The same Republican Party that was all for disenfranchising Democratic voters and people of color in Texas are asking a federal court in California to declare the proposed new California congressional districts under Prop 50 unconstitutional.

As they promised to do, California Republicans have filed a lawsuit to try to stop Prop 50 from gerrymandering new House districts on the California electoral map, in order to gain five likely Democratic seats in Congress. The California Republican Party previously and unsuccessfully sued in August, in the state Supreme Court, to block Democrats' efforts to redraw the map. And as the New York Times reports, the suit claims that Democrats are illegally using race to create Hispanic-majority districts — even though the new map has the same number of Hispanic-majority districts as the old map, five.

A lot of the legal questions here hinge on the Voting Rights Act, and could be completely upended if the Supreme Court decides to gut the final provision of that law, when they issue a decision in a Louisiana case that they reheard last month, after already hearing oral arguments in March. The case centers on how race was used to draw two majority-Black districts in Louisiana, and if the court decides that race should no longer play any role in the drawing of districts, full stop, it would have enormous impacts on Democratic-leaning districts nationwide.

The case was brought by a self-described group of “non-African American voters,” who claim that their voting power is being diluted by the creation of these districts. Mind you, Louisiana is one-third Black, and the state legislature drew the maps to create two majority-Black districts out of six. Should the Supreme Court decide to gut this final provision of the Voting Rights Act, Louisiana would likely go about immediately redistricting, and would no doubt seek to gerrymander away as much voting power from Black people and Democrats as they could.

As the Times notes, though, it's not clear whether the court's decision in the case, which likely won't arrive until June, would happen in time to have any impact on the 2026 midterms.

The new California suit was announced at a press conference first thing Wednesday morning, as KCRA reports. It was led by Assemblymember David Tangipa, attorneys with the Dhillon Law Group, and California GOP Chairwoman Corrin Rankin.

"I'm appalled by what has happened," Tangipa said at the event, per KCRA. "This whole process was a sham."

A similar legal fight is playing out in Texas, where minority groups and Democrats are suing in federal court over the rushed and secretive process by which state Republicans redrew that state's congressional maps over the summer. The new maps, the plaintiffs in that case say, disenfranchise voters through a racial gerrymander.

Previously: CA Redistricting Measure on Track to Be One of the Most Expensive Proposition Fights In State History