Rebuffed at every turn by state lawmakers, supporters of the movement to establish a separate “State of Jefferson” in Northern California have a new approach: Make the Legislature bigger.

Citizens for Fair Representation, a group affiliated with the secession movement, filed suit in federal court this week against California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, arguing that the system of apportioning legislative districts equally by population has diluted the votes of rural residents and denied them representation at the Capitol.

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That’s unlikely, according to Nathaniel Persily, a redistricting expert at Stanford Law School, who called the lawsuit “a nonstarter.” A 1964 Supreme Court decision threw out geography-based apportionment schemes like California’s and required that all state legislative districts be equal in population.

The “one person, one vote” approach has become “so entrenched,” Persily said. “It’s not even open for debate at this point.”