"Good luck Losers" Gavin Newsom

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Governor Newsom’s office issued an irascible response to the Dhillon Law Group lawsuit: “Good luck, losers.”

US Supreme Court Could Rain on Newsom’s Prop 50 Parade: Could be Ruled Unconstitutional

‘There are roughly 60 Black representatives in Congress right now, but only 15 majority-Black districts’

By Katy Grimes, November 10, 2025 2:55 am

A case currently with the U.S. Supreme Court about racial gerrymandering could nullify California’s just-passed Proposition 50, the mid-decade redistricting scheme Governor Gavin Newsom and Democrats cooked up ahead of the 2026 midterm elections to secure more Democrat seats in Congress by redrawing district maps, or “gerrymandering” numerous California Republicans out of their congressional districts.

The Supreme Court will decide in Louisiana v. Callais whether the state’s intentional consideration of race to create these voting districts violates the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause. The Supreme Court could also invalidate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and require race-neutral maps.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark U.S. federal law that prohibits racial discrimination in voting, aiming to protect the voting rights of all citizens, particularly racial minorities.

The high court appears ready to strike down Louisiana’s 2024 congressional map as unconstitutional racial gerrymandering – a violation of the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.

Elections Law attorney Mark Meuser explained in detail that “The Supreme Court could soon change how every congressional map in America is drawn, including California.”

“Callais v. Louisiana, a case that could reshape redistricting for decades. Here’s what’s at stake: for years, federal courts have interpreted the Voting Rights Act (VRA) to require states to gerrymander congressional districts so minority groups are virtually guaranteed the ability to elect a representative of their same race. Callais challenges that approach, arguing that the current interpretation of the VRA violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S.

Constitution because it forces states to make race the predominant factor in drawing district lines. Democratic-aligned advocacy groups have weaponized this reading of the VRA to carve out safe Democratic seats. Instead of drawing compact districts that follow cities, counties, and communities of interest, states are pressured to create bizarre, snake-like districts designed to hit racial targets. The result is a distorted Congress. In 2024, Donald Trump won the presidential election decisively, yet Republicans hold only a razor-thin margin in the House. That mismatch is not by chance.

When districts are drawn to guarantee that one party always wins, it shifts power away from the people and toward special interests. It lets political insiders and activist groups pick the politicians who govern us, rather than letting voters choose their representatives. If the Court agrees with Callais, the decision could dramatically limit the use of race in redistricting nationwide. That means the gerrymandered maps Gavin Newsom is pushing with Prop 50 could be ruled unconstitutional. This is one of the most important redistricting cases in decades. The outcome could restore fairness, compactness, and accountability to how congressional districts are drawn.”

SCOTUS Blog explains:

In 2022, Louisiana adopted a new congressional map in the wake of the 2020 census. Roughly one-third of the state’s population is Black, but the 2022 map had only one majority-Black district out of the six districts allotted to the state. That prompted a group of Black voters to go to federal court, where they argued that the 2022 map violated Section 2 of the federal Voting Rights Act, which bars discrimination in voting practices.

Louisiana drew a new map that created a second majority-Black district.

On Aug. 1, the justices issued an order in which they directed the litigants to file briefs addressing a new question: “whether the State’s intentional creation of a second majority-minority district violates” either the 14th Amendment or the 15th Amendment, which bars the government from denying or restricting voting rights based on race.

California’s hastily redrawn congressional districts were also racially gerrymandered, as Gov. Newsom and Paul Mitchell, Gov. Newsom’s redistricting map creator tasked with creating five new Democratic members of Congress, and Democrat leaders in the California Legislature, admitted up and down the state.

In August, the California Legislature jammed through in a land-speed record a 3-measure package on Congressional redistricting: Senate Bill 280, Assembly Bill 604 and Assembly Constitutional Amendment 8, which became Proposition 50 on the November 4, 2025 Special Election ballot.

A new lawsuit filed Nov. 5, 2025 by the Dhillon Law Group to halt Prop. 50 says the map codified by the Legislative Package was not drawn by legislators or paid for by the state of California – it was drafted by Paul Mitchell of Redistricting Partners, and paid for by the the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee – the DCCC:

Public statements by Paul Mitchell, the consultant who drew the Legislature’s congressional map, confirm that race and Latino demographics were intentionally and directly used as criteria in designing the Proposition 50 map.

Mitchell acknowledged during a public presentation that his work on the Legislature’s plan was guided by racial considerations and that his “number one thing that [he] first started thinking about” was “drawing a replacement Latino majority/minority district in the middle of Los Angeles,” adistrict he had “worked with HOPE on in the last redistricting process.”

Mitchell further confirmed that a formal “Voting Rights Act analysis” was conducted to measure Latino electoral performance and that this analysis directly informed the map’s boundaries.

Additionally, the lawsuit names other California legislative leaders admitting to the racial gerrymandering:

Senate President pro Tempore in a press release, publiclyemphasized that the new map “retains and expands Voting Rights Act districts that empower Latino voters” and “retains both historic Black districts and Latino-majority districts.” By “Voting Rights Act districts,” the press release is referring to districts deliberately drawn to favor one race of voters over others.

The Office of the Speaker of the Assembly published a press release titled California Assembly Democrats Support Empowering Voters to Stop Trump’s Power Grab, stating: “Protecting the rights of all voters. The new map retains the voting rights protections enacted by the independent commission, and retains both historic Black districts and Latino-majority districts.”

During committee and floor debate, the mentions of race and the VRA continued. Assemblymember Berman, presenting ACA 8 before the Assembly Elections Committee, emphasized: “A big distinction between these maps that were drawn in California and the maps that are currentlybeing passed by the State of Texas, for example, are California’s maps strictly abide by the federal Voting Rights Act, which the Texas maps don’t. And so we’ve actually put ourselves in a very good position to defend the maps that have been drawn because the Voting Rights Act and the principles ofthe Voting Rights Act were taken into very high consideration when those maps were drawn.”

Office of the Senate President pro Tempore published a press release titled Legislative Democrats Announce Plan Empowering Voters to Protect California, stating that lawmakers “pushed for key provisions in the legislation to ensure fidelity to independent commissions, protections for the Voting Rights Act, and preservation of California cities and communities,” and to further protecting “communities of color and historically marginalized voters.” It clarified that “[t]he new map makes no changes to historic Black districts in Oakland and the Los Angeles area, and retains and expands Voting Rights Act districts that empower Latino voters to electtheir candidates of choices.”

According to SCOTUS Blog, the Supreme Court may decide that such race-conscious redistricting violates the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause — and throw out Section 2 of the federal Voting Rights Act.

As the Dhillon Law Group’s lawsuit makes clear, both California’s existing map and the proposed map under Prop. 50 are race-based.

SCOTUS Blog reported that Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh appeared somewhat receptive to the Trump administration’s argument, made by Principal Deputy Solicitor General Hashim Mooppan, that the constitutional problem before the court “is not the mere consideration of race in districting. The problem is when race subordinates traditional neutral principles and is the factor that cannot be compromised.” The Trump administration, while not jettisoning Section 2, would make it more difficult to bring a Section 2 claim: in its view, a violation of Section 2 cannot rest on a lack of equal opportunity for minority plaintiffs to participate in the political process when “politics, rather than race, is the likely reason for the State’s refusal to create a majority-minority district.”

Mooppan countered that “there are roughly 60 Black representatives” in Congress right now, but “only 15 majority-Black districts.” “[N]one of these positions” advanced by the Trump administration or the other litigants opposing the 2024 map, he said, “is going to lead to there being no Black representation in Congress or anything remotely approaching that.”

Governor Newsom’s office issued an irascible response to the Dhillon Law Group lawsuit: “Good luck, losers.”