(Alexandria, VA) May 26, 2026 — The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) recently filed a brief responding to the California Defendants’ motions to dismiss Noyes v. Newsom, which challenges California’s redistricting map adopted through Proposition 50 (Case Nos. 2:25-cv-11480 and 2:25-cv-10616).
California admittedly used race in redrawing Congressional district lines to maximize the voice of some racial groups at the expense of others, a violation of the Fifteenth Amendment.
“The Fifteenth Amendment contains the simple yet elegant promise that the wicked tool of race could never be used to allocate power,” PILF President and General Counsel J. Christian Adams said. “The Prop 50 gambit is a historic violation of Californians’ civil rights.”
PILF’s latest brief sets out for the Court a mountain of evidence demonstrating the use of race in preparing a Prop 50 Map:
“Prop. 50 violated the Fifteenth Amendment rights of all Californians by separating and sorting the entire population by race and producing maps with deliberate racial targets and outcomes. After Callais, the right to vote cannot depend on immutable characteristics. The Defendants are accountable and the Prop. 50 Map violates the Fifteenth Amendment.”
The recent Callais Supreme Court case clarified that the use of race to draw maps by a state is “odious” to a country based on equal rights.
The next hearing in the case is set for June 26. The Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments on motions to dismiss.
PILF has won redistricting litigation across the United States, including the landmark Pettaway v. Galveston case that struck down coalition districts in Texas that allow race to be leveraged for partisan advantage. The en banc Fifth Circuit decision reversed decades of jurisprudence and held racial coalitions are not protected in redistricting.
The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) is the nation’s only public interest law firm dedicated wholly to election integrity. The Foundation exists to assist states and others to aid the cause of election integrity and fight against lawlessness in American elections. Drawing on numerous experts in the field, PILF seeks to protect the right to vote and preserve the Constitutional framework of American elections.
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