California gubernatorial candidate and Fox News contributor Steve Hilton on Wednesday filed a lawsuit against Governor Gavin Newsom, arguing that his redistricting push violates the California Constitution.
Hilton announced the lawsuit outside of the Ronald Reagan Federal Building and US Courthouse in Santa Ana, California.
Via Steve Hilton on X:
I’m announcing today that I will file a lawsuit today in federal court. We’re outside the federal building in Orange County. I’m filing a lawsuit to stop Gavin Newsom’s grotesque assault on our democracy, Gavin Newsom’s attempt to make a democrat vote in California worth eight times a Republican vote in California. This is obscene. We’re going to try and stop it every way we can, and we’re going to try and stop him wasting $250 million of our money on what is effectively a contribution to his presidential campaign.
We are filing this lawsuit in federal court. This is not like the previous lawsuits filed by Republicans that have filed in California courts. This is federal court, and we are filing that today. We’re going to stop Gavin Newsom’s obscene assault on our democracy. Thank you very much.
Despite Trump winning 6,081,697 votes in 2024, 38.3% of the vote, Republicans only won 9 of 52 House seats, or 17%.
Under Newsom’s proposed plan, Republicans would only win four Congressional Districts, and Democratic votes would be worth eight times more than Republican votes based on the number of voters per House seat. While Republicans represent nearly 40% of the state, they will receive less than 8% representation in Congress.
“Equal protection means fair value for every vote. Under this new scheme, a Democrat vote is worth eight times a Republican vote. That is not democracy, it is voter suppression,” Hilton said in a statement provided to The Gateway Pundit.
“The Constitution does not say one person, one vote sometimes. It does not say one person, one vote only for the majority party. It says one person, one vote for everyone. If this map is allowed to stand, millions of Californians will have their voices silenced and their votes devalued.”
The California State Assembly passed Assembly Constitutional Amendment 8 (ACA8) last month, sending Proposition 50 to the ballot for a statewide special election this November. If passed, Proposition 50 will authorize the new redistricting maps, which were drawn by the legislature under Assembly Bill 604.
Hilton’s lawsuit against Gavin Newsom and California Secretary of State Shirley Weber argues that the state of California plans to violate the US Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause. The Legislature “has not ensured that districts are largely equal in population,” and some Congressional Districts “will not be equal to that of other Congressional districts in the state,” it states.
“The legislature took no account of the fact that huge communities have experienced massive reductions in population as, for example, Pacific Palisades, Malibu and Altadena, in the Los Angeles area, as a result of devastating fires that displaced tens of thousands of residents, and ACA8 will therefore contract the value of some votes and expand the power of other voters.”
Hilton says, “Five years after the last census, with hundreds of thousands leaving the state and entire communities displaced by wildfires, it is impossible to guarantee equal representation.”
Additionally, the California State Constitution stipulates that only the Citizens Redistricting Commission “shall adjust the boundary lines of congressional, State Senatorial, Assembly, and Board of Equalization districts,” and that it must be done “in the year following the year in which the national census is taken under the direction of Congress at the beginning of each decade.”
The lawsuit argues that “ACA8 does not specifically repeal that section of Article XXI that limits redistricting to occur only in the year following the national census.” Further, Assembly Bill 604, which redraws the maps under the constitutional amendment “takes no account of the breakup of communities of color and ethnicity, thus diluting the voting power of those affinity groups.”
Read the full lawsuit here.
“This is not about whether you are a Democrat or a Republican. It is about whether your vote counts the same as your neighbor’s. No Californian should accept a system that tells them their voice is worth less,” Hilton said.
You can support Steve Hilton’s bid for California Governor here.
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