FAIR Files Lawsuit to Overturn the California Citizen’s Redistricting Commission’s State Senate Districts

FAIR (Fairness and Accountability In Redistricting) has already filed a referendum on the matter and are in the process of collecting signatures. But, now FAIR is going to court as well.

Aruging that California’s newly drawn Senate districts are unconstitutional, a Republican Party-backed group says it is filing a lawsuit today asking the California Supreme Court to kill the new maps.

“We believe there are serious constitutional flaws in the maps produced by the redistricting commission, and these are matters that the Supreme Court should look at immediately,” spokesman David Gilliard said.

Gilliard’s group, Fairness and Accountability In Redistricting (FAIR), also is collecting signatures in a referendum drive aimed at asking voters to reject the newly drawn Senate districts in a statewide election next June.

California’s 40 state Senate, 80 Assembly and 53 congressional districts were drawn for the first time this year by a 14-member independent panel, the California Citizens Redistricting Commission, rather than by the Legislature.

Gilliard’s group has raised nearly $500,000 thus far for its two-pronged effort to kill the Senate maps, including $188,000 from the California Republican Party and a cumulative $200,000 from current or past GOP state senators.

Many political analysts have said the new districts give Democrats a strong chance of gaining two additional seats in the Senate, enough to gain the two-thirds supermajority needed to raise taxes or fees.

The lawsuit alleges:

• Eleven of the districts do not adequately consider compactness, contiguity, communities of interest, and existing county boundary lines.
• Two major counties, Sacramento and San Bernardino, are unnecessarily split into six different districts.
• The maps violate federal law by reducing the voting power of Latinos in Monterey, Santa Clara and the San Fernando portion of Los Angeles County.

The lawsuit also asks the California Supreme Court to ask special appointed court masters to draw interim state senate boundaries, if FAIR qualifies the referendum for the ballot.

Stay tuned…..