative bills to impose the new congressional map despite the 30-day rule. Newsom and the Democrats used a parliamentary trick under which legislators take existing legislation and erase the language, replacing it with amendments that contain the new legislation under the old heading.
In a press conference, the California GOP stressed that no one knew who had drawn the new districts, and noted that some of the legislators may have drawn boundaries to suit their own future political ambitions.
While Republicans clearly hope to blunt Newsom’s effort to reduce the number of Republican-held seats, the California GOP also stressed the point that Newsom’s plan contradicted the express desire of California voters for an independent system, and would disenfranchise potentially hundreds of thousands of voters.
Newsom describes his plan to eliminate Republican seats as a strategy to “defend democracy.” While asking California voters to scrap their own independent commission, his referendum will also propose asking the federal government to create an independent commission nationwide, which is extremely unlikely to happen.
It is unclear how the state’s highest court will rule. Six of its seven members were appointed by Democrats, and would likely share Newsom’s partisan goals. However, the justices may balk at allowing Newsom and his party to set aside, unilaterally and suddenly, an independent redistricting commission that was created by voters in 2008 precisely to prevent elected politicians from drawing the congressional maps themselves.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Zionist Conspiracy Wants You, now available on Amazon. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
