effort

Republican infighting crescendoed in the aftermath of California voters overwhelmingly approving Democratic-friendly redistricting plan this week that may undercut the GOP’s control of Congress and derail President Trump’s polarizing agenda.

The state GOP chairwoman was urged to resign and former Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who championed the creation of the state’s independent redistricting commission, was called “cowardly” by one top GOP leader for not being more involved in the campaign.

Leaders of the Republican-backed committees opposing the ballot measure, known as Proposition 50, were questioned about how they spent nearly $58 million in the special election after such a dismal outcome.

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield, the once prodigious Republican fundraiser, reportedly vowed earlier in the campaign that he could raise $100 million for the opposition but ended up delivering a small fraction of that amount.

Assemblyman Carl DeMaio (R-San Diego), a conservative firebrand, called on state GOP chair Corrin Rankin to step down and faulted other Republican leaders and longtime party operatives for the ballot measure’s failure, calling them “derelict of duty and untrustworthy and incompetent.”

“Unless serious changes are made at the party, the midterms are going to be a complete disaster,” DeMaio said, also faulting the other groups opposing the effort. “We need accountability. There needs to be a reckoning because otherwise the lessons won’t be learned. The old guard needs to go. The old guard has failed us too many times. This is the latest failure.”

Rankin pushed back against the criticism, saying the state party was the most active GOP force in the final stretch of the election. Raising $11 million during the final three weeks of the campaign, the party spent it on mailers, digital ads and text messages, as well as organizing phone banks and precinct walking, she said.

Former Speaker of the House and California Republican Kevin McCarthy speaks to the press at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 19, 2023.

(Samuel Corum / AFP via Getty Images)

“We left it all on the field,” Rankin said Wednesday morning at a Sacramento press conference about a federal lawsuit California Republicans filed arguing that Proposition 50 is unconstitutional. “We were the last man standing … to reach out to Republicans and make sure they turned out.”

Responding to criticism that their effort was disorganized, including opposition campaign mailers being sent to voters who had already cast ballots, Rankin said the party would conduct a post-election review of its efforts. But she added that she was extremely proud of the work her team did in the “rushed special election.”

Barring successful legal challenges, the new California congressional districts enacted under Proposition 50 will go into effect before the 2026 election. The new district maps favor Democratic candidates and were crafted to unseat five Republican incumbents, which could erase Republicans’ narrow edge in the the U.S. House of Representatives.

If Democrats win control of the body, Trump policy agenda will likely be stymied and the president and members of his administration cold face multiple congressional investigations.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and other California Democrats proposed Proposition 50 in response to Trump urging elected officials in Texas and other GOP-led states to redraw their congressional districts to increase the number of Republicans elected to the House next year.

The new California congressional boundaries voters approved Tuesday could give Democrats the opportunity to pick up five seats in the state’s 52-member congressional delegation.

Proposition 50 will change how California determines the boundaries of congressional districts. The measure asked voters to approve new congressional district lines designed to favor Democrats for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections, overriding the map drawn by the state’s independent redistricting commission.

Some Republicans lamented that Schwarzenegger was not more involved in the election. The movie star championed the creation of the independent commission in 2010, his final year in office. He campaigned for the creation of similar bodies to fight partisan drawing of district lines across the nation after leaving office.

Shawn Steel, one of California’s three representatives on the Republican National Committee, called Schwarzenegger “a cowardly politician.”

“Arnold decided to sit it out,” Steel said. “Arnold just kind of raised the flag and immediately went under the desk.”

Steel said that the former governor failed to follow through on the messages he repeatedly delivered about the importance of independent redistricting.

“He could have had his name on the ballot as a ballot opponent,” Steel said. “He turned it down. So I’d say, with Arnold, just disappointing, but not surprised. That’s his political legacy.”

Schwarzenegger’s team pushed back at this criticism as misinformed.

“We were clear from the beginning that he was not going to be a part of the campaign and was going to speak his mind,” said Daniel Ketchell, a spokesman for the former governor. “His message was very clear and non-partisan. When one campaign couldn’t even criticize gerrymandering in Texas, it was probably hard for voters to believe they actually cared about fairness.”

Schwarzenegger spoke out against Proposition 50 a handful of times during the election, including at an appearance at USC that was turned into a television ad by one of the anti-Proposition 50 committees that appeared to go dark before election day.

On election day, he emailed followers about gut health, electrolytes, protein bars, fitness and conversations to increase happiness. There was no apparent mention of the Tuesday election.

The Democratic-led California Legislature in August voted to place Proposition 50 on the November ballot, costing nearly $300 million, and setting off a sprint to Tuesday’s special election.

The opponents were vastly outspent by the ballot measure’s supporters, who contributed nearly $136 million to various efforts. That financial advantage, combined with Democrats’ overwhelming edge in voter registration in California, were main contributors to the ballot measure’s success. When introduced in August, Proposition 50 had tepid support and its prospects appeared uncertain.

Nearly 64% of the nearly 8.3 million voters who cast ballots supported Proposition 50, while 36% opposed it as of Wednesday night, according to the California Secretary of State’s office.

In addition to the state Republican Party, two main campaign committees opposed Proposition 50, including the one backed by McCarthy. A separate group was funded by more than $32 million from major GOP donor Charles Munger Jr., the son of a billionaire who was Warren Buffet’s right-hand man, and who bankrolled the creation of the independent congressional redistricting commission in 2010.

Representatives of the two committees, who defended their work Tuesday night after the election was called moments after the polls closed, saying they could not overcome the vast financial disadvantage and that the proposition’s supporters must be held to their promises to voters such as pushing for national redistricting reform, did not respond to repeated requests for comment on Wednesday.

Newsom’s committee supporting Proposition 50 had prominent Democrats stumping for the effort, including former President Obama starring in ads supporting the measure.

That’s in stark contrast to the opposition efforts. Trump was largely absent, possibly because he is deeply unpopular among Californians and the president does not like to be associated with losing causes.

A famous Civil War-era photo of an escaped slave who had been savagely whipped. Displays detailing how more than 120,000 U.S. citizens of Japanese ancestry were forcibly imprisoned during WWII. Signs describing the effects of climate change on the coast of Maine.

In recent months, a small army of historians, librarians, scientists and other volunteers has fanned out across America’s national parks and museums to photograph and painstakingly archive cultural and intellectual treasures they fear are under threat from President Trump’s war against “woke.”

These volunteers are creating a “citizen’s record” of what exists now in case the administration carries out Trump’s orders to scrub public signs and displays of language he and his allies deem too negative about America’s past.

More than 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry were forcibly relocated and incarcerated in camps during World War II, including these Japanese Americans seen at Manzanar in the Owens Valley in 1942.

(LA Library)

“My deepest, darkest fear,” said Georgetown University history professor Chandra Manning, who helped organize an effort dubbed Citizen Historians for the Smithsonian, is that the administration plans to “rewrite and falsify who counts as an American.”

In March, Trump issued an executive order entitled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” arguing that, over the past decade, signs and displays at museums and parks across the country have been distorted by a “widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history,” replacing facts with liberal ideology.

“Under this historical revision,” he wrote, “our Nation’s unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and human happiness is reconstructed as inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed.”

He ordered the National Parks Service and The Smithsonian to scrub their displays of content that “inappropriately disparages Americans” living or dead, and replace it with language that celebrates the nation’s greatness.

The Collins Bible — a detailed family history recorded by Richard Collins, a formerly enslaved man — is seen at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.

(Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times)

That’s when Manning’s colleague at Georgetown University, James Millward, who specializes in Chinese history, told her, “this seems really eerie,” Manning recalled. It reminded him of the Chinese Communist Party’s dictates to “tell China’s story well,” which he said was code for censorship and falsification.

So the professors reached out to friends and discovered that there were like-minded folks across the country working like “monks” in the Middle Ages, who painstakingly copied ancient texts, to photograph and preserve what they regarded as national treasures.

“There’s a human tradition of doing exactly this,” Manning said. “It feels gratifying to be a part of that tradition, it makes me feel less isolated and less alone.”

Jenny McBurney, a government documents librarian at the University of Minnesota, said she found Trump’s language “quite dystopian.” That’s why she helped organize an effort called Save Our Signs, which aims to photograph and preserve all of the displays at national parks and monuments.

The sprawling network includes Manzanar National Historic Site, where Japanese American civilians were imprisoned during the Second World War; Fort Sumter National Monument, where Confederates fired the first shots of the Civil War; Ford’s Theater National Historic Site in Washington, D.C., where Abraham Lincoln was assassinated; and the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Park.

It would be difficult to tell those stories without disparaging at least some dead Americans — such as the assassins John Wilkes Booth and James Earl Ray — or violating Trump’s order to focus on America’s “unmatched record of advancing liberty, prosperity and human flourishing.”

At Acadia National Park in Maine, where the rising sun first hits the U.S. coast for much of the year, signs describing the effect of climate change on rising seas, storm surge and intense rain have already been removed.

McBurney doesn’t want volunteers to try to anticipate the federal government’s next moves and focus only on displays they think might be changed, she wants to preserve everything, “good, bad, negative or whatever,” she said in a recent interview. “As a librarian, I like complete sets of things.”

And if there were a complete archive of every sign in the national park system in private hands — out of the reach of the current administration — there would always be a “before” picture to look back at and see what had changed.

“We don’t want this information to just disappear in the dark,” McBurney said.

Another group, the Data Rescue Project, is hard at work filling private servers with at-risk databases, including health data from the Centers for Disease Control, climate data from the Environmental Protection Agency and the contents of government websites, many of which have been subject to the same kind of ideological scrubbing threatened at parks and museums.

Both efforts were “a real inspiration,” Manning said, as she and Millward pondered what they could do to contribute to the cause.

Then, in August, apparently frustrated by the lack of swift compliance with its directives, the Trump administration sent a formal letter to Lonnie G. Bunch III, the first Black Secretary of the Smithsonian, setting a 120-day limit to “begin implementing content corrections.”

Days later, President Trump took to Truth Social, the media platform he owns, to state his case less formally.

“The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL,” he wrote, “everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been.”

Even though the Smithsonian celebrates American astronauts, military heroes and sports legends, Trump complained that the museums offered nothing about the “success” and “brightness” of America, concluding with, “We have the “HOTTEST” Country in the World, and we want people to talk about it.”

People visit the Smithsonian Museum of American History on the National Mall in Washington.

(Pablo Martinez Monsivais / Associated Press)

Immediately, Manning and Millward knew where they would focus.

They sent emails to people they knew, and reached out to neighborhood listservs, asking if anyone wanted to help document the displays at the 21 museums that make up the Smithsonian Institution — including the American History Museum and the Natural History Museum — the National Zoo and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Within about two weeks, they had 600 volunteers. Before long, the group had grown to over 1,600, Manning said, more people than they could assign galleries and exhibitions to.

“A lot of people feel upset and kind of paralyzed by these repeated assaults on our shared resources and our shared institutions,” Manning said, “and they’re really not sure what to do about it.”

With the help of all the volunteers, and a grad student, Jessica Dickenson Goodman, who had the computer skills to help archive their submissions, the Citizen Historians project now has an archive of over 50,000 photos and videos covering all of the sites. They finished the work Oct. 12, which was when the museums closed because of the government shutdown.

After several media outlets reported on the order to remove the photo of the whipped slave from the Fort Pulaski National Monument in Georgia — citing internal emails and people familiar with deliberations who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly — administration officials described the reports as “misinformation” but declined to specify which part was incorrect.

A National Parks Service spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

But the possibility that the administration is considering removing the Scourged Back photo is precisely what has prompted Manning, and so many others, to dedicate their time to preserving the historical record.

“I think we need the story that wrong sometimes exists and it is possible to do something about it,” Manning said.

The man in the photo escaped, joined the Union army, and became part of the fight to abolish slavery in the United States. If a powerful image like that disappears from public display, “we rob ourselves of the reminder that it’s possible to do something about the things that are wrong.”

If the ads are any indication, Proposition 50 offers Californians a stark choice: “Stick it to Trump” or “throw away the constitution” in a Democratic power grab.

And like so many things in 2025, Trump appears to be the galvanizing issue.

Even by the incendiary campaigns California is used to, Proposition 50 has been notable for its sharp attacks to cut through the dense, esoteric issue of congressional redistricting. It comes down to a basic fact: this is a Democratic-led measure to reconfigure California’s congressional districts to help their party win control of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2026 and stifle President Trump’s attempts to keep Republicans in power through similar means in other states.

Thus far, the anti-Trump message preached by Proposition 50 advocates, led by Gov. Gavin Newsom and other top Democrats, appears to be the most effective.

Supporters of the proposal have vastly outraised their rivals and Proposition 50, one of the most expensive ballot measure campaigns in state history, leads in the polls.

“Whenever you can take an issue and personalize it, you have the advantage. In this case, proponents of 50 can make it all about stopping Donald Trump,” said former legislative leader and state GOP Chair Jim Brulte.

Adding to the drama is the role of two political and cultural icons who have emerged as leaders of each side: former President Obama in favor and former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger against, both arguing the very essence of democracy is at stake.

Schwarzenegger and the two main committees opposing Proposition 50 have focused on the ethical and moral imperative of preserving the independent redistricting commission. Californians in 2010 voted to create the panel to draw the state’s congressional district boundaries after every census in an effort to provide fair representation to all state residents.

That’s not a political ideal easily explained in a 30-section television ad, or an Instagram post.

Redistricting is a “complex issue,” Brulte said, but he noted that “the no side has the burden of trying to explain what the initiative really does and the yes side gets to use the crib notes [that] this is about stopping Trump — a much easier path.”

Partisans on both sides of the aisle agree.

“The yes side quickly leveraged anti-Trump messaging and has been closing with direct base appeals to lock in the lead,” said Jamie Fisfis, a political strategist who has worked on many GOP congressional campaigns in California. “The partisanship and high awareness behind the measure meant it was unlikely to sag under the weight of negative advertising like other initiatives often do. It’s been a turnout game.”

Obama, in ads that aired during the World Series and NFL games, warned that “Democracy is on the ballot Nov. 4” as he urged voters to support Proposition 50. Ads for the most well-funded committee opposing the proposition featured Schwarzenegger saying that opposing the ballot measure was critical to ensuring that citizens are not overrun by elected officials.

“The Constitution does not start with ‘We, the politicians.’ It starts with ‘We, the people,’” Schwarzenegger told USC students in mid-September — a speech excerpted in an anti-Proposition 50 ad. “Democracy — we’ve got to protect it, and we’ve got to go and fight for it.”

California’s Democratic-led Legislature voted in August to put the redistricting proposal that would likely boost their ranks in Congress on the November ballot. The measure, pushed by Newsom, was an effort to counter Trump’s efforts to increase the number of GOP members in the House from Texas and other GOP-led states.

The GOP holds a narrow edge in the House, and next year’s election will determine which party controls the body during Trump’s final two years in office — and whether he can further his agenda or is the focus of investigations and possible impeachment.

Noticeably absent for California’s Proposition 50 fight is the person who triggered it — Trump.

The proposition’s opponents’ decision not to highlight Trump is unsurprising given the president’s deep unpopularity among Californians. More than two-thirds of the state’s likely voters did not approve of his handling of the presidency in late October, according to a Public Policy Institute of California poll.

Trump did, however, urge California voter not to cast mail-in ballots or vote early, falsely arguing in a social media post that both voting methods were “dishonest.”

Some California GOP leaders feared that Trump’s pronouncement would suppress the Republican vote.

In recent days, the California Republican Party sent mailers to registered Republicans shaming them for not voting. “Your neighbors are watching,” the mailer says, featuring a picture of a woman peering through binoculars. “Don’t let your neighbors down. They’ll find out!”

Tuesday’s election will cost state taxpayers nearly $300 million. And it’s unclear if the result will make a difference in control of the House because of multiple redistricting efforts in other states.

But some Democrats are torn about the amount of money being spent on an effort that may not alter the partisan makeup of Congress.

Johanna Moska, who worked in the Obama administration, described Proposition 50 as “frustrating.”

“I just wish we were spending money to rectify the state’s problems, if we figured out a way the state could be affordable for people,” she said. “Gavin’s found what’s working for Gavin. And that’s resistance to Trump.”

Newsom’s efforts opposing Trump are viewed as a foundational argument if he runs for president in 2028, which he has acknowledged pondering.

Proposition 50 also became a platform for other politicians potentially eyeing a 2026 run for California governor, Sen. Alex Padilla and billionaires Rick Caruso and Tom Steyer.

The field is in flux, with no clear front-runner.

Padilla being thrown to the ground in Los Angeles as he tried to ask Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem about the Trump administration’s immigration policies is prominently featured in television ads promoting Proposition 50. Steyer, a longtime Democratic donor who briefly ran for president in 2020, raised eyebrows by being the only speaker in his second television ad. Caruso, who unsuccessfully ran against Karen Bass in the 2022 Los Angeles mayoral race and is reportedly considering another political campaign, recently sent voters glossy mailers supporting Proposition 50.

Steyer committed $12 million to support Proposition 50. His initial ad, which shows a Trump impersonator growing increasingly irate as news reports showing the ballot measure passing, first aired during “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Steyer’s second ad fully focused on him, raising speculation about a potential gubernatorial run next year.

Ads opposing the proposition aired less frequently before disappearing from television altogether in recent days.

“The yes side had the advantage of casting the question for voters as a referendum on Trump,” said Rob Stutzman, a GOP strategist who worked for Schwarzenegger but is not involved with any of the Proposition 50 campaigns. “Asking people to rally to the polls to save a government commission — it’s not a rallying call.”

WASHINGTON — The hurried push to revise California’s congressional districts has drawn national attention, large sums of money, and renewed hope among Democrats that the effort may help counter a wave of Republican redistricting initiatives instigated by President Trump.

But if Democrats succeed in California, the question remains: Will it be enough to shift the balance of power in Congress?

To regain control of the House, Democrats need to flip three Republican seats in the midterm elections next year. That slim margin prompted the White House to push Republicans this summer to redraw maps in GOP states in an effort to keep Democrats in the minority.

Texas was the first to signal it would follow Trump’s edict and set off a rare mid-decade redistricting arms race that quickly roped in California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom devised Proposition 50 to tap into his state’s massive inventory of congressional seats.

Californians appear poised to approve the measure Tuesday. If they do, Democrats potentially could gain five seats in the House — an outcome that mainly would offset the Republican effort in Texas that already passed.

While Democrats and Republicans in other states also have moved to redraw their maps, it is too soon to say which party will see a net gain, or predict voter sentiment a year from now, when a lopsided election in either direction could render the remapping irrelevant.

GOP leaders in North Carolina and Missouri approved new maps that likely will yield one new GOP seat in each, Ohio Republicans could pick up two more seats in a newly redrawn map approved Friday, and GOP leaders in Indiana, Louisiana, Kansas and Florida are considering or taking steps to redraw their maps. In all, those moves could lead to at least 10 new Republican seats, according to experts tracking the redistricting efforts.

To counter that, Democrats in Virginia passed a constitutional amendment that, if approved by voters, would give lawmakers the power and option to redraw a new map ahead of next year’s election. Illinois leaders are weighing their redistricting options and New York has filed a lawsuit that seeks to redraw a GOP-held district. But concerns over legal challenges already tanked the party’s efforts in Maryland and the potential dilution of the Black vote has slowed moves in Illinois.

So far, the partisan maneuvers appear to favor Republicans.

“Democrats cannot gerrymander their way out of their gerrymandering problem. The math simply doesn’t add up,” said David Daly, a senior fellow at the nonprofit FairVote. “They don’t have enough opportunities or enough targets.”

Complex factors for Democrats

Democrats have more than just political calculus to weigh. In many states they are hampered by a mix of constitutional restrictions, legal deadlines and the reality that many of their state maps no longer can be easily redrawn for partisan gain. In California, Prop. 50 marks a departure from the state’s commitment to independent redistricting.

The hesitancy from Democrats in states such as Maryland and Illinois also underscores the tensions brewing within the party as it tries to maximize its partisan advantage and establish a House majority that could thwart Trump in his last two years in office.

“Despite deeply shared frustrations about the state of our country, mid-cycle redistricting for Maryland presents a reality where the legal risks are too high, the timeline for action is dangerous, the downside risk to Democrats is catastrophic, and the certainty of our existing map would be undermined,” Bill Ferguson, the Maryland Senate president, wrote in a letter to state lawmakers last week.

In Illinois, Black Democrats are raising concerns over the plans and pledging to oppose maps that would reduce the share of Black voters in congressional districts where they have historically prevailed.

“I can’t just think about this as a short-term fight. I have to think about the long-term consequences of doing such a thing,” said state Sen. Willie Preston, chair of the Illinois Senate Black Caucus.

Adding to those concerns is the possibility that the Supreme Court’s conservative majority could weaken a key provision of the landmark Voting Rights Act and limit lawmakers’ ability to consider race when redrawing maps. The outcome — and its effect on the 2026 midterms — will depend heavily on the timing and scope of the court’s decision.

The court has been asked to rule on the case by January, but a decision may come later. Timing is key as many states have filing deadlines for 2026 congressional races or hold their primary election during the spring and summer.

If the court strikes down the provision, known as Section 2, advocacy groups estimate Republicans could pick up at least a dozen House seats across southern states.

“I think all of these things are going to contribute to what legislatures decide to do,” said Kareem Crayton, vice president of the Brennan Center for Justice. The looming court ruling, he added, is “an extra layer of uncertainty in an already uncertain moment.”

Republican-led states press ahead

Support for Prop. 50 has brought in more than $114 million, the backing of some of the party’s biggest luminaries, including former President Obama, and momentum for national Democrats who want to regain control of Congress after the midterms.

In an email to supporters Monday, Newsom said fundraising goals had been met and asked proponents of the effort to get involved in other states.

“I will be asking for you to help others — states like Indiana, North Carolina, South Carolina and more are all trying to stop Republican mid-decade redistricting efforts. More on that soon,” Newsom wrote.

Indiana Republican Gov. Mike Braun called a special session set to begin Monday, to “protect Hoosiers from efforts in other states that seek to diminish their voice in Washington and ensure their representation in Congress is fair.”

In Kansas, the GOP president of the state Senate said last week that there were enough signatures from Republicans in the chamber to call a special session to redraw the state’s maps. Republicans in the state House would need to match the effort to move forward.

In Louisiana, Republicans in control of the Legislature voted last week to delay the state’s 2026 primary elections. The move is meant to give lawmakers more time to redraw maps in the case that the Supreme Court rules in the federal voting case.

If the justices strike down the practice of drawing districts based on race, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has indicated the state likely would jump into the mid-decade redistricting race.

Shaniqua McClendon, head of Vote Save America, said the GOP’s broad redistricting push underscores why Democrats should follow California’s lead — even if they dislike the tactic.

“Democrats have to be serious about what’s at stake. I know they don’t like the means, but we have to think about the end,” McClendon said. “We have to be able to take back the House — it’s the only way we’ll be able to hold Trump accountable.”

In New York, a lawsuit filed last week charging that a congressional district disenfranchises Black and Latino voters would be a “Hail Mary” for Democrats hoping to improve their chances in the 2026 midterms there, said Daly, of FairVote.

Utah also could give Democrats an outside opportunity to pick up a seat, said Dave Wasserman, a congressional forecaster for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. A court ruling this summer required Utah Republican leaders to redraw the state’s congressional map, resulting in two districts that Democrats potentially could flip.

Wasserman described the various redistricting efforts as an “arms race … Democrats are using what Republicans have done in Texas as a justification for California, and Republicans are using California as justification for their actions in other states.”

‘Political tribalism’

Some political observers said the outcome of California’s election could inspire still more political maneuvering in other states.

“I think passage of Proposition 50 in California could show other states that voters might support mid-decade redistricting when necessary, when they are under attack,” said Jeffrey Wice, a professor at New York Law School where he directs the New York Elections, Census & Redistricting Institute. “I think it would certainly provide impetus in places like New York to move forward.”

Similar to California, New York would need to ask voters to approve a constitutional amendment, but that could not take place in time for the midterms.

“It might also embolden Republican states that have been hesitant to redistrict to say, ‘Well if the voters in California support mid-decade redistricting, maybe they’ll support it here too,’” Wice said.

To Erik Nisbet, the director of the Center for Communications & Public Policy at Northwestern University, the idea that the mid-decade redistricting trend is gaining traction is part of a broader problem.

“It is a symptom of this 20-year trend in increasing polarization and political tribalism,” he said. “And, unfortunately, our tribalism is now breaking out, not only between each other, but it’s breaking out between states.”

He argued that both parties are sacrificing democratic norms and the ideas of procedural fairness as well as a representative democracy for political gain.

“I am worried about what the end result of this will be,” he said.

Ceballos reported from Washington, Mehta from Los Angeles.

HARRISBURG, Pa. — A yearlong investigation into suspected fraudulent voter registration forms submitted ahead of last year’s presidential election produced criminal charges Friday against six street canvassers and the man who led their work in Pennsylvania.

The allegations of fraud appeared to be motivated by the defendants’ desire to make money and keep their jobs and was not an effort to influence the election results, said Pennsylvania Atty Gen. Dave Sunday.

Guillermo Sainz, 33, described by prosecutors as the director of a company’s registration drives in Pennsylvania, was charged with three counts of solicitation of registration, a state law that prohibits offering money to reach registration quotas. A message seeking comment was left on a number associated with Sainz, who lives in Arizona. He did not have a lawyer listed in court records.

The six canvassers are charged with unsworn falsification, tampering with public records, forgery and violations of Pennsylvania election law. The charges relate to activities in three Republican-leaning Pennsylvania counties: York, Lancaster and Berks.

“We are confident that the motive behind these crimes was personal financial gain, and not a conspiracy or organized effort to tip any election for any one candidate or party,” Sunday said in a news release. Prosecutors said the forms included all party affiliations.

In a court affidavit filed with the criminal charges on Friday, investigators said Sainz, an employee of Field+Media Corps, “instituted unlawful financial incentives and pressures in his push to meet company goals to maintain funding which in turn spurred some canvassers to create and submit fake forms to earn more money.”

The chief executive of Field+Media Corps, based in Mesa, Ariz., said last year the company was proud of its work to expand voting but had no information about problematic registration forms. A message seeking comment was left Friday for the CEO, Francisco Heredia. The Field+Media Corps website did not appear to be operative.

Field+Media was funded by Everybody Votes, an effort to improve voter registration rates in communities of color. The affidavit said Everybody Votes “fully cooperated” with the investigation and noted its contract with Field+Media prohibited payments on a per-registration basis.

“The investigation confirmed that we hold our partners to the highest standards of quality control when collecting, handling and delivering voter registration applications,” Everybody Votes said in a statement emailed by a spokesperson.

Sainz, who managed Pennsylvania operations from May to October 2024, is accused of paying canvassers based on how many signatures they collected. The police affidavit said Sainz told agents with the attorney general’s office earlier this month he was unaware of any canvassers paid extra hours if they reached a target number of forms.

“Sainz had to be asked the question multiple times before he stated he was not aware of this and that ‘everyone was an hourly worker,’ ” investigators wrote.

One canvasser said she created fake forms to boost her pay and believed others did, too, according to the police affidavit. Another told investigators that most of the registration forms he collected were “not real.” A third reported that when she realized she was not going to reach a daily quota, “she would make up names and information,” police wrote, “due to fear of losing her job.”

The investigation began in late October 2024, when election workers in Lancaster flagged about 2,500 voter registration forms for potential fraud. Authorities said they appeared to contain false names, suspicious handwriting, questionable signatures, incorrect addresses and other problematic details.

In a separate but related investigation, authorities in Monroe County late Friday filed voter registration fraud charges against three canvassers who worked for Field+Media Corps last year. All three defendants were charged with forgery, perjury, unsworn falsification, tampering with public records, identity theft and election law violations.

The suggestion of criminal activity related to the election came as the battleground state was considered pivotal to the presidential election, and then-candidate Donald Trump seized on the news. At a campaign event, he declared there was “cheating” involving “2,600” votes. The actual issue in Lancaster was about 2,500 suspected fraudulent voter registration forms, not ballots or votes.

Scolforo writes for the Associated Press.

With the fate of President’s Trump’s right-wing agenda at stake, the California ballot measure crafted to tilt Congress to Democratic control has turned into a fight among millionaires and billionaires, a former president, a past movie-star governor and the nation’s top partisans.

Californians have been inundated with political ads popping up on every screen — no cellphone, computer or living-room television is spared — trying to sway them about Proposition 50, which will reconfigure the districts of the largest state congressional delegation in the union.

Besides opposing pleas from former President Obama and former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the state’s powerful, left-leaning labor unions are another factor that may influence the outcome of the Nov. 4 special election.

Unions representing California school teachers, carpenters, state workers and nurses have plowed more than $23 million into efforts to pass Proposition 50, according to an analysis of campaign finance disclosure reports about donations exceeding $100,000. That’s nearly one-third of the six-figure donations reported through Thursday.

Not only do these groups have major interests in the state capitol, including charter school reform, minimum wage hikes and preserving government healthcare programs, they also are deeply aligned with efforts by Gov. Gavin Newsom and his fellow Democrats to put their party in control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2026 election.
“There are real issues here that are at stake,” said veteran Democratic strategist Gale Kaufman, who has represented several unions that have contributed to Newsom’s committee supporting Proposition 50.

“There’s always a risk when making sizable donations, that you’re putting yourself out there,” Kaufman said. “But the truth is on Proposition 50, I think it’s much less calculated than normal contributions. It really is about the issue, not about currying favor with members of the Legislature, or the congressional delegation, or the governor. Even though, of course, it benefits them if we win.”

High stakes brings in big money from across the nation

Newsom’s pro-Proposition 50 committee has raised more than $116 million, according to campaign disclosure filings through Thursday afternoon, though that number is sure to increase once additional donations are disclosed in the latest fundraising reports that are due by midnight Thursday.

The multimillion-dollar donations provide the best evidence of what’s at stake, and how Proposition 50 could determine control of the House during the final two years of Trump’s presidency. If the Democrats take control of the House, not only could that derail major parts of Trumps agenda, it probably would lead to a slew of congressional hearings on Trump’s immigration crackdown, use of the military in American cities, accepting a $400-million luxury airliner from Qatari’s royal family, the cutting of research funding to universities and the president’s ties to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, among many others.

The House Majority PAC — the Democrats’ congressional fundraising arm — has donated at least $15 million to the pro-Proposition 50 campaign, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) was in Los Angeles to campaign for the ballot measure last weekend. Obama joined Newsom on a livestream promoting the proposition Wednesday, and Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin hosted a bilingual phone bank in Los Angeles on Thursday.

“Make no mistake about what they’re trying to do and why it’s so important that we fight back,” Martin said. “We’re not going to be the only party with one hand tied behind our back. If they want a showdown, we’re going to give them a showdown and in just a little under two weeks it starts right here with Prop. 50 in California.”

Billionaire financier George Soros — a generous donor to liberal causes and a bogeyman to Republicans — has contributed $10 million. Others have chosen to fund separate entities campaigning in favor of Proposition 50, notably billionaire hedge-fund founder Tom Steyer, who chipped in $12 million.

On the opposition side, the largest donor is Charles Munger Jr., the son of the longtime investment partner of billionaire Warren Buffett, who has contributed $32.8 million to one of the two main committees opposing Proposition 50. The Congressional Leadership Fund — the GOP’s political arm in the House — has donated $5 million to the other main anti-Proposition 50 committee and $8 million to the California Republican Party.

Although Republicans may control the White House and Congress, the California GOP wields no real power in Sacramento, so it’s not surprising that Republican efforts opposing Proposition 50 have not received major donations from entities with business before the state.

The California Chamber of Commerce opted to remain neutral on Proposition 50. Chevron and the California Resources Corp., petroleum companies that have given to California Republicans in the past, also remain on the sidelines.

In contrast, Democrats control every statewide office and hold supermajorities in both houses of the California Legislature. The pro-Proposition 50 campaign has been showered with donations from groups aligned with Sacramento’s legislative leaders — with labor organizations chief among them.

Among the labor donors, the powerful carpenters unions have donated at least $4 million. Newsom hailed them in July when he signed legislation altering a landmark environmental law for urban apartment developments to boost the supply of housing. The California Conference of Carpenters union has become one of the most pro-housing voices in the state.

“This is the third of the last four years we’ve been together signing landmark housing reforms, and it simply would not have happened without the Carpenters,” Newsom said at the time.

Daniel M. Curtin, director of the California Conference of Carpenters, pointed to a letter he wrote to legislators in August urging them to put redistricting on the ballot because of the effect of Trump’s policies on the state’s workers.

“These are not normal times, and this isn’t politics as usual. Not only has the Trump administration denied disaster assistance to victims of California’s devastating forest fires, he’s damaging our CA economy with mass arrests of law-abiding workers without warrants,” wrote Curtin, whose union has 70,000 members in the state. “The Trump administration is now unilaterally withdrawing from legally binding union collective bargaining agreements with federal workforce unions. The President has made it clear that this is just the beginning.”

Proposition 50 was prompted by Trump urging Republican leaders in Texas to redraw their congressional districts to boost the number of GOP members in the House and keep the party in control after the 2026 election. Newsom sought to counter the move by altering California’s congressional boundaries in a rare mid-decade redistricting.

With 52 members in the House, the state has the largest congressional delegation in the nation. But unlike many states, California’s districts are drawn by an independent commission created by voters in 2010 in an effort to end partisan gerrymandering and incumbent protection.

The state’s districts would not have been redrawn until after the 2030 U.S. census, but the Legislature and Newsom agreed in August to put Proposition 50, which would give Democrats the potential to pick up five seats, on the November ballot.

Money from California unions pours in

Although much of the money supporting the efforts comes from wealth Democratic donors and partisan groups aimed at helping Democrats take control of Congress, a significant portion comes from labor unions.

The Service Employees International Union, which represents more than 700,000 healthcare workers, social workers, in-home caregivers and school employees and other state and local government workers, has contributed more than $5.5 million to the committee.

On Oct. 12, the union celebrated Newsom signing bills ensuring that workers, regardless of immigration status, are informed about their civil and labor rights under state and federal law as well as updating legal guidance to state and local agencies about protecting private information, such as court records and medical data, from being misused by federal authorities.

“Thank you to Governor Newsom for … standing up to federal overreach and indiscriminate, violent attacks on our communities,” David Huerta, president of SEIU California, said in a statement.

Huerta was arrested during the first day of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in Los Angeles in June and charged with a felony. But federal prosecutors are instead pursuing a misdemeanor case against him, according to a Friday court filing.

An SEIU representative did not respond to requests for comment.

The California Teachers Assn., another potent force in state politics, has contributed more than $3.3 million, along with millions more from other education unions such as the National Education Assn., the California Federation of Teachers and the American Federation of Teachers.

CTA had a mixed record in this year’s legislative session.

Newsom vetoed a bill to crack down on charter school fraud, Senate Bill 414. The CTA opposed the bill, arguing that it didn’t go far enough to target fraud in some of the schools, and had urged the governor to reject it.

Newsom signed CTA-backed bills that placed strict limits on ICE agents’ access to school grounds. But he also vetoed union-backed bill that would have required the state Board of Education to adopt health education instructional materials by July 1, 2028.

CTA President David Goldberg said their donations are driven not only by issues important to the union’s members, but also the students they serve who are dependent on federally funded assistance programs and impacted by policies such as immigration.

“It’s about our livelihood but it really is about fundamental issues … for people who serve students who are just incredibly under attack right now,” Goldberg said.

“The governor’s support for labor would be exactly the same with or without Proposition 50 on the ballot. But he would acknowledge this year is more urgent than ever for labor and working people,” said Newsom spokesperson Bob Salladay. “Trump is taking a wrecking ball to collective bargaining, to fair wages and safe working conditions. He would be backing them up under any circumstances, but especially now.”

Critics of Proposition 50 argue that these contributions are among the reasons voters should oppose the ballot measure.

“The independent redistricting commission exists to prevent conflicts of interest and money from influencing line drawing,” said Amy Thoma, a spokesperson for the Voters First Coalition, the committee backed by Munger Jr., who bankrolled the 2010 ballot measure to create the independent commission. “That’s why we want to preserve its independence.”

Other labor leaders argued that although they are not always in lockstep with Newsom, they need to support Proposition 50 because of the importance of Democrats winning the congressional majority next year.

Lorena Gonzalez, the head of the powerful California Labor Federation, said the timing of the member unions’ donations of millions of dollars to Newsom’s ballot measure committee for an election taking place shortly after the bill-signing period was “unfortunate” and “weird.”

“Because we have so many bills in front of him, we were gun-shy,” she said, noting that the federation has sparred with the governor over issues such as the effect of artificial intelligence in the workplace. “Never be too close to your elected officials. Because we see the good, the bad, the ugly.”

Times staff writers Andrea Flores and Brittny Mejia contributed to this report.

As Californians start voting on Democrats’ effort to boost their ranks in Congress, former President Barack Obama warned that democracy is in peril as he urged voters to support Proposition 50 in a television ad that started airing Tuesday.

“California, the whole nation is counting on you,” Obama says in the 30-second ad, which the main pro-Proposition 50 campaign began broadcasting Tuesday across the state. The spot is part of a multimillion-dollar ad buy promoting the congressional redistricting ballot measure through the Nov. 4 election.

Proposition 50 was spearheaded by Gov. Gavin Newsom and other California Democratic leaders this summer after President Trump urged GOP-led states, notably Texas, to redraw their congressional districts to boost the number of Republicans elected to the House in next year’s midterm election, in an effort to continue enacting his agenda during his final years in office.

“Republicans want to steal enough seats in Congress to rig the next election and wield unchecked power for two more years,” Obama says in the ad, which includes footage of ICE raids. “With Prop. 50, you can stop Republicans in their tracks. Prop. 50 puts our elections back on a level playing field, preserves independent redistricting over the long term, and lets the people decide. Return your ballot today.”

Congressional districts were long drawn in smoke-filled chambers by partisans focused on protecting their parties’ power and incumbents. But good-government groups and elected officials, notably former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, have fought to take the drawing of congressional boundaries out of the hands of politicians to end gerrymandering and create more competitive districts.

Obama, long a supporter of ending gerrymandering, had already endorsed the ballot measure.

In California, these districts have been drawn by an independent commission created by voters in 2010, which is why state Democrats have to go to the ballot box to seek a mid-decade partisan redistricting that could improve their party’s chances in five of the state’s 52 congressional districts.

The ad featuring Obama, who spoke Monday on comedian Marc Maron’s final podcast about Trump’s policies testing the nation’s values, appears on Californians’ televisions after mail ballots were sent to the state’s 23 million registered voters last week.

The proposition’s prospects are uncertain — it’s about an obscure topic that few Californians know about, and off-year elections traditionally have low voter turnout. Still, more than $150 million has been contributed to the three main committees supporting and opposing the proposition, in addition to millions more funding other efforts.

Obama is not the only famous person to appear in ads about Proposition 50.

In September, former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who championed the creation of the independent redistricting commission while in office and has campaigned for similar reforms across the nation since then, was featured in ads opposing the November ballot measure.

He described Proposition 50 as favoring entrenched politicians instead of voters.

“That’s what they want to do, is take us backwards. This is why it is important for you to vote no on Proposition 50,” the Hollywood celebrity and former governor says in the ad, which was filmed last month when he spoke to USC students. “The Constitution does not start with ‘We, the politicians.’ It starts with ‘We, the people.’ … Democracy — we’ve got to protect it, and we’ve got to go and fight for it.”

Marc Benioff has become the latest Silicon Valley tech leader to signal his approval of President Trump, saying that the president is doing a great job and ought to deploy the National Guard to deal with crime in San Francisco.

The Salesforce chief executive’s comments came as he headed to San Francisco to host his annual Dreamforce conference — an event for which he said he had to hire hundreds of off-duty police to provide security.

“We don’t have enough cops, so if they [National Guard] can be cops, I’m all for it,” he told The New York Times from aboard his private plane.

The National Guard is generally not allowed to perform domestic law enforcement duties when federalized by the president.

Last month, a federal judge ruled that Trump’s use of National Guard soldiers in Los Angeles violated the Posse Comitatus Act — which restricts use of the military for domestic law enforcement — and ordered that the troops not be used in law enforcement operations within California.

Trump has also ordered the National Guard to deploy to cities such as Portland, Ore., and Chicago, citing the need to protect federal officers and assets in the face of ongoing immigration protests. Those efforts have been met with criticism from local leaders and are the subject of ongoing legal battles.

President Trump has yet to direct troops to Northern California, but suggested in September that San Francisco could be a target for deployment. He has said that cities with Democratic political leadership such as San Francisco, Chicago and Los Angeles “are very unsafe places and we are going to straighten them out.”

“I told [Defense Secretary] Pete [Hegseth] we should use some of these dangerous cities as training for our military, our national guard,” Trump said.

Benioff’s call to send National Guard troops to San Francisco drew sharp rebukes from several of the region’s elected Democratic leaders.

San Francisco Dist. Atty. Brooke Jenkins said she “can’t be silent any longer” and threatened to prosecute any leaders or troops who harass residents in a fiery statement on X.

“I am responsible for holding criminals accountable, and that includes holding government and law enforcement officials too, when they cross the bounds of the law,” she said. “If you come to San Francisco and illegally harass our residents, use excessive force or cross any other boundaries that the law prescribes, I will not hesitate to do my job and hold you accountable just like I do other violators of the law every single day.”

State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) also took to X to express indignation, saying “we neither need nor want an illegal military occupation in San Francisco.”

“Salesforce is a great San Francisco company that does so much good for our city,” he said. “Inviting Trump to send the National Guard here is not one of those good things. Quite the opposite.”

San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie’s office offered a more muted response, touting the mayor’s efforts to boost public safety in general, but declining to directly address Benioff’s remarks.

Charles Lutvak, a spokesperson for the mayor, noted that the city is seeing net gains in both police officers and sheriff’s deputies for the first time in a decade. He also highlighted Lurie’s efforts to bring police staffing up to 2,000 officers.

“Crime is down nearly 30% citywide and at its lowest point in decades,” Lutvak said. “We are moving in the right direction and will continue to prioritize safety and hiring while San Francisco law enforcement works every single day to keep our city safe.”

When contacted by The Times Friday night, the office of Gov. Gavin Newsom, who vociferously opposed the deployment of National Guard troops in Los Angeles, did not issue a comment in response to Benioff.

Benioff and Newsom have long been considered friends, with a relationship dating back to when Newsom served as San Francisco’s mayor. Newsom even named Benioff as godfather to one of his children, according to the San Francisco Standard.

Benioff has often referred to himself as an independent. He has donated to several liberal causes, including a $30-million donation to UC San Francisco to study homelessness, and has contributed to prior political campaigns of former President Barack Obama, former Vice President Kamala Harris, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), and Hillary Clinton.

However, he has also donated to the campaigns of former House Speaker Paul Ryan and Sen. John McCain, both Republicans, and supported tougher-on-crime policies and reducing government spending.

Earlier this year, Benioff also praised the Elon Musk-led federal cost-cutting effort known as the Department of Government Efficiency.

“I fully support the president,” Benioff told the New York Times this week. “I think he’s doing a great job.”

As California voters receive mail ballots for the November special election, which could upend the state’s congressional boundaries and determine control of the House, billionaire hedge-fund founder Tom Steyer said Thursday he will spend $12 million to back Democrats’ efforts to redraw districts to boost their party’s ranks in the legislative body.

The ballot measure was proposed by Gov. Gavin Newsom and other California Democrats after President Trump urged Texas leaders to redraw their congressional districts before next year’s midterm election. Buttressing GOP numbers in Congress could help Trump continue enacting his agenda during his final two years in office.

“We must stop Trump’s election-rigging power grab,” Steyer said in a statement. “The defining fight through Nov. 4 is passing Proposition 50. In order to compete and win, Democrats can’t keep playing by the same old rules. This is how we fight back, and stick it to Trump.”

Steyer’s announcement makes him the biggest funder of pro-Proposition 50 efforts, surpassing billionaire financier George Soros, who has contributed $10 million to the effort.

Steyer founded a hedge fund whose investments included massive fossil fuel projects, but after he learned of the environmental consequences of these financial decisions, he divested and has worked to fight climate change. Steyer has spent hundreds of millions of dollars supporting Democratic candidates and causes and more than $300 million on his unsuccessful 2020 presidential campaign.

Steyer plans to launch a scathing ad Thursday night that imagines Trump watching election returns on Nov. 4 and furiously throwing fast food at a television when he sees Proposition 50 succeeding.

“Why did you do this to Trump?” the president asks. The ad then shows a fictional TV anchor saying that the ballot measure’s success makes it more likely that Trump will be investigated for corruption and that the records of convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein will be released. “I hate California,” Trump responds.

The advertisement is scheduled to start airing Thursday night during “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” The late-night show was in the spotlight after it was briefly suspended by Walt Disney Co.-owned ABC last month under pressure from the Trump administration because of a comment Kimmel made about the slaying of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

The esoteric process of redistricting typically occurs once every decade after the U.S. Census to account for population shifts. The maps, historically drawn in smoke-filled backrooms, protected incumbents and created bizarrely shaped districts, such as the “ribbon of shame” along the California coast.

In recent decades, good-government advocates have fought to create districts that are logical and geographically compact and do not disenfranchise minority voters. At the forefront of the effort, California voters passed a 2010 ballot measure to create an independent commission to draw the state’s congressional boundaries.

But this year, Trump and his allies urged leaders of GOP-led states to redraw their congressional districts to boost Republicans’ prospects in next year’s midterm election. The House is closely divided, and retaining Republican control is crucial to Trump’s ability to enact his agenda.

California Democrats, led by Newson, responded in kind. The state Legislature voted in August to call a special election in November to decide on redrawn districts that could give their party five more seats in the state’s 52-member congressional delegation, the largest in the nation.

Supporters of Proposition 50 have vastly outraised the committees opposing the measure. Steyer’s announcement came one day after Charles Munger Jr., the largest donor to the opposition, spoke out publicly for the first time about why he had contributed $32 million to the effort.

“I’m fighting for the ordinary voter to have an effective say in their own government,” Munger told reporters. “I don’t want Californians ignored by the national government because all the districts are fortresses for one party or the other.”

A longtime opponent of gerrymandering, the bow-tie-wearing Palo Alto physicist bankrolled the 2010 ballot measure that created the independent commission to draw California’s congressional districts.

Munger, the son of a billionaire who was the right-hand man of investor Warren Buffett, declined to comment about whether he planned to give additional funds.

“I neither confirm nor deny rumors that involve the tactics of the campaign,” Munger told reporters. “Talk to me after the election is over.”

A judge on Tuesday blocked the Trump administration from requiring recipients of federal teen pregnancy prevention grants to comply with the president’s orders aimed at curtailing “radical indoctrination” and “gender ideology.”

The ruling is a victory for three Planned Parenthood affiliates — in California, Iowa and New York — that sued to try to block enforcement of a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services policy document issued in July that they contend contradicts the requirements of the grants as established by Congress.

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, who was appointed to the bench by former President Obama, blasted the administration’s policy change in her written ruling, saying it was “motivated solely by political concerns, devoid of any considered process or analysis, and ignorant of the statutory emphasis on evidence-based programming.”

The policy requiring changes to the pregnancy prevention program was part of the fallout from a series of executive orders Trump signed starting in his first day back in the White House aimed at rolling back recognition of LGBTQ+ people and diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

In the policy, the administration objected to teaching that promotes same-sex marriage and that “normalizes, or promotes sexual activity for minors.”

The Planned Parenthood affiliates argued that the new directives were at odds with the requirements of the program — and that they were so vague it wasn’t clear what needed to be done to follow them.

Howell agreed.

The decision applies not only to the handful of Planned Parenthood groups among the dozens of recipients of the funding, but also to nonprofit groups, city and county health departments, Native American tribes and universities that received grants.

The Health and Human Services Department, which oversees the program, declined to comment on Tuesday’s ruling. It previously said the guidance for the program “ensures that taxpayer dollars no longer support content that undermines parental rights, promotes radical gender ideology, or exposes children to sexually explicit material under the banner of public health.”

Mulvihill writes for the Associated Press.

Supporters of the November ballot measure to reconfigure California’s congressional districts — an effort led by Gov. Gavin Newsom to help Democrats win control of the U.S. House of Representatives next year — have far out-raised the opposition campaigns, according to fundraising disclosures filed with the state.

The primary group backing Proposition 50 raked in $77.5 million and spent $28.1 million through Sept. 20, according to a campaign finance report that was filed with the secretary of state’s office on Thursday.

The committee has $54.4 million in the bank for the final weeks of the campaign, so Californian should expect a blizzard of television ads, mailers, phone calls and other efforts to sway voters before the Nov. 4 special election.

The two main groups opposing the ballot measure have raised $35.3 million, spent $27.4 million and have roughly $8.8 million in the bank combined, campaign finance reports show.

Despite having an overwhelming financial advantage, the campaign supporting Proposition 50 has tried to portray itself as the underdog in a fight to raise money against opposition campaigns with ties to President Trump and his supporters.

“MAGA donors keep pouring millions into the campaign to stop Prop. 50 in the hopes of pleasing their ‘Dear Leader,’” said Hannah Milgrom, a spokesperson for the Yes on 50, the Election Rigging Response Act campaign. “We will not take our foot off the gas — Prop. 50 is America’s best chance to stop this reckless and dangerous president, and we will keep doing everything we can to ensure every Californian knows the stakes and is ready to vote yes on 50 this Nov. 4th.”

A spokesperson for one of the anti-Proposition 50 campaigns, which was sending mailers to voters even before the Democratic-led California Legislature placed Proposition 50 on the November ballot, said their priority was to help Californians understand the inappropriateness of redrawing congressional boundaries that had been created by a voter-approved, state independent commission.

“We started communicating with voters early about the consequences of having politicians draw their own lines,” said Amy Thoma, a spokesperson for a coalition that opposes the ballot measure. “We are confident we’ll have the resources necessary to continue through election day.”

A spokesperson for the other main anti-Proposition 50 group agreed.

“When you’re selling a lemon, no amount of cash can change the taste. We’re confident in raising more than sufficient resources to expose Prop. 50 for the blatant political power grab that it is,” said Ellie Hockenbury, an advisor to the No on 50 – Stop Sacramento’s Power Grab campaign. Newsom “can’t change the fact that Prop. 50 is nothing more than a ploy for politicians to take the power of redistricting away from the voters and charge them for the privilege at a massive cost to taxpayers.”

The special election is expected to cost the state and the counties $282 million, according to the secretary of state’s office and the state department of finance.

If approved, Proposition 50 would have a major impact on California’s 2026 congressional elections, which will play a major role in determining whether Trump is able to continue enacting his agenda in the final two years of his tenure. The party that wins the White House frequently loses congressional seats two years later, and Republicans hold a razor-thin majority in the House.

After Trump urged GOP-led states, notably Texas, to redraw their congressional districts to increase the number of Republicans elected to Congress in next year’s midterm election, Newsom and other California Democrats responded by proposing a counter-effort to boost the ranks of their party in the legislative body.

California’s congressional districts are drawn once every decade after the U.S. Census by a voter-approved independent redistricting commission. So Democrats’ proposal to replace the districts with new boundaries proposed by state lawmakers must be approved by voters. The state Legislature voted in August to put the measure before voters in a special election on Nov. 4.

Polling about the proposition is not definitive. It’s an off-year election, which means turnout is likely to be low and the electorate is unpredictable. And relatively few Californians pay attention to redistricting, the esoteric process of redrawing congressional districts.

There are more than 30 campaign committees associated with Proposition 50 registered with the secretary of state’s office, but only three have raised large amounts of money.

Newsom’s pro-Proposition 50 effort has received several large donations since its launch, including $10 million from billionaire financier George Soros, $7.6 million from House Majority PAC (the Democrats’ congressional political arm) and $4.5 million from various Service Employees International Union groups. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and his wife have contributed $1 million to a separate committee supporting the proposition.

The opposition groups had few small-dollar donors and were largely funded by two sources — $30 million in loans from Charles Munger Jr., who for years has been a major Republican donor in California, and a $5-million donation from the Congressional Leadership Fund, the GOP political arm of House Republicans.

Kamala Harris picked her way through several sticky subjects in a Tuesday night TV interview, including her account of being ghosted by Gov. Gavin Newsom when she called for his support during her brief, unsuccessful 2024 presidential campaign.

On the eve of the public release of her book detailing that campaign, Harris spoke with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on her relationship with Newsom as well as the redistricting ballot measure Californians will vote on in November — and she also hailed “the power of the people” in getting Jimmy Kimmel back on ABC.

Kimmel was indefinitely suspended last week by the Walt Disney Co. over remarks he made about the suspect in the shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. After fierce protests, consumers announcing subscription cancellations, and hundreds of celebrities speaking out against government censorship, Disney announced Monday that Kimmel would return on ABC the following day.

“Talk about the power being with the people and the people making that clear with their checkbooks,” Harris said of Kimmel’s return. “It spoke volumes, and it moved a decision in the right direction.”

Harris was speaking with Maddow about her new book, “107 Days,” which details her short sprint of a presidential campaign in 2024 after then-President Biden decided not to seek reelection.

The book discloses which Democrats immediately supported her to become the Democratic nominee, and which didn’t, notably Newsom. She wrote that, when she called, he texted her that he was hiking and would call her back but never did.

After Maddow raised the anecdote in the opening of the show, Harris said she had known Newsom “forever.”

“Gavin has a great sense of humor so, you know, he’s gonna be fine,” Harris said.

Newsom was icier when asked by a reporter about the interaction — or lack thereof — on Friday.

“You want to waste your time with this, we’ll do it,” Newsom said, adding that he was hiking when he received a call from an unknown number, even as he was trying to learn more about Biden’s decision not to run for reelection while also asking his team to craft a statement supporting Harris to be the Democratic nominee. “I assume that’s in the book as well — that, hours later, the endorsement came out.”

Harris brought up Newsom when asked about Proposition 50, the redistricting ballot measure championed by the governor and other California Democrats that voters will decide in November. If approved, the state’s congressional districts will be redrawn in an effort to boost Democratic seats in the house to counter efforts by President Trump to increase the number of Republicans elected in GOP-led states.

“Let me say about what [Newsom] is doing, redistricting, it is absolutely the right way to go. Part of what we’ve got to, I think, challenge ourselves to accept, is that we tend to play by the rules,” Harris said. “But I think this is a moment where you gotta fight fire with fire. And so what Gavin is doing, what the California Legislature is doing, what those who are supporting it are doing is to say, ‘You know what, you want to play, then let’s get in the field. Let’s get in the arena, and let’s do this.’ And I support that.”

But Harris was more cautious when asked about other electoral contests, notably the New York City mayoral race. Zohran Mamdani is the Democratic nominee and has large leads in the polls over other candidates in the race, including former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and incumbent Mayor Eric Adams.

Asked whether she backed Mamdani, a Democratic socialist, Harris was measured.

“Look, as far as I’m concerned, he’s the Democratic nominee, and he should be supported,” Harris said, prompting Maddow to ask whether she endorsed him.

“I support the Democrat in the race, sure,” she replied. “But let me just say this, he’s not the only star. … I hope that we don’t so over-index on New York City that we lose sight of the stars throughout our country.”

Harris, who announced this summer that she would not run for California governor next year, demurred when asked about whether she would run for president for a third time in 2028.

“That’s not my focus right now,” she said.

Like many young men these days, Kamaldeep Dhanoa, a lanky 17-year-old, knew he wanted to do something with his life, be a part of something, but didn’t quite know what that meant.

Coming up with a career was important. But even more, it was finding the right friends — discovering what he wanted to be a part of.

He did both when he joined Improve Your Tomorrow, a mentorship organization for teenage boys and young men — that vulnerable, chronically online demographic from which Charlie Kirk drew many of his most ardent supporters, and where so much of our societal angst is focused in the wake of his death.

Now a senior at Florin High School in a suburb outside Sacramento, Dhanoa has a plan to become a paramedic, and more importantly, has those friendships that help him feel not just connected, but included and valued.

His something.

“I just know I have brothers around me,” he told me Tuesday. “We’re always with each other. It gives you, like, a sense of security. So if you’re feeling down, you could always, always rely on them.”

Dhanoa was hanging out in his school’s gym with Gov. Gavin Newsom, who dropped by to announce the California Men’s Service Challenge, an effort to recruit 10,000 Golden State males to serve as mentors to boys such as Dhanoa, so more boys can find their something.

It’s a worthy effort and before you jump to thinking it’s a reaction to Kirk, I’ll point out that 10 years ago, California’s first partner, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, made a documentary about the crisis of connection and identity facing young men, “The Mask You Live In.”

Recently, her husband caught up.

To be fair, a lot of us have been slow on the uptake when it comes to understanding why so many young men seem drawn to the obvious loneliness and disconnection of chronically online lives.

Kamaldeep Dhanoa, 17, and Michael Lynch helped Gov. Gavin Newsom announce his new statewide initiative to engage more men in volunteer and mentorship work.

(Anita Chabria/Los Angeles Times)

“Touch grass” has become a generation’s cultural shorthand to describe both the isolation and cure for people who seem so deep into a virtual world that the real one has lost meaning. It’s a dismissive way of looking at a problem that doesn’t begin and end with boys.

But, if we didn’t see it earlier, Kirk’s killing has made it clear that there are too many boys that need to be pulled back from the brink of a very bad something. One that is less about left or right and more about exactly who and what those boys stumble upon inside those ethereal spaces that most parents can’t even find, much less understand.

“We’ve got to get these kids back,” Newsom said. “They’re very susceptible young men. They’re very vulnerable online.”

Even more concerning, when the nihilism of the darkest corners of the internet catches up to their psyches, “young people weaponize those grievances,” Newsom said — whether that anger turns inward or outward.

Suicide among young men has increased. In 2023, the male suicide rate was about 23 deaths per 100,000 men, nearly four times higher than for women, a number that has been climbing for years (albeit with some slight dips). Sadly, women attempt suicide more often, but men have a higher rate of completion, often because they use more deadly means such as guns.

But lonely boys are also more prone to commit violence on others, maybe especially when they mix their anger with politics. Once recent study by social epidemiologist Julia Schleimer at the University of Washington School of Public Health found that individuals who reported having few social connections were, “more likely than others to support political violence or be personally willing to engage in it in one form or another.”

For reference, about 15% of men have no close friendships, according to a recent poll by the Survey Center on American Life. Newsom puts that figure even higher for young men, with “one in four men under 30 years old reporting that they have no close friends, a five-fold increase since 1990.”

Kirk stepped into that gap, providing meaning and belonging not just through his podcasts, where he was best known, but through the grassroots Turning Point USA organization that gave thousands of young people (of both sexes) both an ideology and, equally as important, real-world connections and events.

“Obviously Charlie Kirk was a master at not only the work he did online, but offline, and his capacity to organize and engage,” Newsom said.

Whether you agreed with Kirk’s views or not (and I did not agree on many points, including matters of race, sexual orientation, immigration or the meaning of patriotism), he created that something that is missing for so many young people. He created a vision of an America that needed to be saved, and could be saved, through a dedication to a certain kind of family and a certain kind of faith. As Newsom described it of his own effort, young people don’t just want a cause. They want to feel invested, they want to feel an “obligation to give back.”

If Newsom’s recent foray into Trump-esque social media proves anything, it’s that he’s willing to learn, even emulate, success — wherever he finds it. Newsom is trying to offer the belonging that Kirk supplied, seeped not in the exclusion and rigidity that Kirk embodied, but in California values.

“It’s about building an inclusive community of all different kinds of voices,” Michael Lynch told me of the California Challenge. He’s the co-founder and chief executive of Improve Your Tomorrow, the organization Dhanoa belongs to.

Lynch said kids get all kinds of benefits from mentors, but when he asks what those are, the sentence usually starts, “Now that I have friends…. “

The outcome of the effort to bring boys out of the virtual world is all about who those friends are, who pulls them out.

Our boys don’t just need to touch grass, they need to be around men who don’t seek to impose values, but teach them how to craft their own, how to believe in themselves before they believe in something someone is selling.

“What the world needs is your authenticity,” Newsom told a teenage journalist who covered the event for the school newspaper. “And so I just hope we take a deep breath and discover the most important, powerful thing in the world, and that’s who you are.”

If Newsom’s effort inspires just one good man to step up and help a kid figure that out — who they are, and how to believe in themselves first and forever — it will be something.

Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger spoke out forcefully Monday against the partisan effort to redraw California’s congressional districts that voters will decide in a November special election.

“They are trying to fight for democracy by getting rid of the democratic principles of California,” Schwarzenegger told hundred of students at an event celebrating democracy at the University of Southern California. “It is insane to let that happen.

The Hollywood action star turn Republican governor urged the students to vote against the redistricting measure, Proposition 50.

The special election in November would redraw the districts and probably boost the number of Democrats California sends to Congress, an effort championed by Gov. Gavin Newsom to counter efforts in GOP-led states such as Texas to send more Republicans to the U.S. House of Representatives.

Schwarzenegger has long championed political reform. During his final year as governor, he prioritized the ballot measure that created independent congressional redistricting. Four former members of the independent commission were recognized by Schwarzenegger at the event, and he had lunch with them and members of the university’s student governmentafterward.

He said he grew interested in the esoteric process of redistricting when he was governor and realized that districts drawn by politicians protected their political interests instead of voters.

“They want to dismantle this independent commission. They want to get rid of it under the auspices of we have to fight Trump,” Schwarzenegger said. “It doesn’t make any sense to me because we have to fight Trump, [yet] we become Trump.”

Since leaving office, Schwarzenegger has prioritized good governance at his institute at USC and campaigned for independent redistricting across the nation. The governor’s remarks were being recorded by the anti-Proposition 50 campaign in what could easily be turned into a television ad.

Outside, student Democrats passed out fliers in support of Proposition 50.

The event, a discussion with USC Interim President Beong-Soo Kim marking the International Day of Democracy, was scheduled to take place before conservative activist Charlie Kirk was fatally shot last week while speaking at a Utah college campus.

Schwarzenegger reflected on Kirk’s death as he warned about the fragile state of democracy.

“That someone’s life was taken because they had a different opinion, I mean it’s just unbelievable,” Schwarzenegger said, noting that Kirk was a skilled communicator who connected with young people, even those who disagreed with him. “A human life is gone. He was a great father, a great husband, and I was thinking about his children — they will only be reading about him now instead of him reading to them bedtime stories.”

He warned that the nation’s political climate was spiraling.

“We are getting hit from so many angles and we have to be very careful we don’t get closer to the cliff. When you fall down there, there is no democracy,” Schwarzenegger said, blaming social media, the mainstream media and the political parties for dividing Americans. “It’s very important that we turn this around.”

He urged the hundreds of students who attended the event to show that people can disagree politically without demonizing one another.

Sept. 4 (UPI) — The Justice Department has asked the Supreme Court to allow President Donald Trump to fire a member of the Federal Trade Commission without cause, a direct challenge to a 90-year-old precedent that limits political influence on such agencies.

Trump attempted to fire to Democratic commissioners, Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya in March. Both challenged the move, but Bedoya later dropped out of the case.

Solicitor General John D. Sauer said in the most recent court filing that the commission has more power now than it did at its inception, implying support for Trump’s ability to fire Slaughter by exercising his presidential authority under Article 2 of the Constitution.

“In this case, the lower courts have once again ordered the reinstatement of a high-level officer wielding substantial executive authority whom the President has determined should not exercise any executive power, let alone significant rulemaking and enforcement powers,” Sauer wrote.

Sauer asked the high court to expedite the case, sidestepping any more action by lower courts.

Slaughter remains listed as an active commissioner on the FTC’s website.

This move is the latest in a series of efforts by Trump to remove members of other independent federal agencies, which the Supreme Court has approved.

A 1914 law that established the agency said members of independent commission can only be removed from “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”

Slaughter was appointed to the commission in 2018. Bedoya was originally appointed by Trump the same year. President Joe Biden re-appointed her in 2024.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Missouri lawmakers are meeting in a special session to redraw the state’s U.S. House districts as part of President Trump’s effort to bolster Republicans’ chances of retaining control of Congress in next year’s elections.

The special session called by Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe began Wednesday and will run at least a week.

Missouri is the third state to pursue the unusual task of mid-decade redistricting for partisan advantage. Republican-led Texas, prodded by Trump, was the first to take up redistricting with a new map aimed at helping Republicans pick up five more congressional seats.

But before Texas even completed its work, Democratic-led California already had fought back with its own redistricting plan designed to give Democrats a chance at winning five more seats. California’s plan still needs voter approval at a Nov. 4 election.

Other states could follow with their own redistricting efforts.

Nationally, Democrats need to gain three seats next year to take control of the House. Historically, the party of the president usually loses seats in the midterm congressional elections.

What is redistricting?

At the start of each decade, the Census Bureau collects population data that is used to allot the 435 U.S. House seats proportionally among states. States that grow relative to others may gain a House seat at the expense of states where populations stagnated or declined. Though some states may have their own restrictions, there is nothing nationally that prohibits states from redrawing districts in the middle of a decade.

In many states, congressional redistricting is done by state lawmakers, subject to approval by the governor. Some states have special commissions responsible for redistricting.

What is gerrymandering?

Partisan gerrymandering occurs when a political party in charge of the redistricting process draws voting district boundaries to its advantage.

One common method is for a majority party to draw a map that packs voters who support the opposing party into only a few districts, thus allowing the majority party to win a greater number of surrounding districts. Another common method is for the majority party to dilute the power of an opposing party’s voters by spreading them thinly among multiple districts.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that federal courts have no authority to decide whether partisan gerrymandering goes too far. But it said state courts still can decide such cases under their own laws.

How could Missouri’s districts change?

Missouri currently is represented in the U.S. House by six Republicans and two Democrats. A revised map proposed by Kehoe would give Republicans a shot at winning seven seats in the 2026 elections.

It targets a Kansas City district, currently held by Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, by stretching it eastward into Republican-leaning rural areas. Meanwhile, other parts of Cleaver’s district would be split off and folded into heavily Republican districts currently represented by GOP Reps. Mark Alford and Sam Graves. Districts also would be realigned in the St. Louis area but with comparatively minor changes to the district held by Democratic Rep. Wesley Bell.

Republican lawmakers had considered a potential 7-1 map when originally drawing districts after the 2020 census. But the GOP majority opted against it because of concerns it could face legal challenges and create more competitive districts that could backfire in a poor election year by allowing Democrats to win up to three seats.

Could other states join the redistricting battle?

Mid-decade redistricting must occur in Ohio, according to its constitution, because Republicans there adopted congressional maps without sufficient bipartisan support. That could create an opening for Republicans to try to expand their 10-5 seat majority over Democrats.

A court in Utah has ordered the Republican-controlled Legislature to draw new congressional districts after ruling that lawmakers circumvented an independent redistricting commission established by voters to ensure districts don’t deliberately favor one party. A new map could help Democrats, because Republicans currently hold all four of the state’s U.S. House seats.

Other Republican-led states, such as Indiana and Florida, are considering redistricting at Trump’s urging. Officials in Democratic-led states, such as Illinois, Maryland and New York, also have talked of trying to counter the Republican push with their own revised maps.

What else is at stake in Missouri?

A special session agenda set by Kehoe also includes proposed changes to Missouri’s ballot measure process.

One key change would make it harder for citizen-initiated ballot measures to succeed. If approved by voters, Missouri’s constitution would be amended so that all future ballot initiatives would need not only a majority of the statewide vote but also a majority of the votes in each congressional district in order to pass.

If such a standard had been in place last year, an abortion-rights amendment to the state constitution would have failed. That measure narrowly passed statewide on the strength of “yes” votes in the Kansas City and St. Louis areas but failed in rural congressional districts.

Lieb writes for the Associated Press.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California energy regulators Friday put the brakes on plans requiring oil companies to pay a penalty if their profits climb too high, a temporary win for the fossil fuel industry two years after the governor declared the state had “finally beat big oil.”

The postponement by the California Energy Commission until 2030 comes after two oil refineries accounting for roughly 18% of the state’s refining capacity announced their plans to close in the coming months. The commission has the power to implement a penalty but has not done so since it was given that authority in 2023.

The penalty was considered a landmark piece of Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s government and the state’s ambitious goals to curb climate change. The state faces challenges in its efforts to take on the oil industry while ensuring a stable and affordable fuel supply. His administration is also proposing to temporarily streamline approvals of new oil wells in existing oil fields in an effort to maintain a stable fuel supply.

Siva Gunda, the commission’s vice chair, said the state is not “walking back” its efforts to wean itself off fossil fuels but must prioritize protecting consumers at the gas pump.

“I personally truly believe that this pause will be beneficial to ensure that this mid-transition is smooth,” he said.

The commission still plans to set rules that would require oil refineries to keep a minimum level of fuel on hand to avoid shortages when refineries go offline for maintenance.

Jamie Court, the president of Consumer Watchdog who supported the law, said the energy commission’s vote is “basically a giveaway to the industry.”

“I’m really disheartened and disgusted by Newsom,” he said. “I feel like this is just a total about-face. And in the end it’s going to result in greater price spikes.”

But the Western States Petroleum Association recommended that the state postpone a penalty for 20 years.

“While today’s action by the CEC stopped short of a full statutory repeal or a 20-year pause, it represents a needed step to provide some certainty for California’s fuels market,” CEO Catherine Reheis-Boyd said in a statement. “The vote demonstrates the CEC’s understanding that imposing this failed policy would have likely exacerbated investment concerns contributing to California’s recent refinery closures.”

In 2022, Newsom called the Legislature into a special session to pass a law aimed at holding oil companies accountable for making too much money after a summer of record-high gas prices in California. The governor signed a law the following year authorizing the energy commission to penalize oil companies for excessive profits.

The law also required oil companies to report more data on their operations to the state. It created an independent division at the commission to oversee the oil and gas industry and provide guidance to the state on its energy transition.

Newsom’s office thanked the energy commission for voting to postpone implementing a penalty, saying it was a “prudent step” toward stabilizing the oil market.

“When Governor Newsom signed this legislation two years ago, he promised that we would utilize the new transparency tools to look under the hood of our oil and gas market that had been a black box for decades,” spokesperson Daniel Villaseñor said in a statement. “We did exactly that.”

Julia Stein, deputy director of a climate institute at UCLA School of Law, said state officials are still intent on advancing their efforts to transition away from fossil fuels.

“But I think there is also a sense at the state level that we’re entering a different phase of the transition where some of these problems are going to be presented more acutely,” she said. “And folks are kind of now trying to understand how they’re going to approach that in real time.”

California has the highest gas prices in the nation, largely due to taxes and environmental regulations. Regular unleaded gas prices were $4.59 a gallon Friday, compared to a national average of $3.20, according to AAA.

The commission has not determined what would count as an excessive profit under the policy.

Setting a penalty could be risky for the state because it could unintentionally discourage production and drive prices up, said Severin Borenstein, an economist and public policy professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

“It’s pretty clear they are shifting towards more focus on affordability and recognition that the high prices in California may not be associated with the actual refinery operations,” he said of state officials.

Austin writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from carrying out speedy deportations of undocumented migrants detained in the interior of the United States.

The move is a setback for President Trump’s efforts to expand the use of the federal expedited removal statute to quickly remove some undocumented migrants without appearing before a judge first.

Trump promised to engineer a massive deportation operation during his 2024 campaign if voters returned him to the White House. And he set a goal of carrying out 1 million deportations a year in his second term.

But U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb suggested the administration’s expanded use of the expedited removal of migrants is trampling on due process rights.

“In defending this skimpy process, the Government makes a truly startling argument: that those who entered the country illegally are entitled to no process under the Fifth Amendment, but instead must accept whatever grace Congress affords them,” Cobb wrote in a 48-page opinion issued Friday night. “Were that right, not only noncitizens, but everyone would be at risk.”

The Department of Homeland Security announced shortly after Trump came to office in January that it was expanding the use of expedited removal, the fast-track deportation of undocumented migrants who have been in the U.S. less than two years.

The effort has triggered lawsuits by the American Civil Liberties Union and immigrant rights groups.

Homeland Security said in a statement that Cobb’s “ruling ignores the President’s clear authorities under both Article II of the Constitution and the plain language of federal law.” It said Trump “has a mandate to arrest and deport the worst of the worst” and that ”we have the law, facts, and common sense on our side.”

Before the administration’s push to expand such speedy deportations, expedited removal was used only for migrants who were stopped within 100 miles of the border and who had been in the U.S. for less than 14 days.

Cobb, an appointee of President Biden, didn’t question the constitutionality of the expedited removal statute or its application at the border.

“It merely holds that in applying the statute to a huge group of people living in the interior of the country who have not previously been subject to expedited removal, the Government must afford them due process,” she wrote.

She added that “prioritizing speed over all else will inevitably lead the Government to erroneously remove people via this truncated process.”

Cobb earlier this month agreed to temporarily block the administration’s efforts to expand fast-track deportations of immigrants who legally entered the U.S. under a process known as humanitarian parole. The ruling could benefit hundreds of thousands of people.

In that case the judge said Homeland Security exceeded its statutory authority in its effort to expand expedited removal for many immigrants. The judge said those immigrants are facing perils that outweigh any harm from “pressing pause” on the administration’s plans.

Since May, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have positioned themselves in hallways to arrest people after judges accept government requests to dismiss deportation cases. After the arrests, the government renews deportation proceedings but under fast-track authority.

Although fast-track deportations can be put on hold by filing an asylum claim, people may be unaware of that right and, even if they are, can be swiftly removed if they fail an initial screening.

Madhani writes for the Associated Press.

Millions of dollars worth of political TV ads are expected to start airing Tuesday in an effort to sway Californians on a November ballot measure seeking to send more Democrats to Congress and counter President Trump and the GOP agenda, according to television airtime purchases.

The special-election ballot measure — Prop. 50 — will likely shape control of the U.S. House of Representatives and determine the fate of many of Trump’s far-right policies.

The opposition to the rare California mid-decade redistricting has booked more than $10 million of airtime for ads between Tuesday and Sept. 23 in media markets across the state, according to media buyers who are not affiliated with either campaign. Supporters of the effort have bought at least $2 million in ads starting on Tuesday, a number expected to grow exponentially as they are aggressively trying to secure time in coming weeks on broadcast and cable television.

“This early start is a bit stealthy on the part of the no side, but has been used as a ploy in past campaigns to try to show strength early and gain advantage by forcing the opposing side to play catch up,” said Sheri Sadler, a veteran Democratic political media operative who is not working for either campaign. “This promises to be an expensive campaign for a special election, especially starting so early.”

Millions of dollars have already flowed into the nascent campaigns sparring over the Nov. 4 special-election ballot measure that asks voters to set aside the congressional boundaries drawn in 2021 by California’s independent redistricting commission. The panel was created by the state’s voters in 2010 to stop gerrymandering and incumbent protection by both major political parties.

The campaign will be a sprint — glossy multi-page mailers arrived in Californians’ mailboxes before the state Legislature voted in late August to call the special election. Voters will begin receiving mail ballots in early October.

Redistricting, typically an esoteric process that takes place once a decade following the U.S. Census, is receiving an unusual level of attention because of partisan efforts to tilt control of Congress in next year’s midterm election. Republicans have a narrow edge in the U.S. House of Representatives, but the party that wins control of the White House often loses congressional seats in the following election.

Earlier this summer, Trump asked Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to redraw his state’s congressional districts to add five GOP members to the House, setting off a redistricting arms race across the nation. California Gov. Gavin Newsom launched a campaign to redraw the state’s congressional districts in an effort to boost the number of Democrats in Congress, negating the Texas gains for Republicans, but it must be approved by voters.

The coalition opposing the effort is an intriguing mix: former Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, wealthy Republican donor Charles Munger Jr., former GOP House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield, Assemblyman Alex Lee (D-San Jose), the chair of the Legislative Progressive Caucus, and Gloria Chun Hoo, president of the League of Women Voters of California.

Many partisans — in both political parties — opposed independent redistricting when it was championed by Schwarzenegger and Munger in 2010.

Jessica Millan Patterson, the former state GOP chairwoman who is leading McCarthy’s effort to oppose new congressional boundaries, demurred when asked about the dissonance. Voters, she said, made their choice clear at the ballot box about their preference to have an independent commission draw congressional districts rather than Sacramento politicians.

“The people of California have spoken,” she said, adding that most voters agree that an independent commission is preferable to partisan politicians drawing districts.

The “Stop Sacramento’s Power Grab” committee that Patterson leads plans to focus on conservative and right-of-center voters, and will be well-funded, she said.

McCarthy was a prodigious fundraiser while in Congress and his long-time friend, major GOP fundraiser Jeff Miller, is raising money to oppose the ballot measure.

Schwarzenegger is not part of the McCarthy effort, instead backing the good-government message of the Munger team. Patterson argues that anything the former governor does only brings more attention to their shared goal, even if he isn’t part of their effort.

“Gov. Schwarzenegger is Gov. Schwarzenegger,” Patterson said, pointing to an X post of the global celebrity wearing a T-shirt that said “Terminate Gerrymandering” while working out on Aug. 15. “He is a celebrity, a box-office guy. He’s going to make sure reasonable people know that we don’t want to put this power back in Sacramento. He will bring the glitz and glamour, like he always does.”

Schwarzenegger has long championed political reform. During his final year as governor, he prioritized the ballot measure that created independent congressional redistricting. Since leaving office, he made good governance a priority at his institute at the University of Southern California and campaigned for independent redistricting across the nation.

“Here are some of the things that are more popular than Congress: hemorrhoids, Nickelback, traffic jams, cockroaches, root canals, colonoscopies, herpes,” Schwarzenegger said in a 2017 Facebook video. “Even herpes, they couldn’t beat herpes in the polls.”

The former governor is reportedly backing the effort by Munger, the son of a billionaire, who bankrolled the ballot measure that created independent congressional redistricting in 2010. Munger has donated more than $10 million to an effort opposing the November ballot measure; the organization he funded has booked more than $10 million in television spots through Sept. 23.

“These ads are the start of our campaign’s effort to communicate directly with voters about the dangers of allowing politicians to choose their voters and abandoning our gold standard citizen-led redistricting process,” said Amy Thoma, a spokesperson for the Munger-backed Voters First Coalition.

Supporters of the effort to redraw the districts argued that Republicans are trying to cement GOP control of the nation’s policies.

“Trump cronies … are spending big to defeat [Prop.] 50 and help Trump rig the 2026 election before a single person [has] voted,” said Hannah Milgrom, a spokesperson for the campaign. “They are spending big — and early — to trick California voters into allowing Trump to keep total control over the federal government for two more years.“