By Jack Queen and Steve Gorman (Reuters) -Republican lawmakers in California have filed suit seeking to block action on Governor Gavin Newsom's , which aims to create five new Democratic U.S. congressional seats in his state to counter a similar move in Texas favoring Republicans. The Republicans argue in their emergency petition to the California Supreme Court that the state constitution bars consideration of the redistricting plan until September 18 because new legislation requires a 30-day review period before lawmakers may act on it. The four Republicans who filed the suit on Monday asked the court to block Democratic lawmakers from moving forward with the legislation until September 18, absent a three-fourths vote the petition says would otherwise be required of each chamber to proceed sooner. The petition asks the state Supreme Court to rule on the merits of the lawsuit by Wednesday or to stay the legislative process in Sacramento while the case remains under judicial review. California Democrats currently face an August 22 deadline to pass all three bills of the redistricting plan to meet Newsom's goal of placing the newly drawn political maps on the ballot for a special statewide election on November 4. The lawsuit comes as Newsom seeks a tit-for-tat expansion of California's Democratic delegation in the U.S. House of Representatives to offset a redistricting effort pursued in Texas at the behest of President Donald Trump that would net five more House seats for Republicans. Republicans now hold a narrow 219-212 majority in the U.S. House, with the battle for control of Congress expected to be closely fought in the November 2026 midterm election. Newsom and his fellow Democrats have characterized their bid to depart from the state's independent, bipartisan redistricting process - adopted by voters in 2008 - as a temporary "emergency" strategy to neutralize what they see as extreme moves by Trump and the Republicans to rig the system. The redistricting effort pushed by Texas Governor Greg Abbott broke with a tradition in which lawmakers draw new electoral maps only after the once-per-decade census. Democrats also argued that the Republican proposal would disenfranchise minority voters by weakening their political clout. A special session Abbott called to pass the Republican plan led to a two-week walkout by more than 50 Democrats in the Texas House of Representatives, who left the state to deny the legislative quorum necessary to pass Republicans' plan. The Texas Democrats returned to the Austin statehouse on Monday, saying they had achieved their goal of temporarily thwarting the Republicans while prompting Democratic-led states, such as California, to consider mid-decade redistricting moves of their own. But Texas Republican leaders immediately initiated a crackdown on newly returning Democrats, requiring they be permitted to come and go from the state Capitol only if they signed a paper agreeing to be placed under escort of a state police officer who would ensure they were present for legislative sessions going forward. Several Democrats bristled at the escorts, calling the restriction a political stunt that was wasting public money. One legislator, Texas House Representative Nicole Collier, protested the move by refusing to sign the required permission slip and spending the entire night in the statehouse rather than consent to being placed in the custody of a police escort. Texas Republicans, newly assured of a quorum, planned to take up their redistricting measure on Wednesday. (Reporting by Jack Queen in New York and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Chicago; Editing by Frank McGurty, Alistair Bell and Matthew Lewis)
