SACRAMENTO — U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) on Wednesday brushed aside questions about whether he might jump into California’s 2026 governor’s race, but declined to rule out the idea.
Padilla instead said he was wholly focused on promoting the special election in November when voters will be asked to redraw California’s congressional districts to counter efforts by President Trump and other GOP leaders to keep Republicans in control of Congress.
“I’m focused and I’d encourage everybody to focus on this Nov. 4 special election,” Padilla said during an interview at a political summit in Sacramento sponsored by Politico.
The 52-year-old added that the effort to redraw congressional districts, championed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in response to similar efforts in GOP-led states, is not solely about the arcane process known as redistricting.
“My Republican colleagues and especially the White House know how unpopular and damaging what they’re doing is, from gutting Medicare, nutrition assistance programs, really all these other areas of budget cuts to underwrite tax breaks for billionaires,” Padilla said. “So their only hope of staying in power beyond next November is to rig the system.”
In recent days, Padilla’s name has emerged as a possible candidate to replace Newsom, who cannot run for another term. The field is unsettled, with independent polling conducted after former Vice President Kamala Harris opted not to run for governor showing large numbers of voters are undecided and with no clear front-runner.
Padilla pointed to his more than quarter-century history of serving Californians at every level of government when asked what might be appealing about the job.
“I love California, right?” he said. “And I’ve had the privilege and the honor of serving in so many different capacities.”
In 1999, the then-26-year-old was elected to Los Angeles City Council. At the time, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology grad still lived with his parents — a Mexican-born housekeeper and a short-order cook — in Pacoima.
Padilla continued his steady climb through the state’s political ranks in the decades that followed, serving in the state Senate and as California secretary of state. Newsom appointed him to fill Harris’ Senate seat in 2020, making him the first Latino to represent California in the Senate, and Padilla was elected to fill a full term in 2022. His current Senate term doesn’t end until 2029, meaning he wouldn’t have to risk his seat to run for governor.
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SACRAMENTO — There are “Wizard of Oz” echoes in the retaliatory redistricting fight being waged by California Democrats against President Trump and Texas Republicans.
That’s mainly because of the script being followed by Republican opponents. But Democrats seem to be parroting some Oz lines, too.
That was evident last week during several tense debates by California lawmakers on legislation setting a special state election for Nov. 4 to counteract Texas’ attempts to flip five congressional seats from Democrats to Republicans.
California’s Legislature, after much emotional rhetoric, easily passed the Democrats’ proposed constitutional amendment and supporting legislation on party-line, supermajority votes. The bills were immediately signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, their instigator and chief promoter. They’ll be Proposition 50 on the November ballot.
All the while, script lines from “The Wizard of Oz” movie classic kept ringing in my ears.
“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain,” the Wizard implores Dorothy and her pals after her little dog, Toto, pulls back the curtain to reveal him as a fraud.
In Sacramento, it’s as if Republicans — and progressive do-gooders — are being admonished to pay no attention to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who has committed the same sins of partisan redistricting that they’re attacking Newsom for. The Texan isn’t even mentioned by California assailants of Newsom’s gerrymandering. It smacks of hypocrisy.
Abbott doesn’t have to, of course. In Texas, it’s perfectly legal for the legislature to rig congressional districts for partisan advantage. In California, voters banned gerrymandering of congressional districts in 2010 and turned over their drawing to the bipartisan citizens commission. Newsom needs voter permission to suspend that law.
Nationally, Democrats need to gain only a handful of seats to capture control of the House and end the GOP’s one-party rule of Washington. Trump fears that likelihood. So he pressured Abbott into engineering a legislative gerrymandering of Texas’ House districts in mid-decade, rather than wait for the normal redrawing after the 2030 census. And he’s browbeating other red state governors to likewise rig their congressional lines.
“California will not be a bystander to Trump’s power grab,” Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Salinas) said as Newsom signed the legislation. “We will not stand by while the House is hijacked by authoritarianism.”
But back to the Emerald City.
The Wizard introduces himself to Dorothy by bellowing behind the curtain: “I am Oz, the great and powerful.” Later, he breaks his word to the girl, she sees through his bullying and stands up to him, scolding: “If you were really great and powerful, you’d keep your promises.”
Trump is a great big bully whose word can’t be taken at face value because he consistently changes his mind to fit the moment. He’s clearly anti-California, holding back federal funds, assessing fines and reducing environmental protections. Newsom and Democratic leaders will repeatedly remind voters of that as the election approaches.
Unlike Dorothy, it’s a rare Republican elected official who has the courage to stand up to this power-obsessed bully. But one surprisingly surfaced during the Assembly redistricting debate.
Referring to Trump’s urging Abbott and other GOP governors to gerrymander districts, Assembly Minority Leader James Gallagher of Yuba City asserted: “He is wrong to do so.” And he added for emphasis: “Let me repeat. He is wrong…. Where does it end?”
Later, Gallagher reiterated, “My president is wrong on this point. What I don’t hear from the other side is, ‘My governor is wrong.’ ”
Gallagher and several Republicans insist — as Newsom and Democrats do — that gerrymandering should be outlawed in every state and district lines drawn by citizens’ commissions rather than self-interested legislators. But that won’t happen in the foreseeable future.
Gallagher also contended that Democrats are hyping Trump’s threat to democracy. He said they’re arguing that “in order to save democracy, we must undermine it” by committing sleazy gerrymandering.
He has a point about the Democrats’ excessive warning of democracy’s peril under Trump.
“Californians won’t stand by while Donald Trump destroys democracy,” Sen. Sabrina Cervantes (D-Riverside) declared during an oft-uncivil hearing of the Assembly Elections Committee. “If we let Trump get away with this rigging of elections, then we may not have free and fair elections in the future.”
That seems a stretch.
This and other hyperbole by several legislators of both parties reminded me of frightened Dorothy, Tin Man and Scarecrow chanting in the dark forest: “Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!”
I suspect the best pitch for Proposition 50 in this heavily Democratic state is a straight-forward anti-Trump message focused on his inhuman policies and the urgent need to restore checks and balances in Washington.
“We are going to punch this bully in the mouth,” Newsom vowed during a press conference hosted by the Democratic National Committee.
OK, but the governor should cool the Trump-like rhetoric. It probably wouldn’t impress Dorothy or — more important — her Uncle Henry and Aunt Em.
Now, Latinos once again hold the power to make or break American politics, thanks to redistricting fights shaping up in Texas and California. And once again, both Democratic and Republican leaders think they know what Latinos want.
In the Lone Star State, the GOP-dominated Legislature last week approved the redrawing of congressional districts at the behest of Trump, upending the traditional process, to help Republicans gain up to five seats in the 2026 midterms. Their California counterparts landed on the opposite side of the gerrymandering coin — their maps, which will go before voters in November, target Republican congressional members.
Texas Republicans and California Democrats are both banking on Latinos to be the swing votes that make their gambits successful. That’s understandable but dangerous. If ever a voting bloc fulfills the cliche that to assume something makes an ass out of you and me, it’s Latinos.
Despite President Reagan’s famous statement that Latinos were Republicans who didn’t know it yet, they rejected the GOP in California and beyond for a generation after the passage of Proposition 187 in 1994. When Hillary Clinton supporters whispered during the 2008 presidential race that Latinos would never vote for a Black candidate, they gladly joined the coalition that put Barack Obama in the White House. Trump increased his Latino support each time he ran — to the point that in 2024, a bigger proportion of Latinos voted for him than for any previous Republican presidential candidate — even though Democrats insisted that Latinos couldn’t possibly stomach a man that racist.
Many Latinos hate being taken for granted and don’t like the establishment telling them how to think. It’s classic rancho libertarianism, the term I created in the era of Trump to describe the political leanings of the people with whom I grew up: Mexican Americans from rural stock who simultaneously believed in community and individualism and hated the racist rhetoric of Republicans but didn’t care much for the woke words of Democrats, either.
Such political independence exasperates political leaders, yet it’s long been a thing with Latino voters across the U.S. but especially in Texas and California, where Mexican American voters make up an overwhelming majority of each state’s Latino electorate. As Republicans in the former and Democrats in the latter launch their initial redistricting volleys, they seem to be forgetting that, yet again.
Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), poses for a portrait in the Rayburn House Office Building in 2021.
(Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times)
The GOP is hoping voters in South Texas, one of the most Latino areas of the U.S., will carry their Trump love to the 2026 congressional races. There, two of the three congressional seats are held by Democrats Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez, despite a swing from most of the region’s 41 counties supporting Hillary Clinton in 2016 to just five going for Kamala Harris eight years later.
In their new maps, Texas legislators poured more Republican voters into those South Texas districts. They also configured new districts in the Houston area and central Texas so that Latinos are now the majority, but voters favored Trump last year.
But a lawsuit filed hours after the Texas Senate moved the maps to Gov. Greg Abbott for his approval alleged that all the finagling had created “Potemkin majority-Latino districts.” The intent, according to the lawsuit, was to dilute Latino power by packing some voters into already Democratic-leaning districts while splitting up others among red-leaning districts.
The legislators especially threw San Antonio, a longtime Democratic stronghold that’s a cradle of Latino electoral power, into a political Cuisinart. Three Latino Democrats currently represent the Alamo City and its metro area: Cuellar, Joaquin Castro and Greg Casar. Under the new maps, only Castro is truly safe, while Casar is now in a district represented by Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett, who has announced he will retire.
“We have three Hispanic-predominated districts in South Texas that we believe we can carve out for Republican leadership,” state GOP Rep. Mitch Little bragged on CNN this month. “It’s good for our party. It’s good for our state. And we need to ensure that Donald Trump’s agenda continues to be enacted.”
The thing is, fewer and fewer Latinos are supporting Trump’s agenda. In Reuters/Ipsos polls, his Latino support dropped from 36% in February to 31% this month. Only 27% of Latinos approved of his performance in a Pew Research Center poll released this month.
If this slide continues through next year and Latinos continue to reject MAGA, Texas Republicans would have done Trump’s gross gerrymandering and sparked a nationwide legislative civil war for nothing.
In California, Latino voters are also crucial to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s redistricting push — but Democrats are hoping they’ll be GOP spoilers, despite their recent tack to the right.
Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley’s district would swing into Sacramento, picking up many more Latino voters than he now has in the majority white Eastern Sierra.
Powerful Latinos in the state have already come out in favor of Newsom’s so-called Election Rigging Response Act, and the governor is counting on them to convince Latino voters to approve the maps in November.
But all this shuffling is happening a year after those very voters jolted state Democrats. Although the party still holds a super-majority in Sacramento, Democratic legislators serve alongside the largest number of Latino GOP colleagues ever. The biggest swings to Trump happened in areas with larger Latino populations, according to a Public Policy Institute of California report published last month.
The president’s popularity is especially souring in California due to his deportation deluge — but whether Latinos will support redistricting is another matter.
Although 51% of Latinos support Newsom’s performance, only 43% said they would vote yes on his redistricting push — the lowest percentage of any ethnic group, according to a UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll conducted for the Los Angeles Times. The poll also found that 29% of Latinos are undecided on redistricting — the highest percentage of any group.
Such skepticism is the bitter fruit of a generation of Democratic rule in Sacramento, at a time when blue-collar Latinos are finding it harder to achieve the good life. Politicians blaming it all on Trump eventually created a Chicken Little situation that pushed those Latinos into MAGAlandia — and Newsom, by constantly casting redistricting as a necessary uppercut against Trump, is in danger of making the same mistake.
California Latinos have helped to torpedo liberal shibboleths at the ballot box more often than Democrats will ever admit. A Times exit poll found 45% of them voted to recall Gov. Gray Davis in 2003 while 53% voted yes on the anti-gay marriage Proposition 8 in 2008 even as a bigger majority voted for Obama. So egghead arguments about how redistricting will save the future of democracy won’t really land with the rancho libertarians I know. They want cheaper prices, and Trump isn’t delivering them — but neither is Newsom.
Latinos, as another cliche goes, aren’t a monolith. They could very well help Republicans win those extra congressional seats in Texas and do the same for Democrats in California.
But any politician betting that Latinos will automatically do what they’re expected to … remind me what happens when you assume something?
In an evening social media post about a supremely partisan battle that could reshape American political power for generations, President Trump sounded ebullient.
“Big WIN for the Great State of Texas!!! Everything Passed, on our way to FIVE more Congressional seats and saving your Rights, your Freedoms, and your Country, itself,” Trump wrote, of the nation’s most populous red state pushing a mid-decade redistricting plan designed to win more Republican seats in Congress and protect Trump’s power through the 2026 midterms.
“Texas never lets us down. Florida, Indiana, and others are looking to do the same thing,” Trump wrote — nodding to a potential proliferation of such efforts across the country.
The next day, Gov. Gavin Newsom — projecting a fresh swagger as Trump’s chief antagonist on the issue — stood with fellow lawmakers from the nation’s most populous blue state to announce their own legislative success in putting to voters a redrawn congressional map for California that strongly favors Democrats.
“We got here because the president of the United States is one of the most unpopular presidents in U.S. history,” Newsom said, couching the California effort as defensive rather than offensive. “We got here because he recognizes that he will lose the election, [and that] Congress will go back into the hands of the Democratic Party next November.”
In the last week, with lightning speed, the nation’s foremost political leaders have jettisoned any pretense of political fairness — any notion of voters being equal or elected representatives reflecting their constituencies — in favor of an all-out partisan war for power that has some politicians and many political observers concerned for the future of American democracy.
“America is headed towards true authoritarian rule if people do not stand up,” Texas state Rep. Gene Wu, a Democrat from the Houston area, said Friday on a call with reporters.
The race to redistrict began with Trump, whose approval ratings have plummeted, pressuring Texas to manipulate maps to secure more House seats for Republicans so he wouldn’t face a hostile House majority in the second half of his second term. It escalated when Newsom and other California leaders said they wouldn’t stand idly by and started working to put a new map of their own on the November ballot — formally asking voters to jettison the state’s independent redistricting commission to counter Trump’s gambit in Texas.
Those two states alone are home to some 70 million Americans, but the fight is hardly limited there. As Trump suggested, other states are also eyeing whether to redraw lines — raising the prospect of a country divided between blue and red power centers more than ever before, and the voice of millions of minority-party voters being all but erased in the halls of Congress.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom answers questions on Thursday after signing legislation calling for a special election on a redrawn congressional map.
(Godofredo A. Vásquez / Associated Press)
Of course, gerrymandering is not new, and already exists in many states across the country. But the bold, unapologetic and bipartisan bent of the latest redistricting race is something new and different, experts said. It is a clear product of Trump’s new America, where political warfare is increasingly untethered to — and unbound by — long-standing political norms, and where leaders of both political parties seem increasingly willing to toss aside pretense and politeness in order to pursue power.
Trump on the campaign trail promised a new “Golden Age,” and he has long said his goal is to return America to some purportedly greater, more aspirational and proud past. But he has also signaled, repeatedly and with hardly any ambiguity, an intention to manipulate the political system to further empower himself and his fellow Republicans — whether through redistricting, ending mail-in ballots, or other measures aimed at curtailing voter turnout.
“In four years, you don’t have to vote again,” Trump told a crowd of evangelical Christians a little over a year ago, in the thick of his presidential campaign. “We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not gonna have to vote.”
‘No democracy left’
The redistricting war has dominated political news for weeks now, given its potential implications for reshaping Congress and further emboldening Trump in his second term.
Sam Wang, president of the Electoral Innovation Lab at Princeton University, has studied gerrymandering for years, but said during the media call with Wu that he has never received more inquiries than in the last few weeks, when his inbox has filled with questions from media around the world.
Wang said gerrymandering reached a high point more than a decade ago, but had been subsiding due to court battles and state legislatures establishing independent commissions to draw district lines.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott defends his state’s redistricting move while calling California’s “a joke.”
(Eric Gay / Associated Press)
Now, however, the efforts of Texas and California are threatening that progress and pushing things “to a new low point,” he said — leaving some voters feeling disenfranchised and Wang worried about further erosion of voter protections under the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which he said the conservative Supreme Court may be preparing to weaken.
Wu said allowing politicians to redraw congressional lines whenever they want in order to “make sure that they never lose” sets a dangerous precedent that will especially disenfranchise minority voters — because “politicians and leaders would no longer listen to the people.”
“There would be no democracy left,” he said.
That said, Wu drew a sharp distinction between Texas Republicans unilaterally redrawing maps to their and Trump’s advantage — in part by “hacking” apart minority populations — and California asking voters to counteract that power grab with a new map of their own.
“California is defending the nation,” he said. “Texas is doing something illegal.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Friday took the opposition position, saying Texas’ new map was constitutional while California’s was “a joke” and likely to be overturned. He also hinted at further efforts in other Republican-led states to add more House seats for the party.
“Republicans are not finished in the United States,” Abbott said.
Two legal experts on the call expressed grave concerns with such partisanship — especially in Texas.
Sara Rohani, assistant counsel with the Legal Defense Fund, or LDF, said her organization has been fighting for decades to ensure that the promises of the Voting Rights Act for Black and other minority groups aren’t infringed upon by unscrupulous and racist political leaders in search of power.
“Fair representation isn’t optional in this country. It’s the right of all Americans to [have] equal voting power,” she said.
That said, “voters of color have been excluded” from that promise consistently, both before and after the passage of the Voting Rights Act, and “in 2025, it’s clear that our fight for fair maps continues,” Rohani said.
Major victories have been won in the courts in recent years in states such as Alabama and Louisiana, and those battles are only going to continue, she said. Asked specifically if her group is preparing to sue over Texas’ maps, Rohani demurred — but didn’t back down, saying LDF will get involved “in any jurisdiction where Black voters are being targeted.”
Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said there are definitely going to be challenges to Texas’ maps.
By their own admission, Saenz said, Texas lawmakers redrew their maps in 2021 in order to maximize Republican advantage in congressional races — with the only limits being those imposed by the Voting Rights Act. That means in order to gain even more seats now, “they have to violate the Voting Rights Act,” he said.
Texas Republicans have argued that they are acting in part in response to a warning from the Justice Department that their current maps, from 2021, are unlawful. But Saenz noted that the Justice Department dropped a lawsuit challenging those maps when Trump took office — meaning any threats to sue again are an empty ploy and “clearly orchestrated with one objective: Donald Trump’s objective.”
Is there a legal case?
The fate of any legal challenges to the redistricting efforts is unclear, in part because gerrymandering has become much harder to challenge in court.
In 2019, the Supreme Court threw out claims that highly partisan state election maps are unconstitutional. Chief Justice John G. Roberts said such district-by-district line drawing “presents political questions” and there are no reliable “legal standards” for deciding what is fair and just.
It was not a new view for Roberts.
In 2006, shortly after he joined the court, the justices rejected a challenge to a mid-decade redistricting engineered by Texas Republicans, but ordered the state — over Roberts’ dissent — to redraw one of its majority-Latino districts to transfer some of its voters to another Latino-leaning district.
Roberts expressed his frustration at the time, writing that it “is a sordid business, this divvying us up by race.”
Some legal experts say the new Texas redistricting could face a legal challenge if Black or Latino lawmakers are in danger of losing their seats. But the Supreme Court conservatives are skeptical of such claims — and have given signs they may shrink the scope of the Voting Rights Act.
In March, the justices considered a Louisiana case to decide if the state must create a second congressional district that would elect a Black candidate to comply with the Voting Rights Act, and if so, how it should be drawn.
But the court failed to issue a decision. Instead, on Aug. 1, the court said it would hear further arguments this fall on “whether the state’s intentional creation of a second majority-minority Congressional district” violates the Constitution.
Justice Clarence Thomas has long argued it is unconstitutional to draw election districts based on racial lines, regardless of the Voting Rights Act, and he may now have a majority that agrees with him.
If so, such a ruling could squelch discrimination claims from Black and Latino lawmakers in Texas or elsewhere — further clearing the path for partisan gerrymandering.
Looking ahead
Given the intensity of the battle and the uncertainty of the related legal challenges, few of America’s top political leaders are thinking to the future. They’re fighting in the present — focused on swaying public perception.
In a YouTube Live video with thousands of supporters on Thursday, Newsom said Trump “doesn’t believe in the rule of law — he believes in the rule of Don; period, full stop,” and that he hoped it was “dawning on more and more Americans what’s at stake.”
Newsom said that when Trump “made the phone call to rig the elections to Greg Abbott in Texas,” he expected Democrats to just roll over and take it. In response, he said, Democrats have to stop thinking about “whether or not we should play hardball,” and start focusing on “how we play hardball.”
On Friday, Newsom said he was “very proud of the Legislature for moving quickly” to counter Texas, and that he is confident voters will support the ballot measure to change the state’s maps despite polls showing a sluggish start to the campaign.
A UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll, conducted for The Times, found 48% of voters said they would cast ballots in favor of temporary gerrymandering efforts, though 20% were undecided.
Asked if he is encouraging Democratic leaders in other states to revisit their own maps, Newsom said he appreciated both Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signaling that they may be willing to do just that.
“I do believe that the actions of [the California] Legislature will inspire other legislative leaders to … meet this moment, to save this democracy and to stop this authoritarian and his continued actions to literally vandalize and gut our Constitution and our democratic principles,” Newsom said.
For Patricia Sinay, one of the highlights of her life was serving on the California Citizens Redistricting Commission, which spent well over a year painstakingly plotting out the state’s political boundaries.
“I got to witness democracy at its core,” said Sinay, 58, who lives in Encinitas and works as a consultant in the world of nonprofits.
“There were 14 very diverse people who came at this work from different backgrounds,” she said. “Some may have known more than others about redistricting. But by the end we were all experts and focused on the same thing, which was creating fair maps for the people of California.”
“I think what President Trump requested is absolutely abhorrent. I think that Texas doing this is absolutely abhorrent,” Sinay said. “I do not support the actions of the current administration. I think that their actions are absolutely dangerous and scary.”
But, she said, “I don’t think this is the best way to stop what the administration is doing.”
“There are too many people right now that are hurting that could use that money in much better ways,” Sinay said.
Other commissioners disagree.
Sara Sadhwani, 45, a Democrat who teaches political science at Pomona College, spoke at Gov. Gavin Newsom’s rally kicking off the gerrymandering effort and testified before the state Senate, urging lawmakers to put the matter before voters so they can give Democrats a lift.
“These are extraordinary times,” Sadhwani said, “and extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures.”
Trena Turner, a pastor in Stockton and fellow commissioner, said she’s tremendously proud of the commission’s work and believes its impartial approach to political line-drawing is a model the rest of America should embrace.
But, she said, “I don’t think we should be playing by individual rules, different rules from state to state,” given what’s taken place in Texas and the threat of GOP gerrymandering in other places, such as Florida.
“The voices that we need to speak up for now are not just our individual congressional districts,” said the 64-year-old Democrat. “We need to speak up for the voices of our nation, for the soul of our nation.”
Neal Fornaciari, a Republican who chairs the redistricting commission, said individual members are speaking strictly for themselves. (Though its map-making function was completed at the end of 2021, the commission remains in existence.)
Commissioners “are exercising their 1st Amendment right to free speech,” said Fornaciari, 63, a retired mechanical engineer who lives in Shingletown, in the far north of California. But, he emphasized, “The commission is in no way involved in this redistricting effort.”
He even declined to state his personal views on the Democratic gerrymander, lest someone mistakenly assume Fornaciari was speaking on the commission’s behalf.
The body was created in 2008 when California voters approved Proposition 11, also known as the Voters First Act. Spearheaded by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the measure sought to bring balance to legislative races by taking redistricting away from lawmakers, who tended to draw the state’s political lines to suit their interests and minimize competition.
Consisting of 14 members, the panel is divided among five Democrats, five Republicans and four members with no party affiliation. More than 30,000 Californians applied for the positions.
The 14 who landed the job survived a grueling selection process, overseen by the nonpartisan state auditor, which involved detailed questionnaires, multiple essays and face-to-face interviews. The final lineup included a seminary professor, a structural engineer and an investigator for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
Over the course of 16 months — and through days sometimes lasting 12 hours or more — commissioners produced 176 maps. They created district boundaries for 52 members of Congress, 120 state lawmakers and four members of the Board of Equalization, which oversees tax collection in California.
Commissioners worked for free, receiving no salary, though they did get a $378 per diem on days they spent in session.
It’s a point of pride that no one sued to overturn the commission’s work, a rarity in the highly litigious field of redistricting.
“Most of the time if you watched our meetings I doubt if you could have correctly guessed all our political affiliations,” Russell Yee, a Republican commissioner, said in an email. “We approved our final maps unanimously. We proved that citizens can rise above political, racial, regional, and generational differences to do the public’s work together in an open and successful manner.”
(All commission meetings were open to the public, with proceedings livestreamed on the internet.)
Yee, 64, the academic director at a small Christian study center in Berkeley, said he was generally opposed to the Democratic gerrymandering effort “because two wrongs don’t make a right. The ends do not justify the means.”
However, while Yee leans against Proposition 50, as the November ballot measure has been designated, he will “keep listening with an open mind.”
Even if voters crumple up and toss the congressional maps Yee and others drafted, none felt as though their labors were wasted. For one thing, they said, the other political boundaries, for state legislative contests and the Board of Equalization, will remain intact. And the congressional lines yielded a set of highly competitive races in 2020 and 2024.
“We’ve shown twice now that independent, citizen redistricting can work well even in a state as populous, demographically diverse, and geographically complex at California,” Yee said.
For her part, Sinay, the nonprofit consultant, is uncertain about Proposition 50.
One thing she wants, Sinay said, is reassurance “this isn’t a permanent power grab” and that congressional redistricting will, in fact, revert to the commission after the next census, as Newsom and gerrymandering proponents have promised. Sidelining self-interested politicians is definitely a better way to draw political maps, she suggested, but ultimately it’s up to voters to decide.
AUSTIN, Texas — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Saturday promised to quickly sign off on a new, Republican-leaning congressional voting map gerrymandered to help the GOP maintain its slim majority in Congress.
“One Big Beautiful Map has passed the Senate and is on its way to my desk, where it will be swiftly signed into law,” Abbott said in a statement. The bill’s name is a nod to President Trump’s signature tax and spending bill, as Trump urged Abbott to redraw the congressional districts to favor Republicans.
Texas lawmakers approved the final plans just hours before, inflaming an already tense battle unfolding among states as governors from both parties pledge to redraw maps with the goal of giving their political candidates a leg up in the 2026 midterm elections.
In California, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has approved a special election in November for voters to decide whether to adopt a redrawn congressional map designed to help Democrats win five more House seats next year.
Meanwhile, Trump has pushed other Republican-controlled states, including Indiana and Missouri, to also revise their maps to add more winnable GOP seats. Ohio Republicans were also already scheduled to revise their maps to make them more partisan.
In Texas, the map includes five new districts that would favor Republicans.
Democrats vow to challenge it in court
The effort by Trump and Texas’ Republican-majority Legislature prompted state Democrats to hold a two-week walkout and kicked off a wave of redistricting efforts across the country.
Democrats had prepared for a final show of resistance, with plans to push the Senate vote into the early morning hours in a last-ditch attempt to delay passage. Yet Republicans blocked those efforts by citing a rule violation.
“What we have seen in this redistricting process has been maneuvers and mechanisms to shut down people’s voices,” said state Sen. Carol Alvarado, leader of the Senate Democratic caucus, on social media after the new map was finalized by the GOP-controlled Senate.
Democrats had already delayed the bill’s passage during hours of debate, pressing Republican Sen. Phil King, the measure’s sponsor, on the proposal’s legality, with many alleging that the redrawn districts violate the Voting Rights Act by diluting voters’ influence based on race.
King rejected that accusation, saying, “I had two goals in mind: That all maps would be legal and would be better for Republican congressional candidates in Texas.
“There is extreme risk the Republican majority will be lost” in the U.S. House of Representatives if the map does not pass, King said.
Battle for the House waged via redistricting
On a national level, the partisan makeup of existing districts puts Democrats within three seats of a majority. The incumbent president’s party usually loses seats in the midterms.
The Texas redraw is already reshaping the 2026 race, with Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett, the dean of the state’s congressional delegation, announcing Thursday that he will not seek reelection to his Austin-based seat if the new map takes effect. Under the proposed map, Doggett’s district would overlap with that of another Democratic incumbent, Rep. Greg Casar.
Redistricting typically occurs once a decade, immediately after a census. Though some states have their own limitations, there is no national impediment to a state trying to redraw districts in the middle of the decade.
The U.S. Supreme Court in 2019 ruled that the Constitution does not prohibit partisan gerrymandering to increase a party’s clout, only gerrymandering that’s explicitly done by race.
Other states
More Democratic-run states have commission systems like California’s or other redistricting limits than Republican ones do, leaving the GOP with a freer hand to swiftly redraw maps. New York, for example, cannot draw new maps until 2028, and even then only with voter approval.
Republicans and some Democrats championed a 2008 ballot measure that established California’s nonpartisan redistricting commission, along with a 2010 one that extended its role to drawing congressional maps.
Both sides have shown concern over what the redistricting war could lead to.
California Assemblyman James Gallagher, the Republican minority leader, said Trump was “wrong” to push for new Republican seats elsewhere. But he warned that Newsom’s approach, which the governor has said is an effort to “fight fire with fire,” is dangerous.
“You move forward fighting fire with fire, and what happens?” Gallagher asked. “You burn it all down.”
Vertuno, Cappelletti and Golden write for the Associated Press and reported from Austin, Washington and Seattle, respectively. AP writer Kimberlee Kruesi in Providence, R.I., contributed to this report.
What Californians think about Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to temporarily redraw the state’s congressional districts has been a source of hot debate.
Republicans rallied around polling conducted by Politico last week that noted that California voters preferred an “independent line-drawing panel” determining seats to the House of Representatives versus giving that role to the state Legislature.
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The high-stakes fight over political boundaries could shape control of the U.S. House, where Republicans currently hold a narrow majority.
Texas’ plan creates five new Republican-leaning seats that could secure the GOP’s House majority. Texas is creating the new districts at the behest of President Trump to help Republicans keep control of the House in the midterm elections. California’s efforts are an attempt to temporarily cancel those gains. The new maps would be in place for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 congressional elections.
Newsom and Democratic leaders say California must match Texas’ partisan mapmaking to preserve balance in Congress.
New polling supports Californians fighting back
The UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll, conducted for the Los Angeles Times, asked registered voters about the Newsom-backed redistricting push favoring California Democrats. This effort serves as a counterattack to President Trump and Texas Republicans reworking election maps to their advantage.
When voters were asked whether they agree with California’s redistricting maneuver, 46% said it was a good idea, and 36% said it was a bad idea.
Slightly more, 48%, said they would vote in favor of the temporary gerrymandering efforts if it appeared on the statewide special election ballot in November. Nearly a third said they would vote no, and 20% said they were undecided.
One interpretation of the data
“That’s not bad news,” said Mark DiCamillo, director of the Berkeley IGS Poll. “It could be better.”
DiCamillo added: “With ballot measures, you’d like to be comfortably above 50% because you got to get people to vote yes and when people are undecided or don’t know enough about initiatives, they tend to vote no just because it’s the safer vote.”
The strongest backers
Among voters who regularly cast ballots in statewide elections, overall support for redistricting jumped to 55%, compared with 34% opposed.
DiCamillo said that is significant.
“If I were to pick one subgroup where you would want to have an advantage, it would be that one,” he said.
Where to find the undecided votes
Winning in November, however, will require pushing undecided voters to back the redistricting plan.
Among Latino, Black and Asian voters, nearly 30% said they have yet to decide how they would vote on redistricting.
Women also have higher rates of being undecided compared with men, at 25% to 14%.
Younger voters are also more likely to be on the fence, with nearly a third of 18- to 29-year-olds saying they are unsure, compared with 11% of those older than 65.
The ever-growing divide
The partisan fight over election maps elicited deeply partisan results.
Nearly 7 in 10 Democratic voters said they would support the redistricting measure, and Republicans overwhelmingly panned the plan by about the same margin (72%).
California Republicans attempted to stall the process by filing an emergency petition at the state Supreme Court, arguing that Democrats violated the California Constitution by rushing the proposal through the Legislature.
The high court rejected the legal challenge Wednesday.
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Millions of dollars began flowing into campaigns supporting and opposing an effort to redraw California’s congressional districts on the November ballot, notably $10 million from independent redistricting champion Charles Munger Jr.
The checks, reported Friday in state campaign finance disclosures, were made on Thursday, the day the state Legislature and Gov. Gavin Newsom called a special election to replace the congressional districts drawn by an independent commission in 2021 with new districts that would boost the number of Democrats elected to Congress in next year’s midterm election.
Munger, a GOP donor and the son of a billionaire who was Warren Buffett’s right-hand man, bankrolled the 2010 ballot measure that created independent congressional redistricting in California. He donated $10 million to the “No on Prop. 50 – Protect Voters First” campaign,” which opposes the proposed redistricting.
“Charles Munger Jr. is making good on his promise to defend the reforms he passed,” said Amy Thoma, a spokesperson for the Voters First Coalition, which opposes the ballot measure and includes Munger.
A spokesperson for the campaign supporting the redrawing of congressional boundaries accused Munger of trying to boost the GOP under the guise of supporting independent redistricting.
“It’s no surprise that a billionaire who has given extensively to help Republicans take the house and [former Republican House Speaker] Kevin McCarthy would be joining forces to help Donald Trump steal five House seats and rig the 2026 midterm before a single American has voted,” said Hannah Milgrom, spokesperson for “Yes on 50: the Election Rigging Response Act.” “Prop 50 is America’s best chance to fight back – vote yes on November. 4.”
The campaign backing the ballot measure received $1 million on Thursday from a powerful labor group, SEIU’s state council; $300,000 from businessman Andrew Hauptman; and a flurry of other donations, according to the California secretary of state’s office. That is on top of the $5.8 million the campaign reported having in the bank as of July 30, including millions of dollars in contributions from House Majority PAC, which is focused on electing Democrats to Congress, and Newsom’s 2022 gubernatorial reelection campaign.
Redistricting typically happens once a decade after the U.S. census. Trump asked Texas lawmakers to redraw their congressional districts earlier this year, arguing that the GOP was entitled to five more members from the state. In response, California Democrats have pitched new district boundaries that could result in five more Democrats being elected to Congress.
SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to temporarily redraw California’s congressional districts has more support than opposition — but with many voters undecided, the measure’s prospects remain uncertain, a new poll found.
One thing, however, has become clear: Newsom’s standing with voters appears tethered to the fate of his high-stakes redistricting gamble.
The UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll, conducted for the Los Angeles Times, asked registered voters about the Newsom-backed redistricting push favoring California Democrats, which serves as a counterattack to President Trump and Texas Republicans reworking election maps to their advantage.
When voters were asked whether they agree with California’s redistricting maneuver, 46% said it was a good idea, while 36% said it was a bad idea. Slightly more, 48%, said they would vote in favor of the temporary gerrymandering efforts if it appeared on the statewide special election ballot in November. Nearly a third said they would vote no, while 20% said they were undecided.
“That’s not bad news,” said Mark DiCamillo, director of the Berkeley IGS Poll. “It could be better. With ballot measures, you’d like to be comfortably above 50% because you got to get people to vote yes and when people are undecided or don’t know enough about initiatives, they tend to vote no just because it’s the safer vote.”
Among voters who regularly cast ballots in statewide elections, overall support for redistricting jumped to 55%, compared with 34% opposed.
That, DiCamillo said, is significant.
“If I were to pick one subgroup where you would want to have an advantage, it would be that one,” he said.
The high-stakes fight over political boundaries could shape control of the U.S. House, where Republicans currently hold a narrow majority. Newsom and Democratic leaders say California must match Texas’ partisan mapmaking move to preserve balance in Congress. Texas’ plan creates five new Republican-leaning seats that could secure the GOP’s majority in the House. California’s efforts are an attempt to cancel those gains — at least temporarily. The new maps would be in place for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 congressional elections.
However, critics say that the plan undermines the state’s voter-approved independent redistricting commission and that one power grab doesn’t negate another.
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Not surprisingly, the partisan fight over election maps elicited deeply partisan results in the poll. Nearly 7 in 10 Democratic voters said they would support the redistricting measure , while Republicans overwhelmingly (72%) panned the plan.
The effort has by all accounts moved swiftly, with newly reworked maps released late last week and, by Monday, lawmakers introduced legislation to put it before voters. Lawmakers approved those bills Thursday, which secures the measure’s place on the ballot in November.
Newsom, who has become the face of California’s redistricting effort, has seen his once-stagnant approval ratings tick upward as he takes on Trump and Republican leaders. Beyond the high-profile push to reshape the state’s congressional districts, his office has drawn recent attention with a social media campaign that mimics Trump’s own idiosyncratic posts.
More voters now approve than disapprove of the governor’s job performance (51% to 43%), which represented a turnaround from April, when voters were split at 46% on each side. The poll, which surveyed 4,950 registered voters online in English and Spanish, was conducted from Aug. 11 to 17.
A majority of respondents — 59% — back Newsom’s combative stance toward Trump, while 29% want him to adopt a more cooperative approach. Younger voters were especially supportive of Newsom styling himself as Trump’s leading critic, with 71% of those between 18 and 29 years old backing the approach.
Matt Lesenyie, an assistant professor of political science at Cal State Long Beach, said having Newsom as the face of the redistricting campaign would have been more of a liability a month ago. But Newsom’s profile has been rising nationally during the spiraling fight over congressional maps and been buoyed by his prolific Trump trolling, which has struck a nerve with conservative commentators. That has opened up a lane for Newsom to spread the campaign’s message more broadly, he said.
“If he keeps this pace up, he’s right on a pressure point,” Lesenyie said.
Political scientist Eric Schickler, who is co-director of the Berkeley Institute that conducted the poll, said asking Californians to hand back control of redistricting to politicians — even temporarily — after voters made the process independent would normally be a tough sell.
“Voters don’t trust politicians,” Schickler said. “On the other hand, voters see Trump and don’t like what he’s doing. And so it was really a test to see which of those was more powerful and the results suggest, at least for now, Newsom’s winning that argument.”
Winning in November, however, will require pushing undecided voters over the finish line. Among Latino, Black and Asian voters, nearly 30% said they have yet to decide how they would vote on redistricting. Women also have higher rates of being undecided compared with men, at 25% to 14%. Younger voters are also more likely to be on the fence, with nearly a third of 18- to 29-year-olds saying they are unsure, compared with 11% of those older than 65.
Among Democrats, there are still some skeptics about the proposal. One in 5 polled said they were undecided. A quarter of voters with no party preference say they are undecided.
“That suggests there are a bunch of votes left on the table,” Schickler said. “While I wouldn’t be surprised if the margin narrows between now and November, this is a good place for the proposition to start.”
Aug. 22 (UPI) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a package of legislation, kicking off the Golden State’s redistricting drive, as the Democrat retaliates against Texas, which just passed new congressional maps that favor the Republicans.
Newsom signed the three bills, known together as the Election Rigging Response legislative package, Thursday shortly after they swiftly passed both the State Assembly and Senate.
The package allows California to adopt new congressional maps, which must first be voted on by the public in November.
Californians are being targeted by the Trump Administration, and thanks to the hard work of the California legislature, they will have a choice to fight back – and bring much needed accountability to Trump’s efforts to undermine the democratic process. pic.twitter.com/5S4EgdumeQ— Governor Gavin Newsom (@CAgovernor) August 21, 2025
It is the latest move in what appears to be a growing redistricting arms race ahead of next year’s midterm elections that was kicked off by Texas, which, under pressure of President Donald Trump, passed new congressional maps on Wednesday that are expected to give Republicans five additional seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Congressional maps are generally redrawn once a decade based on new Census Bureau data, with the next census scheduled for 2030. Democrats are accusing Texas Republicans of redrawing their maps to help ensure the GOP maintains its control of the House in the upcoming midterm elections. Republicans currently hold a narrow majority in the congressional chamber.
Newsom, who is seen as a potential presidential candidate in 2028, has been among the most vocal critics and vowed to redraw California’s maps to neutralize those seats to be gained in Texas. Other states on both sides of the political aisle have suggested they are considering doing the same.
“Don’t poke the bear,” Newsom said on X following the signing.
On Wednesday, the state Supreme Court rejected a Republican challenge to Newsom’s plan to redraw the state’s congressional maps.
SACRAMENTO — Moments after California lawmakers passed a plan designed to undercut attempts by the president and fellow Republicans to keep control of Congress, Gov. Gavin Newsom said the state’s proposed partisan redistricting that favors Democrats is a necessary counterweight to President Trump’s threat to American democracy.
Trump’s assault on vote by mail and decision to send the military into U.S. cities are evidence of his authoritarian policies, and California must do its part to keep him in check, Newsom said.
By deploying federal immigration agents in roving street raids and activating thousands of members of the National Guard in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., Newsom said, Trump is amassing “a private army for Donald Trump.”
“He’s trying to rig the election, he’s trying to set up the conditions where he can claim that the elections were not won fair and square,” Newsom said. “Open your eyes to what is going on in the United States of America in 2025.”
The argument is a preview of the messaging for the ballot measure campaign that Newsom and his Democratic Party allies will be running over the next 74 days.
On Thursday, California lawmakers signed off on a Nov. 4 special election that will put partisan redistricting in front of California voters.
The ballot measure, called Proposition 50, will ask voters to discard the congressional boundaries drawn by the state’s independent redistricting commission in 2021 in favor of partisan districts that could boot as many as five California Republicans out of Congress.
“When all things are equal, and we’re all playing by the same set of rules,” Newsom said, “there’s no question that the Republican Party will be the minority party in the House of Representatives next year.”
California is “responding to what occurred in Texas, we’re neutralizing what occurred, and we’re giving the American people a fair chance,” Newsom said.
National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina accused Newsom of trying to “rig” the system to advance his own political career.
“Instead of fixing the homelessness, crime, drug, and cost crises crushing the Golden State, Gavin Newsom is tearing up California’s Constitution to advance his presidential ambitions,” Hudson said in a statement.
California’s new lines would neutralize efforts in Texas to redraw their congressional district maps to help elect five more GOP candidates in 2026. The Texas Legislature is expected to approve new district lines this week.
The other option, Newsom said, is for California and Democrats to “roll over and do nothing.”
“I think people all across the country are going to campaign here in California for this,” Newsom said. “They recognize what’s at stake. It’s not just about the state of California. It’s about the United States of America. It’s about rigging the election. It’s about completely gutting the rules.”
Times staff writer Seema Mehta contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump and his allies have kicked off a redistricting fight in the United States as the country’s two main political parties angle for advantage in the 2026 midterm elections.
In an effort to maintain control of Congress, Republican leaders in the right-wing stronghold of Texas have pushed to redraw the state’s congressional districts in a way that would net the party as many as five additional seats in the US House of Representatives.
Trump has encouraged the effort, calling it a “big WIN for the Great State of Texas”. The state’s Senate is expected to vote on the new district plans as early as Thursday evening.
But that effort has prompted a backlash. The Democratic-leaning state of California responded in kind by passing a plan on Thursday to abandon nonpartisan redistricting and create new congressional maps that could bring the Democrats five more seats, negating the effort in Texas.
Party leaders in other states, including Missouri and Florida, have also indicated they may seek to rejigger their districts to pick up more seats.
The standoff points to larger questions about how to ensure fair representation in Congress and how Trump has sought to exert wide-reaching control over the country’s political system.
With Trump’s approval rating slipping to about 40 percent, Republicans risk losing their narrow, 219-person majority in the 435-seat House of Representatives in the midterm races.
So what is redistricting? And what could it mean for upcoming elections? We answer those questions and more in this quick explainer.
What is redistricting?
Simply put, the practice of redistricting refers to drawing the boundaries of an election district.
Ideally, districts should be designed as an accurate and proportionate reflection of the area’s population. Maps are generally updated every 10 years, in accordance with the latest population census.
But political parties can take steps to shape districts to their benefit, in a process sometimes referred to as gerrymandering.
That involves finding creative ways to maximise the number of seats a party can win by carving districts based on demographics and voting trends, to increase the electoral weight of certain groups and minimise the influence of others.
“Politicians can look at information about the partisan and demographic breakdown of an area and stack the decks in their favour,” said Thad Kousser, a professor of political science at the University of California at San Diego.
This practice has a long and fraught history in the US, especially in states with histories of segregation and discrimination, where maps were often drawn to dilute representation for minority voters.
What is happening in Texas?
While redistricting is far from new, Texas has been in the spotlight recently for a particularly overt partisan effort.
Part of the controversy stems from the involvement of President Trump, who prompted Texas Republicans to redraw maps.
In June and July, reports began to emerge that the White House was holding calls with Texas state leaders to tee up a redistricting battle, in preparation for the 2026 midterms.
Despite early concerns that the effort could backfire, Republican lawmakers in the state quickly put the plan in motion.
Speaking by phone to CNBC on August 5, Trump seemed to suggest that the makeup of the US Congress should reflect his success in the 2024 presidential race.
“We should have many more seats in Congress,” Trump said. “I got the highest vote in the history of Texas, as you probably know, and we are entitled to five more seats.”
The state’s House of Representatives passed a new election map on Wednesday, and the Texas Senate is expected to do the same in the next few days. The new maps would carve out five additional districts in areas where Trump performed strongly during the last election.
How did Texas Democrats respond?
Texas Democrats condemned the redistricting as a partisan power grab and tried to prevent a vote on the new congressional map.
In early August, they left the state in a bid to deny the Texas legislature the quorum it needed to move the plan forward.
But as a minority voting bloc in the firmly Republican state legislature, the Democrats ultimately failed to stop the redistricting scheme.
While away, Texas Governor Greg Abbott ordered the absent Democrats’ arrest, and the Republicans in the state House echoed that effort with a vote to issue arrest warrants. Abbott also threatened the Democrats with criminal charges, including for bribery, if they solicited funds during their absence.
What’s more, the Texas Democrats faced a series of reported bomb threats at their Illinois hotels. Eventually, after two weeks, they returned to their home state, allowing the vote to proceed.
Democratic leaders have said that, while they did not stop the redistricting push, they drew attention to the issue and are preparing to challenge the new maps in court.
Do both parties gerrymander?
Yes, both parties have engaged in gerrymandering, and the practice has been employed throughout US history in varying contexts.
In recent years, however, the practice has been more commonly associated with right-leaning states.
Princeton University’s Gerrymandering Project found that states with the most severe gerrymandering tend to be Republican-led states in the southern US, where the practice has historically been employed to dilute the influence of Black voters.
The project also found that a handful of states, such as Oregon, Illinois and Nevada, have partisan election maps that heavily favour Democrats.
Some Democrats previously criticised gerrymandering as anti-democratic and pushed for changes to ensure that redistricting is nonpartisan.
“Public servants should earn the votes of the people that they hope to represent. What Republicans are trying to do in Texas is to have politicians choose their voters,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries recently told reporters.
But as Trump seeks to increase his party’s advantage, some Democratic leaders have urged the party to change its approach and “fight fire with fire” through more explicitly partisan tactics.
Is gerrymandering legal?
Courts have, on occasion, struck down gerrymandered congressional maps on the basis that they violate the US Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause by disadvantaging racial minorities and other demographics.
But the Supreme Court has ruled it will not intervene in questions of partisan gerrymandering, though state courts can.
How is California responding?
Following the developments in Texas, California Governor Gavin Newsom announced his state would begin its own redistricting effort meant to add five congressional seats to the Democrats’ tally in the US House of Representatives.
California, the largest state by population, is considered solidly left-leaning: Nearly 47 percent of registered voters identified as Democrats in 2023, compared with 24 percent for Republicans.
On Thursday, the state’s legislature voted largely along party lines to forward the redistricting plan to Newsom’s desk for a signature.
“It’s the fact that this has been so baldly political and driven by demands from Trump that has allowed Democrats to take the gloves off,” said Kousser, the political science professor.
Newsom has depicted his actions as an unfortunate but necessary response to the Texas Republicans.
He said he will shelve California’s redistricting plans if Texas agrees to do the same, but he argues that Democrat-led states cannot “unilaterally disarm” and allow partisan redistricting to disadvantage them in Congress.
“Other blue states need to stand up,” Newsom said as he announced his plan. “We need to be firm.”
Former Democratic President Barack Obama said that, while his “preference” is to do away with gerrymandering, Newsom was taking a “responsible approach” by countering the Republicans.
Are other states considering redistricting plans?
Yes. The Republican-led state of Ohio announced redistricting plans, and Republican leaders in Florida, Indiana and Missouri have also suggested they will follow suit.
Meanwhile, officials in the Democrat-led state of Illinois are also mulling changes to the map-drawing process. New York’s Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul also said that her state may pursue redistricting if Texas moves forward with its plan.
How could this affect future elections?
It is unclear how much this redistricting battle will tip the scales for either party, particularly as Democrats consider steps to negate Republican gains.
But experts say there are generally more Republican-led states where redistricting might be viable
The primary objective is to gain an advantage in anticipation of the 2026 midterms, when control of Congress is up for grabs.
While each state receives exactly two senators, the number of representatives in the House varies depending on each state’s population size. All 435 seats in the House will be up for grabs in the midterms, and each congressional district is responsible for selecting the winner for one of those seats.
Trump last month called Texas the greatest prize – “the biggest one” – in the redistricting battle.
On Thursday, he framed the five seats Republicans hope to gain there as integral to his platform: “On our way to FIVE more Congressional seats and saving your Rights, your Freedoms, and your Country, itself. Texas never lets us down.”
But halfway through Trump’s first term in office, the Republicans lost their majority in the House during the midterm elections. That loss gave Democrats greater power to stymie Trump’s legislative priorities.
“Trump is urging his allies to redraw districts as a way to insulate him and his political party from possible backlash in the midterms,” said Kousser.
Isn’t California doing the same thing as Texas?
Newsom has attempted to assuage concerns about California’s redistricting scheme by contrasting his plan with the one in Texas.
He says that California’s new map will go before voters in November for approval, unlike in Texas, and will only go into effect if Republican-led states do the same.
Still, his efforts would require sidelining a nonpartisan redistricting panel previously approved by California voters.
But Kousser says that Trump’s push for greater sway over the country’s political system may induce more Democrats to adopt partisan redistricting for themselves.
“Newsom was explicit that there is a way to back down from this arms race,” he said. “But he’s also saying that, if Republicans don’t back away from this, Democrats will use these means as well.”
SACRAMENTO — Ratcheting up the pressure in the escalating national fight over control of Congress, the California Legislature on Thursday approved November special election to ask voters in November to redraw the state’s electoral lines to favor Democrats and thwart President Trump’s far-right policy agenda.
The ballot measure, pushed by Gov. Gavin Newsom and other state and national Democratic leaders, is the latest volley in a national political brawl over electoral maps that could alter the outcome of the 2026 midterm elections and the balance of power in the U.S. House of Representatives.
If voters approve the redrawn lines on Nov. 4, Democrats in the Golden State would see the odds tilted further in their favor, while the number of California Republicans in the House could be halved.
Newsom initially said that new electoral districts in California would only take effect if another state redrew its lines before 2031. But after Texas moved toward approving its own maps this week that could give the GOP five more House seats, Democrats stripped the so-called “trigger” language from the amendment — meaning that if voters approve the measure, the new lines would take effect no matter what.
The ballot measure language, which asks California voters to override the power of the independent redistricting commission, was approved by most Democrats in the Assembly and the Senate, where they hold supermajorities.
California lawmakers have the power to place constitutional amendments on the statewide ballot without the approval of the governor. Newsom, however, is expected later Thursday to sign two separate bills that fund the special election and spell out the lines for the new congressional districts.
Democrats’ rush to the ballot marks a sudden departure from California’s 15-year commitment to independent redistricting, often held up as the country’s gold standard. The state’s voters stripped lawmakers of the power to draw lines during the Great Recession and handed that partisan power to a panel of independent citizens whose names are drawn in a lottery.
The change, Democrats said, was forced by an extraordinary change in circumstances: After decades of the United States redrawing congressional lines once a decade, President Trump and his political team have leaned on Republican-led states to redraw their district lines before the 2026 midterm elections to help Republicans retain control of the House.
“His playbook is a simple one: Bully, threaten, fight, then rig the rules to hang onto power,” said Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas. “We are here today because California will not be a bystander to that power grab. We are not intimidated, and we are acting openly, lawfully, with purpose and resolve, to defend our state and to defend our democracy.”
Republicans in the state Assembly and the state Senate criticized Newsom’s argument that Democrats must “fight fire with fire,” saying retaliation is a slippery slope that would erode the independent redistricting process California voters have chosen twice at the ballot box.
“You move forward fighting fire with fire, and what happens? You burn it all down,” said Assembly Minority Leader James Gallagher (R-Yuba City). He said Trump was “wrong” to push Gov. Greg Abbott to redraw Texas’ lines to benefit Republicans, and so was California’s push to pursue the same strategy.
Democratic Assembly member Marc Berman speaks during a meeting of the California State Assembly at the California State Capitol on August 21, 2025 in Sacramento.
(Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)
State Senate Majority Leader Lena Gonzalez (D-Long Beach), who co-authored the bill drawing the proposed congressional districts, said Democrats had no choice but to stand up, given the harm the Trump administration has inflicted on healthcare, education, tariffs and other policies that affect Californians.
“What do we do? Just sit back and do nothing?” Gonzalez said. “Or do we fight back and provide some chance for our Californians to see themselves in this democracy?”
Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones (R-Santee) said the effort is “a corrupt redistricting scheme to rig California’s elections” that violates the “letter and the spirit of the California constitution.”
“Democrats are rushing this through under the guise of urgency,” Jones said. “There is no emergency that justifies this abuse of process.”
Three Assembly Democrats did not vote in favor of the constitutional amendment. Jasmeet Bains (D-Delano), who is running for Congress against Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford) in the San Joaquin Valley, voted no. Progressive Caucus chair Alex Lee (D-San Jose), and Dawn Addis (D-Morro Bay), did not vote.
Democrats will face an unusual messaging challenge with the November ballot measure, said Matt Lesenyie, an assistant professor of political science at Cal State Long Beach.
The opponents of mid-decade redistricting are stressing that the measure would “disadvantage voters,” he said, which is “wording that Democrats have primed Democrats on, for now two administrations, that democracy is being killed with a thousand cuts.”
“It’s a weird, sort of up-is-down moment,” Lesenyie said.
How did we get here?
Trump’s political team began pressuring Abbott and Texas Republicans in early June to redraw the state’s 38 congressional districts in the middle of the decade — which is very uncommon — to give Republicans a better shot at keeping the House in 2026.
“We are entitled to five more seats,” Trump later told CNBC.
Some Texas Republicans feared that mid-decade redistricting could imperil their own chances of reelection. But within a month of the White House floating the idea, Abbott added the new congressional lines, which would stack the deck against as many as five Texas Democrats in Congress, to the Legislature’s special session in July.
By mid-July, Newsom was talking about California punching back. In an interview with the progressive news site the TN Holler, Newsom said: “These guys, they’re not f—ing around. They’re playing by a totally different set of rules.”
Democrats in Texas fled the state for nearly two weeks, including some to California, to deny Republicans the quorum they needed to pass the new lines. Abbott signed civil arrest warrants and levied fines on the 52 absent Democrats while they held news conferences in California and Illinois to bring attention to the fight.
While the Texas drama unfolded, consultants for the campaign arm of House Democrats in California quietly drew up maps that would further chop down the number of Golden State Republicans in Congress. The proposed changes would eliminate the district of Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Corona) and dilute the number of GOP voters in four districts represented by Reps. Doug LaMalfa, Kevin Kiley, David Valadao and Darrell Issa.
The Democrats agreed to return to Texas last week and pointed to California’s tit-for-tat effort as one measure of success, saying the Golden State could neutralize any Republican gains in Texas.
Since then, other Republican-led states have begun to contemplate redistricting too, including Indiana, Florida and Missouri. Trump’s political allies are publicly threatening to mount primary challenges against any Indiana Republican who opposes redrawing the lines.
In California, the opposition is shaping up as quickly as the ballot measure.
California voters received the first campaign mailer opposing the ballot measure a day before the Legislature voted to approve it. A four-page glossy flier, funded by conservative donor and redistricting champion Charlie Munger Jr., warned voters that mid-decade redistricting is “weakening our Democratic process” and “a threat to California’s landmark election reform.”
Republicans have also gone to court to try and stop the measure, alleging in an emergency petition with the state Supreme Court that Democrats violated the state Constitution by ramming the bills through without following proper legislative procedure. The high court Wednesday rejected the petition.
A wave of legal challenges are expected, not only in California but in any state that reconfigures congressional districts in the expanding partisan brawl.
Assemblymember Carl DeMaio (R-San Diego) said Thursday morning that a lawsuit challenging the California ballot measure would be filed in state court by Friday evening. He said Republicans also plan to litigate the title of the ballot measure and any voter guide materials that accompany it.
And, he said, if voters approve the new lines, “I believe we will have ample opportunity to set the maps aside in federal court.”
Happy Thursday. Your usual host, D.C. Bureau Chief Michael Wilner, is off today. So you’re once again stuck with me, California Columnist Anita Chabria.
I’m reporting from Columbus, Ohio. Although it’s 2,300 miles from Sacramento, you wouldn’t know it from the national news, where Gov. Gavin Newsom’s push to gerrymander the Golden State’s election maps is dominating the conversation, even in the Midwest.
That’s a huge win for Newsom’s presidential aspirations. A week ago, I might have argued that Newsom’s chances at the Oval Office were irrevocably tied to the success of his “Election Rigging Response Act,” which seems likely (though not certain) to make it onto a November ballot.
But it’s increasingly seeming like win or lose on that initiative, the fight itself is a victory for Newsom.
Let’s dig into the details on where we are and why.
The recap
President Trump does not like uncertainty, especially when it comes to his power. The midterm elections in 2026 are nothing but uncertainty. Republicans hold a Ozempic-thin majority in the House at 219-212, with four seats vacant. If Democrats were to take control, it would make autocracy really hard.
So Trump’s team reportedly called up Texas and asked them to rig their election maps to gain five GOP seats and a comfortable margin for the election. Newsom responded, unexpectedly, by pushing an if/then proposition for the same map-rigging in California: If Texas does it, then so will we.
The Legislature is expected to approve that plan (and new maps that smash the state’s Republicans mostly along an inland stretch against the Sierra Nevada), allowing it to go before voters in November. Because unlike Texas, California voters will have to OK the gambit for it to move forward.
That seems as though it could happen. Axios reported this week that Newsom’s pollster, David Binder, found that 57% of California voters were likely to back the redistricting plan once they understood two points. First, that it was temporary and the state would go back to fair maps in a few years; and second, that California will go forward only if Texas or another state gerrymanders first.
And it seems as if Trump is pushing these just-in-case states to at least try. Vice President JD Vance visited Indiana recently, supposedly to encourage that state to drum up support for the idea, even though Republicans hold seven of nine of the state’s seats already. Florida is another place where map-rigging could happen. MAGA drummed up four additional seats after Gov. Ron DeSantis redrew maps in 2022 to give the GOP more seats. So there is little reason to believe he wouldn’t push it even further.
From Gavin to gavel
But like so many political policies these days, redistricting is likely to end up in courts.
California Republicans appealed to the state Supreme Court to at least delay redistricting. They are argued that state law requires any legislation to be in print for 30 days before a vote is taken on it.
The Legislature has a long-used but ethically dubious workaround to this — they take another bill, one that is already written but basically dead, and simply delete its contents and drop in whatever new measure they don’t have time to pass under a fresh bill number. Voila — in print for 30 days, technically.
Will the Supreme Court choose to censure that behavior now?
Texas might also find itself in courts with new maps it advanced on Wednesday.
The UCLA Voting Rights Project released a study this week that found the new Texas maps may violate federal law that protects minority voters from being pushed into districts where their favored candidate has no chance of winning.
“Federal law prohibits purposefully drawing large minority populations of Black and Hispanic voters into districts in which their preferred candidate loses,” the report notes. “While the map appears to add an extra Hispanic-majority district, VRP findings show it systematically places minority communities in districts where bloc-voting by white voters overrides their candidate of choice.”
Someone will probably sue. Which raises the interesting but as-yet unanswered question (I did ask, but no word back yet from the governor’s office) on whether California would still move forward if the Texas maps are passed by the Legislature but held up in courts. That scenario might melt Republican heads — the possibility of five new Democratic seats without Texas to even them out.
A win, regardless
Whether or not Newsom manages to get his “big beautiful maps,” as he’s cheekily calling them, through voters, this is already a win for him.
That aligns with a new Economist/YouGov poll showing that 56% of voters disapprove of Trump, a really high number.
Meanwhile, between his social media explosion and map-rigging, Newsom is seeing a huge bump. One California poll by Politico-Citrin Center-Possibility found him significantly leading over former Vice President Kamala Harris when it comes to who state voters would back in the next presidential race.
That poll found that Newsom leads Harris 25% to 19% among the state’s registered no-party-preference, Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters.
But it’s not just California. I am seriously shocked that even here in the Midwest, folks are talking about Newsom and many — even if they don’t agree with redistricting — see him in a favorable light for fighting back so aggressively on Texas and Trump.
Even if Newsom loses the redistricting initiative in California, he will be able to argue that he fought harder than anyone else to curtail Trump’s power, and have the receipts to back that up.
So whether he gamed this out in advance or luck and timing have collided in that magical fashion, Newsom has, for the moment, captured lightning in a bottle — and certainly will ride that energy as far as it will take him.
AUSTIN, Texas — Both parties expected Republicans to win an early round Wednesday in a growing national redistricting battle by pushing a congressional map creating five new potential GOP seats past its biggest obstacle in the Texas Legislature.
The Republican-controlled Texas House planned to vote on a redistricting plan that resulted from prodding by President Trump, eager to stave off a midterm defeat that would deprive his party of control of the House of Representatives. Texas Democratic lawmakers delayed a vote for 15 days by leaving the state in protest, depriving the House of enough members to do business.
Some Democrats returned Monday, only to be assigned round-the-clock police escorts to ensure their attendance at Wednesday’s session. Seven who refused were confined to the House floor, where they protested on a livestream Tuesday night, led by Rep. Nicole Collier, who represents a minority-majority district in Fort Worth. Her staff removed a pillow, blanket and bag of personal effects early Wednesday.
As lawmakers trickled into the chamber, several Democrats gave Collier a hug, said “Thank you,” and took photos with her. In a social media post Tuesday night, Collier put a call from 2024 Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris on her cellphone’s speaker. Harris told Collier that, “We are all in that room with you.”
“We are making a difference,” she said after the call. “People are watching and they are ready to hold this government accountable.”
House approval of the map would send it to the Senate for a vote as early as Thursday. Passage there also is expected, and not enough Democrats walked out previously to prevent the chamber from working. Democrats said they’re preparing to challenge the new map in court.
Furious national Democrats have vowed payback for the Texas map, with California’s legislature poised to approve new maps adding more Democratic-friendly seats later this week. The map would still need to be approved by that state’s voters in November.
Normally, states redraw maps once a decade with new census figures. But Trump is lobbying other conservative-controlled states like Indiana and Missouri to also try to squeeze new GOP-friendly seats out of their maps as his party prepares for a difficult midterm election next year.
Democrats are energized by the fight in Texas
As House session was about to begin, about two dozen demonstrators supporting Democrats sang “Fighting for Democracy, we shall not be moved” outside the chamber. GOP House Speaker Dustin Burrows announced that the public gallery will be cleared if there are disruptions. The public gallery was mostly empty as the session was gaveled in.
But the 100 members required to do business were present. About 200 people have gathered in the Capitol’s rotunda for a rally supporting Democrats, holding signs saying “End Gerrymandering — Save Democracy,” “Defend the Constitution” and “Fascism is here.”
Texas Democrats spent the day before the vote continuing to draw attention to the extraordinary lengths the Republicans who run the legislature were going to ensure it takes place.
Collier started it when she refused to sign what Democrats called the “permission slip” required by Burrows to leave the House chamber, a half-page form allowing Department of Public Safety troopers to follow them. Collier spent Monday night and Tuesday on the House floor, where she set up a livestream while her Democratic colleagues outside had plainclothes officers following them to their offices and homes.
Dallas-area Rep. Linda Garcia said she drove three hours home from Austin with an officer following her. When she went grocery shopping, he went down every aisle with her, pretending to shop, she said. As she spoke to The Associated Press by phone, two unmarked cars with officers inside were parked outside her home.
“It’s a weird feeling,” she said. “The only way to explain the entire process is: It’s like I’m in a movie.”
Dallas-area Rep. Cassandra Garcia Hernandez joined the protest inside the House chamber and called it a “slumber party for democracy,” and she said Democrats were holding strategy sessions on the floor.
“We are not criminals,” Houston Rep. Penny Morales Shaw said before also joining Collier.
Collier said having officers shadow her was an attack on her dignity and an attempt to control her movements.
Republican leader says Collier ‘is well within her rights’
Burrows brushed off Collier’s protest, saying he was focused on important issues, such as providing property tax relief and responding to last month’s deadly floods. His statement Tuesday morning did not mention redistricting, and his office did not immediately respond to other Democrats joining Collier.
“Rep. Collier’s choice to stay and not sign the permission slip is well within her rights under the House Rules,” Burrows said.
Under those rules, until Wednesday’s vote, the chamber’s doors were locked, and no member could leave “without the written permission of the speaker.”
Republicans issued civil arrest warrants to bring the Democrats back after they left the state Aug. 3, and Republican Gov. Greg Abbott asked the state Supreme Court to oust Rep. Gene Wu of Houston — the House minority leader — and several other Democrats from office. The lawmakers also face a fine of $500 for every day they were absent.
Democrats outside the Capitol reported different levels of monitoring and some said the officers watching them were friendly. But Austin Rep. Sheryl Cole said in a social media post that when she went on her morning walk Tuesday, the officer following her lost her on the trail, got angry and threatened to arrest her.
Garcia said the officer who tailed her home also came in the grocery store when she went shopping with her 9-year-old son.
“I would imagine that this is the way it feels when you’re potentially shoplifting and someone is assessing whether you’re going to steal,” she said.
Vertuno and Riccardi write for the Associated Press. Riccardi reported from Denver. John Hanna in Topeka, Kan., and Sara Cline in Baton Rouge, La., contributed to this report.
Today we discuss flora, fauna and self-gratification.
You’ve been away.
Yes, I was living in a tent for two weeks, communing with the pine trees and black bears of the Sierra.
You heard about California’s likely special election?
I did.
It seems Gov. Gavin Newsom will have his way, with help from the Democratic-run Legislature, and voters will be asked in November to approve a partisan gerrymander aimed at offsetting a similar Republican power grab in Texas.
Also references to knife fights and Democrats showing up with pencils, rubber bands, butter knives and other wimpy implements. The campaign hasn’t even started and already those metaphors have grown stale.
Democrats are powerless in Washington, where a pliant Republican-controlled Congress and a supine right-wing Supreme Court have shown all the deference of a maître d’ squiring Trump to his favorite table. So the idea of doing something to push back against the president is quite invigorating and, no doubt, gratifying for Democratic partisans.
It’s also expedient and facile, sparing the party from looking inward and doing the truly hard work it faces. Taking on Republicans over redistricting — a fight among insiders, as far as many voters are concerned — does absolutely nothing to address the larger problem confronting Democrats, which is the absence of any broader message beyond: Trump, bad!
But this is a “break-the-glass” moment for our democracy. Gov. Newsom said so!
Please.
The only thing worse than a grasping and nakedly calculating politician is a politician who wraps his grasping and naked calculation in all sorts of red, white and blue bunting.
The whole episode started when our gallivanting governor went on a left-wing podcast during a Southern campaign swing and huffed and puffed about responding to Trump and Texas by executing a similar gerrymander in California. (He elided the fact that, under the state Constitution, he has no such authority. Hence the need for a special election to seek voter approval of new, slanted political lines.)
Soon enough, Newsom’s threat took on a life of its own. Normally, redistricting is done once every 10 years, after the latest census. Suddenly, mid-decade redistricting became a new front in the ever-escalating war between red and blue; now several more states are talking about rejiggering their congressional maps for partisan gain.
The problem for Newsom and his fellow Democrats is that Republicans have a lot more gerrymandering opportunities than they do. So instead of those five Democratic-held seats in Texas, many more could be at risk for the party in 2026.
Golly.
Though, it should be said, at this point all that election handicapping is nothing more than speculation.
What do you mean?
Democrats need to flip three congressional districts to seize control of the House. That’s why Trump prodded Texas Republicans to try to nab those five extra seats, to give the GOP some padding.
But there’s no guarantee Republicans will win all five seats. They’re counting on the same strong Latino support Trump received in 2024, and recent polling suggests some of that pro-GOP sentiment may be waning.
Beyond that, the ever-insightful Amy Walter, of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, makes an important point.
“Even as the possibility of new maps in Texas and California may change the size and the shape of the 2026 playing field,” she wrote in a recent analysis, “the fate of the Republican-controlled House is ultimately still going to be determined by two fundamental questions: how do voters feel about the state of the economy, and how do independent voters assess the party in power?”
It’s a long way to November 2026. But at this point, neither of those factors augurs well for Trump and Republicans.
Well, they started it, by messing with Texas.
True. And none of this is meant to defend Trump, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott or the president’s other political henchmen.
But effectively disenfranchising millions of California Republicans isn’t any better than effectively disenfranchising millions of Texas Democrats.
Huh?
If Democrats have their way, the GOP would hold just a handful of California’s 52 House seats, or even less. How is that possibly fair, or representative, in a state that’s home to millions of Republican voters — more, in fact, than any state other than Texas.
Of course, Newsom may not care, since at this twilight point of his governorship it’s all about his White House hopes and desire to pander to the Democrats’ aggrieved political base.
Aug. 20 (UPI) — Texas state House Republicans are about to pass their redistricting bill Wednesday as the session reconvenes at 11 a.m. EDT Wednesday.
Texas Republicans will pass the bill, encouraged by President Donald Trump, which will likely give the state an extra five Republican seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, after weeks of protests from Democrats in the state House.
Because of their minority in the House, Democrats have no way to block passage of the redistricting bills. They have vowed to fight in the courts to prevent the new maps from being used.
Once Democrats came back to the capitol in Austin, they were not allowed to leave the chamber without a “permission slip,” a police escort and 24-hour surveillance to ensure they don’t leave the state again.
One lawmaker, Rep. Nicole Collier, D-Fort Worth, spent Monday night in the capitol building, refusing to sign the paper. She said she plans to stay until Wednesday’s session. Since then, several other Democrats tore up their waivers and joined her.
“This is a civil discussion and disagreement, and in order to win, the other side is willing to use force — to use the arms of a state to get what they want. Good guys don’t do that,” Texas House Democratic Caucus leader Rep. Gene Wu, told CNN.
Wu and Rep. Vince Perez, D-El Paso, who signed the waivers, stayed with Collier through Monday night.
Wednesday’s session is expected to last all day and possibly into the evening, as there must be time to consider the map, consider amendments and have several votes.
The new state map introduced last month has been revised. It would still add the five seats but also strengthen already-Republican districts by adding Republican voters to those districts. The state’s current districts, passed four years ago, are already being challenged in court, and a ruling is expected this fall.
“Please pass this map ASAP,” Trump posted on social media Monday. “Thank you, Texas!”
Republicans have 25 of the state’s 38 seats.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has already begun the process of redistricting the state to counteract Texas’ efforts. Other Republican- and Democrat-led states have vowed to get in on the process.
SACRAMENTO — California’s push to redraw the state’s congressional districts to favor Democrats faced early opposition Tuesday during legislative hearings, a preview of the obstacles ahead for Gov. Gavin Newsom and his allies as they try to convince voters to back the effort.
California Democrats entered the redistricting fray after Republicans in Texas moved to reconfigure their political districts to increase by five the number of GOP members of Congress after the 2026 midterm elections, a move that could sway the outcome of the 2026 midterm elections.
The proposed map of new districts in California that could go before voters in November could cost as many as five Golden State Republicans their seats in Congress.
In Sacramento, Republicans criticized Democrats for trying to scrap the independent redistricting process approved by voters in 2010, a change designed to remove self-serving politics and partisan game-playing. GOP lawmakers argued that the public and legislators had little time to review the maps of the proposed congressional districts and questioned who crafted the new districts and bankrolled the effort.
In an attempt to slow down the push by Democrats, California Republicans filed an emergency petition at the California Supreme Court, arguing that Democrats violated the state Constitution by rushing the bills through the legislature.
The state Constitution requires lawmakers to introduce non-budget bills 30 days before they are voted on, unless the Legislature waives that rule by a three-fourths majority vote. The bills were introduced Monday through a common process known as “gut and amend,” where lawmakers strip out the language from an older pending bill and replace it with a new proposal.
The lawsuit said that without the Supreme Court’s intervention, the state could enact “significant new legislation that the public has only seen for, at most, a few days,” according to the lawsuit filed by GOP state Sens. Tony Strickland of Huntington Beach and Suzette Martinez Valladares of Acton and Assemblymembers Tri Ta of Westminster and Kathryn Sanchez of Trabuco Canyon.
Democrats bristled at the questions about their actions, including grilling by reporters and Republicans about who had drawn the proposed congressional districts that the party wants to put before voters.
“When I go to a restaurant, I don’t need to meet the chef,” said Assembly Elections Committee chair Gail Pellerin (D-Santa Cruz).
Democrats unveiled their campaign to suspend the independent redistricting commission’s work Thursday, proposed maps of the redrawn districts were submitted to state legislative leaders Friday, and the three bills were introduced in the legislature Monday.
If passed by a two-thirds vote in both bodies of the legislature and signed by Newsom this week, as expected, the measure will be on the ballot on Nov. 4.
On Tuesday, lawmakers listened to hours of testimony and debate, frequently engaging in testy exchanges.
After heated arguing and interrupting during an Assembly Elections Committee hearing, Pellerin admonished Assemblymembers Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park) and David Tangipa (R-Clovis).
“I would like you both to give me a little time and respect,” Pellerin said near the end of a hearing that lasted about five hours.
Tangipa and the committee’s vice chair, Assemblywoman Alexandra Macedo (R-Tulare), repeatedly questioned witnesses about issues that the GOP is likely to continue to raise: the speed with which the legislation is being pushed through, the cost of the special election, the limited opportunity for public comment on the maps, who drew the proposed new districts and who is funding the effort.
Tangipa voiced concerns that legislators had too little time to review the legislation.
“That’s insanity, and that’s heartbreaking to the rest of Californians,” Tangipa said. “How can you say you actually care about the people of California?
Berman dismissed the criticism, saying the bill was five pages long.
In a Senate elections committee hearing, State Sen. Steve Choi (R-Irvine), the only Republican on the panel, repeatedly pressed Democrats about how the maps had been drawn before they were presented.
Tom Willis, Newsom’s campaign counsel who appeared as a witness to support the redistricting bills, said the map was “publicly submitted, and then the legislature reviewed it carefully and made sure that it was legally compliant.”
But, Choi asked, who drew the maps in the first place? Willis said he couldn’t answer, because he “wasn’t a part of that process.”
In response to questions about why California should change their independent redistricting ethos to respond to potential moves by Texas, state Sen. Majority Leader Lena Gonzalez (D-Long Beach) was blunt.
“This is a partisan gerrymander,” she said, to counter the impacts of Trump administration policy decisions, from healthcare cuts to immigration raids, that are disproportionately impacting Californians. “That’s what we’re talking about here.”
Her comments prompted a GOP operative who is aiding the opposition campaign to the ballot measure to say, “It made me salivate.”
California Common Cause, an ardent supporter of independent redistricting, initially signaled openness to revisiting the state’s independent redistricting rules because they would not “call for unilateral political disarmament in the face of authoritarianism.”
But on Tuesday, the group announced its opposition to a state Senate bill.
“it would create significant rollbacks in voter protections,” the group said in a statement, arguing that the legislation would result in reduced in-person voting, less opportunities for underrepresented communities to cast ballots and dampens opportunities for public input. “These changes to the Elections Code … would hinder full voter participation, with likely disproportionate harm falling to already underrepresented Californians.”
AUSTIN, Texas — A Democratic Texas lawmaker opted to spend the night in the state House chamber and remain there Tuesday rather than allow a law enforcement officer to shadow her while Republicans try to prevent further delays to redrawing U.S. House maps.
Rep. Nicole Collier overnight stay stemmed from Republicans in the Texas House requiring returning Democrats to sign what the Democrats called “permission slips,” agreeing to around-the-clock surveillance by state Department of Public Safety officers to leave the floor. Collier, of Fort Worth, refused and remained on the House floor Monday night.
A message seeking comment was sent Tuesday to the Department of Public Safety.
The Democrats’ return to Texas puts the Republican-run Legislature in position to satisfy Trump’s demands, possibly later this week, as California Democrats advance new congressional boundaries in retaliation.
Lawmakers had officers posted outside their Capitol offices, and suburban Dallas Rep. Mihaela Plesa said one tailed her on her Monday evening drive back to her apartment in Austin after spending much of the day on a couch in her office. She said he went with her for a staff lunch and even down the hallway with her for restroom breaks.
“We were kind of laughing about it, to be honest, but this is really serious stuff,” Plesa said in a telephone interview. “This is a waste of taxpayer dollars and really performative theater.”
Collier, who represents a minority-majority district, said she would not “sign away my dignity” and allow Republicans to “control my movements and monitor me.”
“I know these maps will harm my constituents,” she said in a statement. “I won’t just go along quietly with their intimidation or their discrimination.”
2 states at the center of an expanding fight
The tit-for-tat puts the nation’s two most populous states at the center of an expanding fight over control of Congress ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. The battle has rallied Democrats nationally following infighting and frustrations among the party’s voters since Republicans took total control of the federal government in January.
Dozens of Texas Democratic lawmakers left for Illinois and elsewhere on Aug. 3, denying their Republican colleagues the attendance necessary to vote on redrawn maps intended to send five more Texas Republicans to Washington. Republicans now hold 25 of Texas’ 38 U.S. House seats.
They declared victory Friday, pointing to California’s proposal intended to increase Democrats’ U.S. House advantage by five seats. Many absent Democrats left Chicago early Monday and landed hours later at a private airfield in Austin, where several boarded a charter bus to the Capitol. Cheering supporters greeted them inside.
Republican House Speaker Dustin Burrows did not mention redistricting on the floor but promised swift action on the Legislature’s agenda.
“We aren’t playing around,” Republican state Rep. Matt Shaheen, whose district includes part of the Dallas area, said in a post on the X social media platform.
Democrats promise to keep fighting
Even as they declared victory, Democrats acknowledged Republicans can now approve redrawn districts. Texas House Minority Leader Gene Wu said Democrats would challenge the new designs in court.
Lawmakers did not take up any bills Monday and were not scheduled to return until Wednesday.
Trump has pressured other Republican-run states to consider redistricting, as well, while Democratic governors in multiple statehouses have indicated they would follow California’s lead in response. Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom has said his state will hold a Nov. 4 special referendum on the redrawn districts.
The president wants to shore up Republicans’ narrow House majority and avoid a repeat of the midterms during his first presidency. After gaining House control in 2018, Democrats used their majority to stymie his agenda and twice impeach him.
Nationally, the partisan makeup of existing district lines puts Democrats within three seats of a majority. Of the 435 total House seats, only several dozen districts are competitive. So even slight changes in a few states could affect which party wins control.
Redistricting typically occurs once at the beginning of each decade after the census. Many states, including Texas, give legislators the power to draw maps. California is among those that empower independent commissions, giving Newsom an additional hurdle.
California Democrats start redrawing process
Democratic legislators introduced new California maps Monday. It was the first official move toward the fall referendum asking voters to override the independent commission’s work after the 2020 census. The proposed boundaries would replace current ones through 2030. Democrats said they will return the mapmaking power to the commission after that.
State Republicans promised lawsuits.
Democrats hold 43 out of California’s 52 U.S. House seats. The proposal would try to expand that advantage by targeting battleground districts in Northern California, San Diego and Orange counties, and the Central Valley. Some Democratic incumbents also get more left-leaning voters in their districts.
“We don’t want this fight, but with our democracy on the line, we cannot run away from this fight,” said Democrat Marc Berman, a California Assembly member who previously chaired the elections committee.
Republicans expressed opposition in terms that echoed Democrats in Austin, accusing the majority of abusing power. Sacramento Republicans said they will introduce legislation advocating independent redistricting commissions in all states.
Texas’ governor jumped to the president’s aid
Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott launched the expanding battle when he heeded Trump’s wishes and added redistricting to an initial special session agenda that included multiple issues, including a package responding to devastating floods that killed more than 130 people last month.
Abbott has blamed Democrats’ absence for delaying action on those measures. Democrats have answered that Abbott is responsible because he effectively linked the hyper-partisan matter to nonpartisan flood relief.
Abbott, Burrows and other Republicans tried various threats and legal maneuvers to pressure Democrats’ return, including the governor arguing that Texas judges should remove absent lawmakers from office.
As long as they were out of state, lawmakers were beyond the reach of the civil arrest warrants that Burrows issued. The Democrats who returned Monday did so without being detained by law enforcement.
The lawmakers who left face fines of up to $500 for each legislative day they missed. Burrows has insisted Democratic lawmakers also will pay pick up the tab for law enforcement who attempted to corral them during the walkout.
Barrow, Nguyen, Figueroa and Hanna write for the Associated Press. Barrow reported from Atlanta. Nguyen reported from Sacramento. Hanna reported from Topeka, Kan.
The president “doesn’t play by a different set of rules — he doesn’t believe in the rules,” the governor told a roaring crowd packed with Democratic heavyweights last week at the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo. “And as a consequence, we need to disabuse ourselves of the way things have been done. It’s not good enough to just hold hands, have a candlelight vigil and talk about the way the world should be. … We have got to meet fire with fire.”
California Republicans are responding to this the way a kid reacts if you take away their Pikachu.
“An absolutely ridiculous gerrymander!” whined Rep. Doug LaMalfa, who represents the state’s rural northeast corner, on social media. Under the Democratic plan, his district would swing all the way down to ultra-liberal Marin County.
The California Republican Party deemed the new maps a “MASTERCLASS IN CORRUPTION” (Trumpian caps in the original). National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Christian Martinez said “Newscum” was giving “a giant middle finger to every Californian.”
Intelligent minds can disagree on whether countering an extreme political move with an extreme political move is the right thing. The new maps would supersede the ones devised just four years ago by an independent redistricting commission established to keep politics out of the process, which typically occurs once a decade after the latest census.
Good government types, from the League of Women Voters to Charles Munger Jr. — the billionaire who bankrolled the 2010 proposition that created independent redistricting for California congressional races — have criticized Newsom’s so-called Election Rigging Response Act. So has former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a fierce Trump critic who posted a photo of himself on social media working out in a T-shirt that read, “F*** the Politicians / Terminate Gerrymandering.”
I’m not fully convinced that Newsom’s plan is the MAGA killer he thinks it is. If the economy somehow rebounds next year, Republicans would most likely keep Congress anyway, and Newsom would have upended California politics for nothing.
I also don’t discount the moderate streak in California voters that pops up from time to time to quash what seem like liberal gimmes, like the failed attempt via ballot measure to repeal affirmative action in 2020 and the passage last year of Proposition 36, which increased penalties for theft and drug crimes. Nearly two-thirds of California voters want to keep redistricting away from the Legislature, according to a POLITICO-Citrin Center-Possibility Lab poll released last week.
If Californians reject Newsom’s plan, that would torpedo his presidential ambitions and leave egg on the face of state Democratic leaders for years, if not a generation.
For now, though, I’m going to enjoy all the tears that California Republicans are shedding. As they face the prospect of even fewer congressional seats than the paltry nine they now hold, they suddenly care about rescuing American democracy?
In this image from video, Republican Rep. Doug LaMalfa speaks at the U.S. Capitol in 2020.
Now they care about political decency? What about when LaMalfa and fellow California GOP House members Ken Calvert and Darrell Issa — whose seats the Newsom maps would also eliminate — voted against certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 victory? When the state Republican Party backed a ridiculous recall against Newsom that cost taxpayers $200 million? Or when the Republican congressional delegation unanimously voted to pass Trump’s Big Bloated Bill, even though it’s expected to gut healthcare and food programs for millions of Californians in red counties? Or even when Trump first pushed Abbott to pursue the very gerrymandering Newsom is now emulating?
We’re supposed to believe them when they proclaim Newsom is a pompadoured potentate who threatens all Californians, just because he wants to redo congressional maps?
Pot, meet black hole.
If these GOPers had even an iota of decency or genuine care for the Golden State, they would back a bill by one of their own that I actually support. Rep. Kevin Kiley, whose seat is also targeted for elimination by the Newsom maps, wants to ban all mid-decade congressional redistricting. He stated via a press release that this would “stop a damaging redistricting war from breaking out across the country.”
That’s an effort that any believer in liberty can and should back. But Kiley’s bill has no co-sponsors so far. And Kevin: Why can’t you say that your man Trump created this fiasco in the first place?
We live in scary times for our democracy. If you don’t believe it, consider that a bunch of masked Border Patrol agents just happened to show up outside the Japanese American National Museum — situated on a historic site where citizens of Japanese ancestry boarded buses to incarceration camps during World War II — at the same time Newsom was delivering his redistricting remarks. Sector Chief Gregory Bovino was there, migra cameramen documenting his every smirk, including when he told a reporter that his agents were there to make “Los Angeles a safer place, since we won’t have politicians that’ll do that, we do that ourselves.”
The show of force was so obviously an authoritarian flex that Newsom filed a Freedom of Information Act request demanding to know who authorized what and why. Meanwhile, referring to Trump, he described the action on X as “an attempt to advance a playbook from the despots he admires in Russia and North Korea.”
Newsom is not everyone’s cup of horchata, myself included. Whether you support it or not, watching him rip up the California Constitution’s redistricting section and assuring us it’s OK, because he’s the one doing it, is discomfiting.
But you know what’s worse? Trump anything. And even worse? The California GOP leaders who have loudly cheered him on, damn the consequences to the state they supposedly love.
History will castigate their cultish devotion to Trump far worse than any of Newsom’s attempts to counter that scourge.
