seat

Labour MP Clive Lewis has offered to give up his seat to allow Andy Burnham to challenge Sir Keir Starmer for the Labour leadership.

There has been ongoing speculation that Greater Manchester Mayor Burnham wants to take on Sir Keir for the top job, but he would need to be an MP to do so.

Lewis told the BBC’s Politics Live that he was willing to step down from his Norwich South seat to allow Burnham to return to the Commons and put “country before party, party before personal ambition”.

Burnham was contacted for comment. Number 10 declined to comment.

Lewis, who has been an MP for 10 years, said he had spoken to Burnham, and when asked if he would give up his seat for him, he said it was “a question I’ve asked myself”.

He added: “Do you know what? If I’m going to sit here and say country before party, party before personal ambition, then yes, I have to say yes, don’t I.”

Last week, he said Sir Keir’s position as prime minister was “untenable” and told Channel 4 News that Burnham should be given the chance to “step up”.

Lewis first won his seat in 2015, and last year he increased his majority to more than 13,000.

But if he were to step down, any would-be successor would first need to win a selection contest before a by-election was held.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting – who last week denied claims he was plotting a leadership bid of his own – told LBC he thought it was a “peculiar” move by the Norwich South MP.

“I’ve got a lot of time for Andy and I think we need our best players on the pitch,” Streeting said.

“And whether he’s doing that as mayor of Greater Manchester or whether he wants to come back into parliament in the next general election, that is an issue for Andy.

“I think it’s a bit of a peculiar thing for Clive to have said to his own constituents, ‘Oh, well, I’m not interested in being your MP, I’m happy to do a deal with someone’.

“I would just say from personal experience, don’t take your voters for granted.”

In September, Burnham said he had “no intention of abandoning Manchester” but did not rule out challenging Sir Keir after a series of interviews in which he said colleagues had been urging him to stand.

Two Manchester Labour MPs, Andrew Gwynne and Graham Stringer, ruled out standing down for him ahead of the party’s conference in September.

Sir Keir has, meanwhile, said he will lead Labour into the next general election. It came after a bruising time last week, when anonymous briefings were given to journalists that some cabinet ministers – including Streeting – were plotting to oust him.

The ministers concerned have insisted this is not the case – but speculation continues about whether the PM will face a challenge in May, when Labour is expected to do badly in Scottish and Welsh elections, and in English local elections.

Anyone mounting a leadership bid would have to secure the backing of 80 Labour MPs.

WASHINGTON — Rep. Adam Gray was one of only six House Democrats — and the only one from California — who voted with Republicans in favor of a deal to end the government shutdown, and there was a calculated reason behind that decision.

Gray, a first-term Democrat from the Central Valley, is running for reelection in a majority Latino district that national Republicans are expected to heavily target as they defend their narrow House majority in next fall’s midterm elections. Last year, Gray won his seat by 187 votes, and although redistricting has since made the 13th District more favorable to Democrats, it remains highly competitive.

The Merced Democrat’s vote reflects the political reality of representing one of the nation’s few battleground districts. Gray is positioning himself as an independent-minded Democrat willing to buck leadership on politically divisive issues. The shutdown deal gave him a rare opportunity to put that in practice, even at the risk of frustrating members of his own party.

“I know it is not comfortable, and I know there’s people that are going to be mad at me,” Gray told The Times. “But I am not here to win an argument. I am here to actually help fix problems with people in my community, and I know I did the right thing.”

Democratic representatives and senators for weeks were steadfast in opposing a shutdown deal that did not include language to extend Obamacare tax credits that are set to expire at the end of the year, and as a result, leave millions of Americans with higher healthcare costs.

In Gray’s district, more than half of residents rely on Medi-Cal or have coverage through the Affordable Care Act marketplace, making them vulnerable to rising healthcare costs — a pocketbook issue that is likely to factor into an already competitive congressional race.

Beyond healthcare, nearly 48,000 families in his largely rural district rely on food benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, according to the latest data provided by the Department of Agriculture. Those benefits were put at risk during the shutdown as funding for the federal program commonly called food stamps was caught up in legal disputes.

As the shutdown dragged on without meaningful negotiations on healthcare, Gray said, he grew concerned that Republicans were too comfortable “using vulnerable Americans as political leverage.”

Ultimately, Gray was among just 13 Democrats — six in the House, seven in the Senate — who went against their party to end the shutdown that had dragged on an historic 43 days.

“The government is reopening because Democrats were willing to compromise,” Gray said.

The deal, which was signed by President Trump last week, will fund the government through January 2026 and reinstate federal workers who were laid off during the shutdown. It will also fund SNAP through September 2026, a provision that Gray says he wanted to secure because he worries that partisanship could lead to another shutdown in January.

Republicans attack his position

Although Gray voted with Republicans over the shutdown, national Republican operatives still see his seat as a main target ahead of next year’s election — and there is good reason for that.

The seat has a history of party flipping.

In 2024, Gray won his seat by 187 votes, the slimmest margin of any race in the country. His opponent, Republican John Duarte, who cast himself a centrist in the race, had only held the seat for one term before being beat. (And he defeated Gray two years earlier by just 564 votes.)

President Trump carried the 13th last year by five points, underscoring the competitiveness of the Central Valley district which backed Joe Biden in the first Biden-Trump matchup of 2020.

The passage of Proposition 50 has made the district safer for Democrats as the new congressional map shifts parts of Stockton, Modesto and northern Stanislaus County into the district, while removing more conservative, rural territory west of Fresno. Still, it remains a highly competitive district.

Like Duarte, Gray has positioned himself as a centrist, but that hasn’t stopped Republicans from portraying him as being from the party’s far-left flank.

Christian Martinez, a spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee, is now focusing on Gray’s voting history on the shutdown as a reason to criticize the incumbent. Specifically, how Gray in September abstained from voting on a bill that would have prevented the shutdown.

“Instead of delivering results for Californians, out-of-touch Democrat Adam Gray is too busy appeasing his radical socialist base, and now he’s fully responsible for holding Americans hostage with the longest government shutdown in history,” Martinez said.

Martinez added that “hardworking Californians paid the price for his refusal to vote to keep the government open, and next November, they’ll send him packing.”

Gray is now facing a Republican challenge from former Stockton Mayor Kevin Lincoln. When Lincoln announced his bid on Nov. 6, before the shutdown deal vote, he criticized Gray for not doing enough to prevent the shutdown in the first place.

“Washington politicians like Adam Gray have fallen in line with a failed liberal agenda that’s made life less affordable and less safe,” Lincoln said in a statement.

Moving forward, Gray sees the vote as an opportunity to reset negotiations and find a bipartisan solution before funding runs out again on Jan. 30, 2026.

“I think we’re moving in the right direction,” Gray said. “I hope my colleagues have the courage to do the right thing over the next days.”

Back in his district, Democrats have had a mixed reaction to his vote. As for his congressional colleagues, they have not offered up much criticism, choosing to let Gray explain his vote to the ever-changeable 13th District.

The Justice Department on Thursday sued to block new congressional district boundaries approved by California voters last week, joining a court battle that could help determine which party wins control of the U.S. House in 2026.

The complaint filed in California federal court targets the new congressional map pushed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in response to a similar Republican-led effort in Texas backed by President Trump. It sets the stage for a high-stakes legal and political fight between the Republican administration and the Democratic governor, who is seen as a likely 2028 presidential contender.

“California’s redistricting scheme is a brazen power grab that tramples on civil rights and mocks the democratic process,” Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said in an emailed statement. “Governor Newsom’s attempt to entrench one-party rule and silence millions of Californians will not stand.”

California voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 50, a constitutional amendment that changes the state’s congressional boundaries to give Democrats a shot at winning five seats currentlyheld by Republicans in next year’s midterm elections.

The Justice Department is joining a case challenging the new map that was brought by the California Republican Party last week. The Trump administration accuses California of racial gerrymandering in violation of the Constitution by using race as a factor to favor Latino voters with the new map. It asks a judge to prohibit California from using the new map in any future elections.

“Race cannot be used as a proxy to advance political interests, but that is precisely what the California General Assembly did with Proposition 50 — the recent ballot initiative that junked California’s pre-existing electoral map in favor of a rush-job rejiggering of California’s congressional district lines,” the lawsuit says.

Proposition 50 was Newsom’s response to Trump’s maneuvers in Texas, where Republicans rejiggered districts in hopes of picking up five seats of their own ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, when House control will be on the line.

Democrats need to gain just a handful of seats next year to take control of the chamber, a win that would imperil Trump’s agenda for the remainder of his term and open the way for congressional investigations into his administration. Republicans currently hold 219 seats, to Democrats’ 214.

The showdown between the nation’s two most populous states has spread nationally, with Missouri, Ohio and a spray of other states either adopting new district lines to gain partisan advantage or considering doing so.

The national implications of California’s ballot measure were clear in both the money it attracted and the high-profile figures who became involved. Tens of millions of dollars flowed into the race, including a $5-million donation to opponents from the Congressional Leadership Fund, the super political action committee tied to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).

Former action movie star and Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger opposed the measure, while former President Obama, a Democrat, appeared in ads supporting it, calling it a “smart” approach to counter Republican moves aimed at safeguarding House control.

The contest provided Newsom with a national platform when he has confirmed he will consider a White House run in 2028.

Richer and Blood write for the Associated Press. Richer reported from Chicago.

NEW YORK — John F. Kennedy’s grandson Jack Schlossberg is running for the U.S. House next year, announcing Tuesday that he’s seeking a congressional seat in New York City that will be vacated by longtime Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler.

Schlossberg, 32, is a sardonic social media personality with a large following and storied political roots. In a video, he said the district covering a core chunk of Manhattan “should have a representative who can harness the creativity, energy and drive of this district and translate that into political power in Washington.”

Nadler, who is serving his 17th term in Congress, announced in September that he will not run for reelection next year after decades in office, suggesting to The New York Times that a younger Democratic lawmaker in his seat “can maybe do better, can maybe help us more.”

Several possible successors have emerged for the solidly Democratic district, including Micah Lasher, a former aide to Nadler and current New York state lawmaker with deep experience in government. The district stretches from Union Square to the top of Central Park, including the wealthy Upper East Side and Upper West Side neighborhoods.

In his campaign video, Schlossberg took aim at President Trump and Republican governance in Washington, saying “It’s a crisis at every level.”

“We deserve better, and we can do better, and it starts with the Democratic Party winning back control of the House of Representatives,” he said.

Schlossberg has cultivated his online presence with frequent posts weighing in on national political issues, including taking aim at his cousin Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Trump administration’s health and human services secretary who’s been a vocal vaccine skeptic.

Last month, Schlossberg posted on Instagram an image of a Halloween costume for “MAHA Man,” in reference to Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again message and described it as including such things as measles.

Flying long-haul can come with its challenges, and one passenger has issued a stark warning after they booked a specific seat on their British Airways flight and found themselves in ‘complete hell’

Checking in for a flight 24 hours ahead of its departure has proven to be a vital step in our travel plans, allowing us to secure our preferred seat, particularly on long-haul flights. However, sometimes, despite our best efforts, we are dealt the short straw.

One passenger discovered this during their 14-hour British Airways flight from Kuala Lumpur (KUL), the capital of Malaysia, to London (LHR) after opting to book the window seat in 41A. Despite a view out of the plane often being favourable among travellers, this passenger labelled it “complete hell” as they had “no window” and limited space on the Boeing 787.

But those weren’t her only issues with the seat.

READ MORE: I went on an adults-only trip to one of UK’s best family holiday parks — everyone asked me 1 questionREAD MORE: I visited seaside town named best place to retire — it’s perfect for weekends with £83 hotels

In a bid to warn others about booking this specific seat on a BA flight, they shared a photo of their limited leg room, which showed a silver box fixed underneath the seat in front on the left-hand side, thought to be the entertainment system. This forced the passenger in 41A to shift his feet and legs further to the right, bringing him closer to his flight neighbour.

In the Reddit post, the passenger revealed: “I had the misfortune of picking a window seat 41a on the Boeing 787 from KL to London. It’s a 14-hour flight, and I honestly don’t see how this seat could possibly be sold. There’s no window, it’s narrowing as the fuselage narrows, so you get less room to your left, they’ve chucked the entertainment box in your footspace, and then I was sat next to two larger men.

“It was honestly complete hell. I don’t see how any of that is possibly acceptable in the slightest. They shouldn’t even sell the seat at all. Luckily, after on hour, the stewardesses felt so bad for me because I clearly looked incredibly squashed (186cm tall) that they moved me for free. I just wanted to warn people, never ever ever book this seat. Literally would rather fly Ryanair for 14 hours.”

While the passenger was thankfully able to move seats, they titled the Reddit post “A warning to everyone about 41a and 41K.”

The post was met with a flurry of comments as other travellers expressed their sympathy for the situation during a long-haul flight.

One wrote: “I freaking hate those stupid boxes. What a disaster of a design.” A second added: “REALLY old tech too. Could be 1/10th the size with WAY less power draw.”

A third experienced a similar situation as they explained: “Experienced this damned thing for the first time from LHR to Boston yesterday. I’m 6″2 and I’ve flown plenty long haul to the west coast and never been as uncomfortable as I was on this flight.

“The front of my left leg – under my knee cap to halfway down my shin – is still numb right now, even after loads of walking.”

Another expanded: “That box is the IFE box. It’s a mini computer which runs multiple screens. But it’s a bit crap where they placed it. Economy is a challenge at the best of times, especially when you’re in a corner like that. Glad they moved you!”

“The aircraft itself is great, the problem is the airlines that decided to squeeze as many seats as possible. If I’m not mistaken, some Japanese airlines have one less seat per row on the Dreamliner, making the journey much more comfortable,” another traveller noted.

British Airways has been contacted for comment.

Do you have a travel story to share? Email [email protected]

Reporting from Washington — President Trump is expected to move quickly to nominate a replacement for retiring Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s soon-to-be-vacant Supreme Court seat, and two leading candidates are veteran Washington, D.C., appellate Judge Brett Kavanaugh and Judge Amy Coney Barrett, a former Notre Dame law professor and recent Trump appointee to the 7th Circuit in Chicago.

They emerged from a list of more than two dozen potential nominees put together by the conservative Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation.

The list was Trump’s idea and it has proven effective, said Leonard Leo, a Federalist Society official who is advising the White House. It told Republican voters that he was serious about appointing only reliable conservatives to the high court, he said.

Unlike in decades past, when presidents and their top lawyers scrambled to find a qualified nominee when a vacancy suddenly arose, the Federalist Society list is the result of careful screening. A team of lawyers read and analyzed everything written or said by the candidates.

Their unofficial motto is “No more Souters,” a reference to now-retired Justice David H. Souter, who was nominated by President George H.W. Bush in 1990. Souter was a little-known judge from New Hampshire, but the White House team assured Republicans he was a conservative.

They were wrong. Souter was careful and cautious as a judge and devoted to precedent. But his leanings were moderate to liberal. In 1992, Souter along with Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and Sandra Day O’Connor joined to uphold the right to abortion announced two decades earlier in Roe vs. Wade.

Conservatives are determined never to make the same mistake again.

Kavanaugh, 53, grew up in Washington and is the favorite of many conservative lawyers here. He went to Yale Law School and clerked at the Supreme Court for Kennedy alongside Neil M. Gorsuch, who joined the court last year as Trump’s first appointment. Kavanaugh was a top deputy to independent counsel Kenneth Starr in the long investigation of President Clinton, and he drafted the Starr Report that led to Clinton’s impeachment. He also joined the legal team that represented George W. Bush in the fight over the recount in the 2000 presidential election.

Kavanaugh worked in the White House counsel’s office for Bush and later served as his staff secretary.

In 2003, Bush nominated him to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, but Democrats initially blocked his confirmation. Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) called him a “very bright legal foot soldier” who has been in the middle of every partisan legal battle. But Kavanaugh finally won confirmation in 2006.

Since then, Kavanaugh has written hundreds of opinions, and he is known for always staking out a conservative position.

“He is much more conservative in his approach to law than Justice Kennedy,” said Justin Walker, a University of Louisville law professor who clerked for Kavanaugh at the appeals court and Kennedy at the Supreme Court. “There is no guesswork with Judge Kavanaugh. He is extremely predictable.”

Walker cited, as an example, Kavanaugh’s support for the right to own a semiautomatic rifle under the 2nd Amendment. In 2008, the Supreme Court struck down a District of Columbia ordinance that prohibited residents from having a handgun at home. The same plaintiff later claimed the right to possess a semiautomatic weapon, but lost by a 2-1 vote in the D.C. Circuit, Walker noted. Kavanaugh wrote a lengthy dissent arguing that the 2nd Amendment included the right to have such a weapon.

The Supreme Court, however, has rejected appeals raising that issue, which has the effect of upholding laws and ordinances that banned such assault weapons.

Last fall, Kavanaugh was involved in a quick-moving dispute over whether a migrant teenager in Texas could be released from immigration custody to obtain an abortion. A federal judge cleared the way, but Kavanaugh wrote a 2-1 decision siding with Trump administration lawyers and blocking the abortion for up to 10 more days. The full appeals court intervened and overturned his ruling. In dissent, he faulted his more liberal colleagues as wrongly creating a “new right for unlawful immigrant minors in U.S. government detention to obtain abortion on demand.”

Like many judges, he has avoided any direct comments in his legal opinions about Roe vs. Wade, the landmark abortion ruling that will loom large over upcoming confirmation hearings.

In contrast to Kavanaugh, Barrett, 46, is a newcomer with a sparse record as a judge. She is a product of the University of Notre Dame and South Bend, Ind. She went law school at Notre Dame and spent a few years in Washington as a law clerk for D.C. Circuit Judge Laurence Silberman and Justice Antonin Scalia. She returned in 2002 to teach law at Notre Dame.

Barrett was narrowly confirmed by the Senate in November, and now commutes a few days a week from South Bend to downtown Chicago.

She has, however, written and spoken frequently about the importance of her Catholic faith and in her belief that life begins at conception. In a 2003 scholarly article, she suggested Roe vs. Wade was an “erroneous decision.”

During her Senate hearing, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said she had read Barrett’s writings, adding that the “dogma lives loudly within you, and that’s a concern.”

That comment triggered a sharp backlash from Barrett’s defenders and others, who said the nominee was being criticized for her faith.

But if Barrett is the nominee, Democrats and liberal activists are certain to focus on her views about abortion and the role they might play if the court is asked to overturn Roe.

The latest from Washington »

More stories from David G. Savage »

[email protected]

Twitter: DavidGSavage

In September, Donald Trump posted an AI-generated image of himself on the shores of Lake Michigan in Chicago, depicted as Lt. Col. Kilgore, the gung-ho warmonger memorably played by Robert Duvall in Francis Ford Coppola’s messy masterpiece, “Apocalypse Now” — except the graphic bore the title “Chipocalypse Now.”

Trump sent out the message as his scorched-earth immigration enforcement campaign descended on the Windy City after doing its cruelty calisthenics in Southern California over the summer. Two months later, the campaign — nicknamed “Operation Midway Blitz” — shows no sign of slowing down.

La migra has been so out of control that a federal judge issued an injunction against their use of force, saying what they’ve done “shocks the conscience.” Among other outrages, agents shot and killed an immigrant trying to drive away from them, ran into a daycare facility and dragged out a teacher and tear-gassed a street that was about to host a Halloween kiddie parade.

I had a chance to witness the mayhem it has caused last week — and how Chicagoans have fought back.

The University of Chicago brought me to do talks with students and the community for a couple of days, including with members of the Maroon, the school’s newspaper. Earlier in the week, Fox News put them on blast because they had created a database of places around campus where la migra had been spotted.

Good job, young scribes!

In Little Village, pocket Patton meets his match

After my speech at the University of Chicago’s Divinity School, I noticed someone had hung whistles around the neck of a bronze bust. Whistles have become the unlikely tool of resistance in the city, I wrote in a columna — something that I argued Latinos nationwide had also employed metaphorically with their election night clapback at Republicans.

When I woke up Thursday morning at my tony hotel, the Chicago Tribune’s front page screamed “Use of Force Under Fire” and focused on the actions of commander-at-large Gregory Bovino. You remember him, Angelenos: he’s the pocket Patton who oversaw the pointless invasion of MacArthur Park in July and seemed to spend as much time in front of cameras as doing his actual job.

Bovino has continued the buffoonery in Chicago, where he admitted under oath to lying about why he had tossed a tear gas canister at residents in Little Village, the city’s most famous Mexican American neighborhood, in October (Bovino originally said someone hit him with a rock).

I Ubered to Little Village to meet with community activist Baltazar Enriquez so we could eat at one of his neighborhood’s famous Mexican restaurants and talk about what has happened.

I instead walked right into a cacophony of whistles, honks and screams: Bovino and his goons were cruising around Little Village and surrounding neighborhoods that morning just for the hell of it.

From L.A. to the rest of the country, and back

“Every time Trump or la migra lose in something, they pull something like this,” a business owner told me as she looked out on 26th Street, Little Village’s main thoroughfare. Customers were hiding inside her store. Over four hours, I followed Enriquez as he and other activists drove through Little Village’s streets to warn their neighbors what was happening.

The scene played out again in Little Village on Saturday shortly after I filed my columna, with Bovino holding a tear gas canister in his hand and threatening to toss it at residents, openly mocking the federal judge’s injunction prohibiting him from such reckless terrorizing (Monday, the Department of Homeland Security claimed agents had weathered gun shots, bricks, paint cans and rammed vehicles). And to top it off, he had his officers pose in front of Chicago’s infamous stainless steel bean for a photo, just like they did in front of the Hollywood sign (Block Club Chicago reported the funboys shouted “Little Village” for giggles).

Given ICE just received billions of dollars in funds to hire more agents and construct detention camps across the country, expect more scenes like this to continue in Chicago, boomerang back to Southern California and cut through the heart of Latino USA in the weeks, months and years to come. But I nevertheless left Chicagoland with hope — and a whistle.

Time for us to start wearing them, Los Angeles.

Today’s top stories

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) currently faces the lowest approval ratings of any national leader in Washington.

(Jacquelyn Martin / Associated Press)

The government shutdown

• Senators approved a deal that could end the shutdown on a 60-40 vote, a day after Senate Republicans reached a deal with eight senators who caucus with Democrats.
• Democrats in the House vowed to keep fighting for insurance subsidies.
• Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is facing pressure to step down as Senate Democratic leader after failing to prevent members of his caucus from breaking ranks.
• States are caught in Trump’s legal battle to revoke SNAP benefits after a federal judge ordered full funding.

A brief bout of summer weather

Courts protect LGBTQ+ rights

More big stories

Commentary and opinions

• California columnist Anita Chabria argues that Democrats crumbled like cookies in the shutdown fight.
• Gov. Gavin Newsom is still writing his path to the presidency. Columnist George Skelton points to Zohran Mamdani for inspiration.
• President Trump’s effort to rename Veterans Day flopped — and for good reason, argues guest contributor Joanna Davidson.

This morning’s must reads

Other great reads

For your downtime

(Andrew Rae / For The Times)

Going out

Staying in

Question of the day: What’s one special dish your family makes for Thanksgiving?

Judi Farkas said: “An old Russian recipe that has descended through 5 generations of our family, Carrot Tzimmis was traditionally served as part of the Passover meal. It’s perfect with a Thanksgiving turkey. Tzimmis is sweet, as are so many of the Thanksgiving dishes, so I pair it with a Jalapeño Cornbread dressing and a robust salad vinaigrette so that no one gets overwhelmed. It connects me to my family’s heritage, but repurposed for the holidays we celebrate now.”

Email us at [email protected], and your response might appear in the newsletter this week.

And finally … the photo of the day

A person surfs at Salt Creek Beach on Sunday in Dana Point.

(Juliana Yamada/Los Angeles Times)

Today’s great photo is from Juliana Yamada of a surfer at Salt Creek Beach in Dana Point.

Have a great day, from the Essential California team

Jim Rainey, staff reporter
Hugo Martin, assistant editor
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
June Hsu, editorial fellow
Andrew Campa, weekend reporter
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to [email protected].

SALT LAKE CITY — A Utah judge on Monday rejected a new congressional map drawn by Republican lawmakers, adopting an alternate proposal creating a Democratic-leaning district ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

Republicans hold all four of Utah’s U.S. House seats and had advanced a map poised to protect them.

Judge Dianna Gibson ruled just before a midnight deadline that the Legislature’s new map “unduly favors Republicans and disfavors Democrats.”

She had ordered lawmakers to draw a map that complies with standards established by voters to ensure districts don’t deliberately favor a party, a practice known as gerrymandering. If they failed, Gibson warned she may consider other maps submitted by plaintiffs in the lawsuit that led her to throw out Utah’s existing map.

Gibson ultimately selected a map drawn by plaintiffs, the League of Women Voters of Utah and Mormon Women for Ethical Government. It keeps Salt Lake County almost entirely within one district, instead of dividing the heavily Democratic population center among all four districts, as was the case previously.

The judge’s ruling throws a curveball for Republicans in a state where they expected a clean sweep as they’re working to add winnable seats elsewhere. Nationally, Democrats need to net three U.S. House seats next year to wrest control of the chamber from the GOP, which is trying to buck a historic pattern of the president’s party losing seats in the midterms.

The newly approved map gives Democrats a much stronger chance to flip a seat in a state that has not had a Democrat in Congress since early 2021.

“This is a win for every Utahn,” said state House and Senate Democrats in a joint statement. “We took an oath to serve the people of Utah, and fair representation is the truest measure of that promise.”

In August, Gibson struck down the Utah congressional map adopted after the 2020 census because the Legislature had circumvented anti-gerrymandering standards passed by voters.

The ruling thrust Utah into a national redistricting battle as President Trump urged other Republican-led states to take up mid-decade redistricting to try to help the GOP retain control of the House in 2026. Some Democratic states are considering new maps of their own, with California voters approving a map last week that gives Democrats a shot at winning five more seats. Republicans are still ahead in the redistricting fight.

Redistricting typically occurs once a decade after a census. There are no federal restrictions to redrawing districts mid-decade, but some states — more led by Democrats than Republicans — set their own limitations. The Utah ruling gives an unexpected boost to Democrats, who have fewer opportunities to gain seats through redistricting.

If Gibson had instead approved the map drawn by lawmakers, all four districts would still lean Republican but two would have become slightly competitive for Democrats. Their proposal gambled on Republicans’ ability to protect all four seats under much slimmer margins rather than create a single-left leaning district.

The ruling came minutes before midnight on the day the state’s top election official said was the latest possible date to enact a new congressional map so county clerks would have enough time to prepare for candidate filings for the 2026 midterms.

Republicans have argued Gibson does not have legal authority to enact a map that wasn’t approved by the Legislature. State Rep. Matt MacPherson called the ruling a “gross abuse of power” and said he has opened a bill to pursue impeachment against Gibson.

Gibson said in her ruling she has an obligation to ensure a lawful map is in place by the deadline.

Schoenbaum writes for the Associated Press.

SAN FRANCISCO — It is a delicate situation: Democratic Rep. Sala Burton, whose district encompasses 75% of this city, is battling cancer. And various politicians–some of them her friends–are openly lining up support to go after her seat, should it suddenly come open.

Politics are always lively in the city that has produced such powerful operators as Burton’s late husband, Phillip, Assembly Speaker Willie Brown and Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy. But the next election in the 5th Congressional District–whenever it comes–promises to be especially intense because it will pit increasingly powerful gay and neighborhood activists against the old Democratic machine built by Phil Burton and Brown.

“This thing is the talk of the town,” said Paul Ambrosino, a young San Francisco political consultant. “There’s really only been one hot race for this seat since Phil Burton won it 20 years ago. So nobody knows precisely what the values of the voters are or how the various voting blocs might respond.”

Sala Burton, 61, underwent surgery for colon cancer in August and recently went back into George Washington University Hospital. She met Saturday with relatives and friends in Washington and announced that she hopes to finish out her term but will not seek reelection in 1988.

“It’s an awful situation,” said Paul Pelosi, whose wife, Nancy, a San Francisco socialite and longtime Democratic activist, is a close friend of Sala Burton and wants to succeed her when she leaves Congress.

“I really believe Sala is going to get better,” Nancy Pelosi said in an interview. “I will seek her seat in 1988 if she does not run.”

Pelosi, former chairwoman of the California Democratic Party, is well-connected to numerous national Democratic figures and has helped many of them raise money. She could expect them to return the favor, and she would also get help from former Rep. John Burton, Sala Burton’s brother-in-law, and from Brown and McCarthy, who have been close to Pelosi for years.

Until recently, that kind of support from the Democratic establishment would have made Pelosi the heavy favorite. But that is no longer the case, according to political consultants familiar with the district.

65% Democratic

With 65% of its voters registered Democratic, the 5th Congressional District has long been a stronghold of liberal, pro-labor forces.

But its working-class character has been altered in recent years by the influx of young, upwardly mobile professionals, or Yuppies. In the 1984 Democratic presidential primary, for example, Yuppie favorite Gary Hart of Colorado stunned the supporters of former Vice President Walter Mondale by winning five of the six national convention delegates.

Gays and neighborhood groups are increasingly active in the district.

What this means, according to consultants in the city, is that an establishment candidate like Pelosi would face a major battle for the 5th District from Harry Britt, a gay activist and champion of renters’ rights who who has served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors since 1979. He has announced that he will run if Burton’s seat becomes open.

“The (Burton) machine expects us to always give them their votes, but this time it’s different,” said Dick Pabich, Britt’s political consultant, who explained that better leadership on the AIDS issue is the major goal of the gay community.

AIDS a ‘Top Priority’

“If Harry won, his top priority in Congress would be AIDS,” Pabich said. “Some members of Congress, like (Los Angeles Democratic Rep. Henry) Waxman have been helpful on this, but there is no one back there really out front in a leadership role on AIDS.”

San Francisco political consultant Clint Reilly said: “The gays feel they have paid their dues, that they’ve come of age. They believe it is their turn, and Britt is their candidate. I would expect money to pour in from gays all over the country if there is a special election for this seat.”

Political consultants say Britt would go into a special election with a significant bloc of gay votes, a bloc that would be magnified in importance if turnout is low, as expected.

Also mentioned as possible candidates for the Burton seat are Supervisors Bill Maher and Carol Ruth Silver, both Democrats.

Even Mayor Dianne Feinstein, who is in the last year of her tenure, has considered running for the seat while she bides her time for a possible statewide candidacy later. Some of her advisers have urged her to run if Burton resigns, even if that comes before the end of Feinstein’s term as mayor. But Deputy Mayor Hadley Rolfe said: “She wants to finish out her last year as mayor; it’s very important to her.”

Should Burton not be able to finish out her term, Gov. George Deukmejian would have to call a special election. It would be preceded by an open primary, meaning that Democrats and Republicans could vote for candidates of either party.

That could be significant, according to Reilly, because if the Republicans do not come up with a credible candidate of their own, one of the Democratic candidates could benefit from a bloc of the Republican votes if they could be motivated to turn out.

California Republicans in Congress are vastly outnumbered by their Democratic counterparts in the state — and it may get worse.

Five of the nine GOP seats are at risk after California voters passed Proposition 50 in Tuesday’s special election. The measure, put on the ballot by the Democratic-led state Legislature, reshaped California congressional districts in a way that was specifically designed to unseat Republican incumbents.

The new maps target areas held by Reps. Kevin Kiley and Doug LaMalfa in Northern California, Rep. David Valadao in the Central Valley, and Reps. Ken Calvert, Young Kim and Darrell Issa in Southern California. The radical reconfiguration not only put Republicans in danger, but probably protects vulnerable Democratic officeholders by adding more voters from their own party into their reconfigured districts.

Already, California’s Republican members hold just nine seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, while Democrats have 43.

Proposition 50’s passage also sets off an intraparty fight for a newly created Republican seat in Riverside and Orange counties, which will pit two GOP incumbents against one another — Calvert of Corona and Kim of Anaheim Hills — knocking one of them out of office. Calvert and Kim on Wednesday announced they planned to run for that seat.

“With the passage of Prop. 50, Californians were sold a bill of goods, allowing [Gov.] Gavin Newsom and his radical allies in Sacramento an unprecedented power grab to redraw the Congressional map and silence those who disagree with his extreme policies,” Calvert said in a statement.

Newsom and other Democratic leaders argue that redistricting, which normally happens once a decade by an independent commission, was necessary after GOP leaders in Texas redrew their own congressional districts — at the request of President Trump — in a bid to add more seats for their party and retain Republican control of the House.

The passage of Proposition 50 will boost Democratic efforts to win control of the House after the 2026 election, a victory that likely would stifle parts of Trump’s agenda and open the president and his administration to a litany of congressional investigations.

Proposition 50 is expected to exacerbate the political isolation that millions of Republicans in California already feel, especially in the state’s vast northern and inland territories, and conservative suburban enclaves.

Trump won 38% of the presidential vote in California last year. About a quarter of the state’s registered voters are Republicans. Yet, Democrats have held every statewide office since 2011, and have an iron grip on the California congressional delegation.

Some California Republicans may be left asking: “Who in Congress is representing our views and who do we turn to?” said Mark Baldassare, survey director of the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California.

Cook Political Report, which tracks elections, changed 11 California congressional district race ratings Tuesday, with all but one district moving in Democrats’ favor.

Political consultant Rob Stutzman remains skeptical that Democrats will win all five congressional seats targeted by Newsom in the 2026 midterm elections. Some of the GOP representatives have deep roots in the community and have survived past challenges by Democrats, Stutzman said.

Newsom and others “may have overpromised what Prop. 50 could do,” Stutzman said.

Here are the top six Republicans whose districts were changed by Proposition 50 and who may find their political future at risk.

Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale)

In Northern California, LaMalfa appears likely to run in one of two redesigned districts: One that stretches toward Mendocino National Forest and south toward Santa Rosa, or another that runs along the Oregon border and down the coast to the San Francisco Bay Area.

His current district, which spreads across the deeply conservative northeast corner of California to the Sacramento suburbs, was carved up by Proposition 50 and replaced with three districts that favor Democrats.

“They’re not going to kidnap my district here without a battle,” LaMalfa, 65, said Tuesday.

Democrats running for Congressional District 1’s seat — the seat that includes Mendocino National Forest — include Audrey Denney, an education director who unsuccessfully challenged LaMalfa in 2018 and 2020.

Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Rocklin)

Kiley’s new district takes in neighborhoods in and around Sacramento, pulling in Democratic voters and losing former Republican communities along the Nevada border.

He hasn’t said which district he’ll seek.

“My current district is split six different ways,” Kiley, 40, said Wednesday. “In that sense, I have a lot of options.”

On Tuesday night, he promised to “work across party lines to find a national solution to the age-old plague of gerrymandering, and in particular, to the more recent affliction of mid-decade gerrymandering.”

Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford)

Valadao’s predominantly Latino district in the Central Valley extends north post-Proposition 50, gaining more registered Democrats.

Still, more Democratic voters doesn’t necessarily translate to a Democratic victory, given the conservative attitudes in the region. A dairy farmer, Valadao, 48, has survived past challenges, in part due to poor turnout among Democrats and his popularity among moderate voters in the Central Valley.

Among those who have announced their intention to challenge Valadao is Visalia school board trustee Randy Villegas, a Democrat.

Valadao was among the few Republicans who voted to impeach President Trump following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters, increasing his appeal to Democratic voters. But he could also be vulnerable because of his support for Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” which cut medical benefits for roughly two-thirds of his constituents. The representative argued his district will get concessions for rural hospitals, water infrastructure and agricultural investments in the legislation.

A Valadao spokesperson didn’t immediately respond for a request for comment Tuesday night.

Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Corona) and Rep. Young Kim (R-Anaheim Hills)

Nearly all of Calvert’s district was moved north, and now takes in the Los Angeles County communities of Pomona, Ontario and Fontana.

However, Calvert, 72, announced he would run for the newly formed 40th Congressional District, which includes western Riverside County and eastern Orange County, including his hometown of Corona, as well as Murrieta and Mission Viejo. It’s a strongly Republican district now shared by Republican colleague Kim of Anaheim Hills.

“Californians in the newly drawn 40th District deserve a proven conservative they can trust and a fighter who has delivered results for Riverside and Orange County for decades,” Calvert said in a statement Wednesday. “No one else comes close to my record of service to the new 40th. I’ve lived here my entire life and already represent the majority of this district in Congress.”

Calvert praised Trump’s economic record and efforts to “secure our borders,” a direct appeal to the president’s MAGA base living in the region.

Michael Moodian, public policy researcher at Chapman University, expects Calvert will face a “tough fight” with Kim in the 2026 election.

Calvert is the longest-serving Republican member of California’s congressional delegation and is well known among voters in the area, while Kim is a strong fundraiser and has a moderate tone given that her current district is politically divided, Moodian said.

Kim, 63, one of the first Korean American women elected to Congress, last year won a third term.

Kim on Wednesday boasted that she was one of the most prominent Republican fundraisers in Congress and had a proven record of winning tough races.

“I’m running because California needs proven fighters who will stand with President Trump to advance a bold America First agenda that restores law and order in our communities, strengthens our national security, and protects the American Dream for future generations,” Kim said in a statement.

Calvert has survived previous redistricting rounds, including in 2021, when the overwhelmingly liberal Palm Springs — the first city in the nation to elect an all-LGBTQ+ city council — was added to his district and the Republican-heavy Temecula was taken out.

In 2024, Calvert fended off former federal prosecutor Will Rollins, besting the young Democrat 51.7% to 48.3%.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Bonsall)

Post-Proposition 50, Issa’s Republican stronghold in Southern California becomes more narrowly divided among Democrats and Republicans and gets a larger share of Latino voters. Like Calvert and Kim, Issa may decide to run in the new Republican-majority seat in Riverside and Orange counties.

“California is my home,” Issa said Tuesday night. “And it’s worth fighting for,”

He called Proposition 50 “the worst gerrymander in history” and vowed to continue to represent “the people of California — regardless of their party or where they live.”

Issa, 72, lost a legal challenge last week over the new maps, which he sought to block.

According to the complaint filed in federal court, Issa claimed he would be harmed because he would lose “seniority advantages in committee proceedings” and have “reduced influence over legislative priorities and committee work affecting my constituents,” NBC7 in San Diego reported.

Democratic San Diego City Councilmember Marni von Wilpert and perennial candidate Ammar Campa-Najjar are among those challenging Issa in his new seat.

One of the great conceits of California is its place on the cutting edge — of fashion, culture, technology, politics and other facets of the ways we live and thrive.

Not so with Proposition 50.

The redistricting measure, which passed resoundingly Tuesday, doesn’t break any ground, chart a fresh course or shed any light on a better pathway forward.

It is, to use a favorite word of California’s governor, merely the latest iteration of what has come to define today’s politics of fractiousness and division.

In fact, the redistricting measure and the partisan passions it stirred offer a perfect reflection of where we stand as a splintered country: Democrats overwhelming supported it. Republicans were overwhelmingly opposed.

Nothing new or novel about that.

And if Proposition 50 plays out as intended, it could make things worse, heightening the country’s polarization and increasing the animosity in Washington that is rotting our government and politics from the inside out.

You’re welcome.

The argument in favor of Proposition 50 — and it’s a strong one — is that California was merely responding to the scheming and underhanded actions of a rogue chief executive who desperately needs to be checked and balanced.

The only apparent restraint on President Trump’s authoritarian impulse is whether he thinks he can get away with something, as congressional Republicans and a supine Supreme Court look the other way.

With GOP control of the House hanging by the merest of threads, Trump set out to boost his party’s prospects in the midterm election by browbeating Texas Republicans into redrawing the state’s congressional lines long before it was time. Trump’s hope next year is to gain as many as five of the state’s House seats.

Gov. Gavin Newson responded with Proposition 50, which scraps the work of a voter-created, nonpartisan redistricting commission and changes the political map to help Democrats flip five of California’s seats.

And with that the redistricting battle was joined, as states across the country looked to rejigger their congressional boundaries to benefit one party or the other.

The upshot is that even more politicians now have the luxury of picking their voters, instead of the other way around, and if that doesn’t bother you maybe you’re not all that big a fan of representative democracy or the will of the people.

Was it necessary for Newsom, eyes fixed on the White House, to escalate the red-versus-blue battle? Did California have to jump in and be a part of the political race to the bottom? We won’t know until November 2026.

History and Trump’s sagging approval ratings — especially regarding the economy — suggest that Democrats are well positioned to gain at least the handful of seats needed to take control of the House, even without resorting to the machinations of Proposition 50.

There is, of course, no guarantee.

Gerrymandering aside, a pending Supreme Court decision that could gut the Voting Rights Act might deliver Republicans well over a dozen seats, greatly increasing the odds of the GOP maintaining power.

What is certain is that Proposition 50 will in effect disenfranchise millions of California Republicans and Republican-leaning voters who already feel overlooked and irrelevant to the workings of their home state.

Too bad for them, you might say. But that feeling of neglect frays faith in our political system and can breed a kind of to-hell-with-it cynicism that makes electing and cheering on a “disruptor” like Trump seem like a reasonable and appealing response.

(And, yes, disenfranchisement is just as bad when it targets Democratic voters who’ve been nullified in Texas, North Carolina, Missouri and other GOP-run states.)

Worse, slanting political lines so that one party or the other is guaranteed victory only widens the gulf that has helped turn Washington’s into its current slough of dysfunction.

The lack of competition means the greatest fear many lawmakers have is not the prospect of losing to the other party in a general election but rather being snuffed out in a primary by a more ideological and extreme challenger.

That makes cooperation and cross-party compromise, an essential lubricant to the way Washington is supposed to work, all the more difficult to achieve.

Witness the government shutdown, now in its record 36th day. Then imagine a Congress seated in January 2027 with even more lawmakers guaranteed reelection and concerned mainly with appeasing their party’s activist base.

The animating impulse behind Proposition 50 is understandable.

Trump is running the most brazenly corrupt administration in modern history. He’s gone beyond transgressing political and presidential norms to openly trampling on the Constitution.

He’s made it plain he cares only about those who support him, which excludes the majority of Americans who did not wish to see Trump’s return to the White House.

As if anyone needed reminding, his (patently false) bleating about a “rigged” California election, issued just minutes after the polls opened Tuesday, showed how reckless, misguided and profoundly irresponsible the president is.

With the midterm election still nearly a year off — and the 2028 presidential contest eons away — many of those angry or despondent over the benighted state of our union desperately wanted to do something to push back.

Proposition 50, however, was a shortsighted solution.

Newsom and other proponents said the retaliatory ballot measure was a way of fighting fire with fire. But that smell in the air today isn’t victory.

It’s ashes.