SACRAMENTO—Pressed by Governor Gavin Newsom and other state and national Democratic leaders, the California Legislature on Thursday, August 21 agreed to schedule a special election in November at which they anticipate California voters will approve the redrafting of the state’s electoral lines.
The Democratic members of both legislative houses in the state’s capital, who comprise a supermajority in both bodies, willingly went along with Newsom’s intention to present the voters with a map of Congressional districts calculated to result in five of the nine California Congressional seats now held by Republicans falling into the hands of Democrats during the 2026 mid-term election.
The special election will cost California taxpayers at least $235 million to hold and could run to as much as $260 million. San Bernardino County’s share of that burden will be at least $22 million, according to estimates, and could reach $25 million.
At present, Democrats lopsidedly outnumber Republicans in California’s 52-member Congressional delegation 43-to-9. That is a reflection of the degree to which California leans leftward politically.
Of California’s total 23,206,519 registered voters, 10,396,792 or 44.8 percent are Democrats, while 5,896,203 or 25.41 percent are Republicans. Those who have no party affiliation number 5,336,441 or 23 percent, a number not terribly far off from that of the Republicans. The remaining 1,577,083 voters or 6.8 percent are members of the American Independent, Green, Libertarian, Peace & Freedom or other more obscure parties. Despite comprising more than one-quarter of the state’s voters, the Republicans hold nine of the total 52 House seats in California’s congressional delegation, while the Democrats claim 43. In this way, California’s electoral map has already been set so that the Republicans are represented at a rate in the House of Representatives – 17.31 percent – well below the 25.41 percent of the voters they constitute.
Thus, there is a widespread perception that the current California Congressional map, which was drawn up in 2021 based upon the 2020 U.S. Census’s survey of California’s population, has already been gerrymandered in favor of the Democratic Party. Mathematically, according to statisticians, based solely on the voter registration numbers throughout the state under the conventional model of a two-party political system that has prevailed in the United States for most of its history, 31 to 33 of the 52 members of California’s Congressional delegation would be Democrats and 21 or 19 of them would be Republicans if the state’s Congressional electoral map were unhindered by gerrymandering.
As it stands, under Proposition 20, which was passed by California’s voters in 2010,
congressional redistricting authority was transferred from the California State Legislature and the governor, which formerly allowed unbridled gerrymandering that favored whichever party happened to be in control in Sacramento at the time to occur, to a somewhat less-partisan California Citizens Redistricting Commission. That lessened, to a degree, the barefaced manipulation of the election district maps in California, though given the higher Democrat-to-Republican ratio in the Golden State generally, the maps drawn since then, particularly the districts created in 2021, give the Democrats an edge. One of the provisions of Proposition 20 was that if the governor or legislature want to reassume redistricting authority, any redistricting they engage in must be approved by the state’s voters.
That is precisely what Governor Newsom is seeking to do now.
Newsom’s, and the Democrat’s, inspirational for doing so is a reciprocal gerrymander orchestrated in the Lone State earlier this summer. Upon taking office in January, President Donald Trump initiated a whirlwind of policy changes which, while pleasing to his base, generated controversy and provided Democrats and other Trump critics with ammunition to attack him. This sparked concern over the prospect that the relatively thin margin of majority that the GOP holds in the House of Representatives – 220-to-215 – and in the U.S. Senate – 53-to-45, with two Independents – could be eradicated in the mid-term 2026 election. Political maps throughout all 50 states are traditionally redrawn the year following the decennial census, that being the year ending in 1, and are first employed in the year ending in 2. Generally, those maps remain effective for a decade. President Trump’s political team undertook the rare, indeed virtually unheard of, tack of seeing which states, those being the ones where the Republicans were in ascendancy, might consider redrawing their congressional district lines mid-decade in a way that might ensure the election of a handful more Republicans, thus allowing the Republicans to keep their numerical edge in the lower legislative house. In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott signaled his willingness to redraw the state’s 38 congressional districts in accordance with his fellow Republicans’ request. Thereafter he set about having the Republican-dominated Texas state legislature comply with his wishful agenda to redraw the Texas Congressional District Map in such a way that the current balance of 25 Republicans, 12 Democrats and one vacant seat might be shifted to 30 Republicans and 13 Democrats after the November 2026 election.
To Democrats, there was no doubt their rivals were simply loading the dice in an effort to give Republicans better odds at maintaining control over the House after the 2026 election cycle. If the Republicans could do that in Texas, Newsom figured, the Democrats could do it in California.
That might not be exactly accurate. Texas has no equivalent to Proposition 20, so the Republican legislature and the Republican governor have a free hand there to do as they want. Still, Governor Newsom appears convinced that with a strong campaign in favor of the initiative to approve the new map, which is to be bankrolled by a war chest consisting of money put up from the leftovers of Newsom’s 2022 gubernatorial reelection campaign, the Service Employees International Union, Democrat businessman Andrew Hauptman and the Democratic House Majority Political Action Committee, California’s voters can be convinced to support the reapportionment to prevent the president from having the legislative support he needs to accomplish his agenda.
Governor Newsom and his supporters, openly condemning Republicans for seeking to gerrymander electoral district’s in favor of members of their party, defended action the Democrats were taking to gerrymander electoral districts in favor of their party.
Today, Democrats in the Assembly and Legislature voted to pass a historic measure that empowers California voters to push back against Donald Trump’s power grab in Texas.
The special election to be held on November 4, California Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas said on Thursday as the legislature moved to put the matter on the ballot, will give “California voters… the final decision to fight back against Trump’s attacks on their state economy and democracy. I’m proud to stand with my Democratic colleagues today as we pass this historic measure.” Democrats are merely standing up against the Republican oppressors, Rivas said, “with courage. President Trump wants us to be intimidated. His playbook is simple: bully, threaten, silence — then rig the rules to hang onto power. Well, we are here today because California will not be a bystander to that power grab. We are acting — openly, lawfully with purpose and resolve, to defend our state and our democracy. Donald Trump does not believe in democracy. He is terrified of losing — and he will do whatever it takes to cling to power. If Trump can’t win fairly, he’ll try to make it impossible for Republicans to lose.”
Governor Newsom said that what the Democrats are doing is “fighting fire with fire.”
That clashed with what some of the state’s Republicans had to say.
California Assembly Minority Leader James Gallagher said, “No public hearings. No transparency. Complete secrecy. Gavin Newsom’s Democrat allies are behind closed doors, rigging California’s congressional districts so politicians can choose their own voters. he special election would attempt to reverse a constitutional amendment passed by voters in 2010. That amendment stripped the Legislature of its power to draw congressional districts and gave that authority to the Citizens Redistricting Commission, an independent body created to stop politicians from rigging maps to protect themselves. These are rigged maps drawn in secret to give Democrat politicians more power. These maps shred the fair, transparent process voters demanded. The independent commission spent months gathering public input, holding 196 public meetings, hearing 3,870 verbal comments and collecting 32,410 written submissions before finalizing the current maps. Democrat politicians are throwing that work in the trash for a rigged scheme cooked up behind closed doors. This is a mockery of democracy,” Gallagher said. “If they can neuter the commission here, they can neuter it anywhere. Californians should choose their representatives, not the other way around.”
-Mark Gutgueck in Sacramento