The Trump administration is suing California governor Gavin Newsom after the state adopted new congressional maps last week.
The justice department is attempting to block the new boundaries, that voters overwhelmingly approved through Proposition 50 – the ballot initiative that would give Democrats in the Golden state five more seats in the House ahead of the 2026 midterms. This move was a response to the redistricting battle that started in Texas, when the state’s GOP-run legislature gerrymandered their own maps.
Attorney general Pam Bondi called the governor’s effort a “power grab”.
“Newsom should be concerned about keeping Californians safe and shutting down Antifa violence, not rigging his state for political gain,” she added.
IANAL, but my understanding is this is how laws are challenged in the US. A plaintiff cannot file suit against the legislature, or the government in general, to challenge a law. A plaintiff needs to sue an individual within the government who has enforced the law, and then demonstrate that the enforcement of said law has caused the plaintiff harm. In this case the law will be enforced by Newsome or someone within his administration like the Secretary of State.
I learned this when Texas passed their anti-abortion law in 2021 (S.B. 8). Rather than having government officials enforce that law, the state offloaded enforcement to private citizens by paying them cash rewards for successfully suing alleged abortion providers. Since state officials are not doing the enforcing they are not directly causing harm to any potential plaintiffs. There’s nobody in the state government you can sue to initiate a challenge to the law.
Malicious compliance would be the way to deal with that.