The Maryland House pushed forward with mid-decade redistricting at the urging of Gov. Wes Moore. However, leadership in the state Senate has said the bill doesn’t have enough support to advance in that chamber.
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — The Maryland House approved a new congressional map Monday that could enable Democrats to win the state’s only Republican-held U.S. House seat, but leadership in the state Senate has said since October the bill doesn’t have enough support to advance in that chamber — largely due to concerns it could backfire.
The Maryland House pushed forward with unusual mid-decade redistricting at the urging of Democratic Gov. Wes Moore in response to redistricting in other states.
Democrats now hold a 7-1 advantage over Republicans in the state’s U.S. House delegation. The new map would make it easier to defeat Republican Rep. Andy Harris and enable Democrats to win all eight seats.
President Donald Trump launched mid-decade redistricting efforts last summer, when he urged Republican officials in Texas to redraw maps to help the GOP win more seats in hopes of preserving a narrow House majority.
Maryland Democrats spent much of the four-hour debate on Monday criticizing Trump’s presidency. Del. C.T. Wilson, a Democrat who is the sponsor of the bill containing the map’s new boundaries, said the measure is needed “to help ensure that this administration finally has a Congress that puts his power in check.”
Republicans who oppose the new map focused on how Harris’ district, which is mostly on the state’s largely rural Eastern Shore, would jump over the Chesapeake Bay to include more Democratic voters to help oust Harris.
“It is about nothing except party politics,” Del. Jason Buckel, a western Maryland Republican who is the House minority leader, said.
But Del. Marc Korman, a Democrat in the Montgomery County suburbs of the nation’s capital, argued that the district has extended over the bay several times since the 1960s — including once by court order — and five different Republicans still won the seat when it did, including Harris.
Senate President Bill Ferguson, a Baltimore Democrat, has consistently said the redistricting effort aimed at flipping the seat held by Harris could jeopardize at least one seat now held by Democrats.
Ferguson has pointed out that a congressional map adopted in 2021 was ruled unconstitutional by a judge who described it as “a product of extreme partisan gerrymandering.” That map also would have made it easier for a Democrat to defeat Harris. Maryland passed another map in 2022, and the parties dropped their legal fight. Redrawing districts again would prompt new legal challenges and potentially allow a court to impose districts, Ferguson has noted.
Changing the map could be disruptive to the state’s election calendar, as well, due to expected legal challenges, the Senate president has said. Maryland has a Feb. 24 candidate filing deadline and a primary scheduled for June 23.
Ferguson’s opposition to mid-decade redistricting has not changed, his spokesperson, David Schuhlein, said Monday.
At the national level, the redistricting battle has resulted so far in nine more seats that Republicans believe they can win in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio, and six that Democrats think they can win in California and Utah.
Democrats hope to fully or partially make up that three-seat margin in Virginia, though a judge recently ruled that their redistricting efforts were illegal. Lawmakers have appealed the case.
As in Virginia, redistricting is still being litigated in several states, and there is no guarantee that the parties will win the seats they have redrawn.
Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis plans to call a special session on redistricting in April.
Prop. 50 supporters tried to make the ballot measure a referendum on President Trump — and it clearly worked.
California has been a blue state for decades, but Trump’s second term has been particularly trying for critics.
Huntington Beach resident Miko Vaughn, 48, supported Proposition 50 and saw the battle as a proxy war between President Trump and Newsom. It’s just “against Trump,” she said. “I feel like there’s not much we can do individually, so it does feel good to do something.”
Indeed, a CNN exit poll of California voters found that about half said their vote on Prop. 50 was a way of opposing Trump.
“Trump is such a polarizing figure,” said Rick Hasen, a professor of law and political science at UCLA. “He commands great loyalty from one group of people and great animosity from others.”
2. End of an era
Proposition 50, a ballot measure about redrawing the state’s congressional districts, was crafted by Democrats in response to Trump urging Texas and other GOP-majority states to modify their congressional maps to favor Republicans, a move that was designed to maintain Republican control of the U.S. House of Representatives.
California has been somewhat of an outlier. Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger created—and voters approved in 2010—an independent redistricting commission aimed at keeping politics out of the process of drawing congressional districts.
The panel of 14 citizens works to create districts for state lawmakers and for members of Congress that are contiguous and roughly equal in population. The districts must also follow the federal Voting Rights Act and group together “communities of interest,” a wide-reaching term of art for people who share languages, cultures, backgrounds, interests, ways of life or other traits.
Matt Lesenyie, an assistant professor of political science at Cal State Long Beach, said the vote over Proposition 50 marks the end of an era for this process—and perhaps for the hope for fair politics.
Many political scientists have long opposed political gerrymandering, applauding states like California for moving to an independent model where politicians aren’t determining boundaries. But not enough states joined California in that effort, Lesenyie said.
“California probably should have done this—against my better judgment—a long time ago in acknowledging that our politics have become so extremely polarized and that we can’t in California hold that dam break back by ourselves,” he said.
3. Big win for Newsom
Newsom has emerged as a foil to Trump this year, challenging him on a variety of issues from environment to immigration and mocking him on X.
Prop. 50 was a risk for Newsom, but it immediately became a rallying cry for Democrats looking for a way to fight back. Now, he can take his victory lap.
“After poking the bear, this bear roared,” Newsom said Tuesday night.
Newsom said he was proud of California for standing up to Trump and called on other states with Democrat-controlled legislatures to pass their own redistricting plans.
“I hope it’s dawning on people, the sobriety of this moment,” he said.
Newsom recently announced he is considering a run for president in 2028.
4. More polarization
The biggest loser from Tuesday night? California Republicans.
California has 43 Democrats and nine Republicans in the House. Proposition 50 would shift five more House districts into competitive or easily winnable territory for Democrats.
The new map would eliminate the Inland Empire district of Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Corona), the longest-serving member of California’s Republican delegation, and create a new seat in Los Angeles County that would skew heavily toward Democrats.
The map would also dilute the number of GOP voters in the districts represented by Reps. Doug LaMalfa in Northern California, Kevin Kiley in Greater Sacramento, David Valadao in the San Joaquin Valley and Darrell Issa near San Diego.
The maps would apply to the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections. After the 2030 U.S. Census, California would return to having its lines drawn by the independent redistricting panel.
Prop. 50 opponents cried foul, saying they were disenfranchised. Trump has mused about cutting some funding to California. And a lot of GOP voters are angry.
California Republicans on Wednesday filed a lawsuit arguing the redistricting maps are unconstitutional because they use voters race as a factor in drawing districts.
Race engine builder and Republican Robert Jung, 69, said “the changes are politically motivated.”
“It doesn’t seem right to do this just to gain five seats. I know they did it in Texas, but we don’t have to do it just because they did it,” the Torrance resident said.
Disabled Army veteran Micah Corpe, 50, added Prop. 50 is the result of Newsom believing he can “do whatever he wants because he doesn’t like Trump.”
Times staff writers Seema Mehta and Laura J. Nelson contributed to this report.
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The Supreme Court is deliberating a case today that could reshape congressional redistricting nationwide, focusing on racial gerrymandering in Louisiana.States are allowed to redistrict based on party lines, but this case in the Supreme Court deals with gerrymandering along racial lines and could change who you’re voting for. If the Supreme Court justices get rid of Section Two, the last remaining part of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits racial discrimination in redistricting, it could upend electoral maps nationwide.At issue is Louisiana’s congressional map, which has two majority Black districts. The state drew a new map in 2022, but civil rights advocates argued in federal court that it violated part of the Voting Rights Act because it only included one majority Black district. They won, and the state redrew the map, but a group claimed it was racist against them. A court agreed, leading to the current Supreme Court case.A ruling in favor of Louisiana could open the door for states with large minority populations, mostly red states in the South, to redraw congressional districts, essentially eliminating majority Black and Latino seats that tend to favor Democrats.”If the court, as I think some people expect, says you can’t use race ever anymore, or if the Voting Rights Act allows you to use race, then that violates the Constitution under the 14th and 15th amendments, then we are basically done with the Voting Rights Act,” American University Washington College of Law Professor Stephen Wermiel said.Once the Supreme Court hears arguments today, a decision will most likely be released in the late spring or early summer.Keep watching for the latest from the Washington News Bureau:
WASHINGTON —
The Supreme Court is deliberating a case today that could reshape congressional redistricting nationwide, focusing on racial gerrymandering in Louisiana.
States are allowed to redistrict based on party lines, but this case in the Supreme Court deals with gerrymandering along racial lines and could change who you’re voting for.
If the Supreme Court justices get rid of Section Two, the last remaining part of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits racial discrimination in redistricting, it could upend electoral maps nationwide.
At issue is Louisiana’s congressional map, which has two majority Black districts. The state drew a new map in 2022, but civil rights advocates argued in federal court that it violated part of the Voting Rights Act because it only included one majority Black district. They won, and the state redrew the map, but a group claimed it was racist against them. A court agreed, leading to the current Supreme Court case.
A ruling in favor of Louisiana could open the door for states with large minority populations, mostly red states in the South, to redraw congressional districts, essentially eliminating majority Black and Latino seats that tend to favor Democrats.
“If the court, as I think some people expect, says you can’t use race ever anymore, or if the Voting Rights Act allows you to use race, then that violates the Constitution under the 14th and 15th amendments, then we are basically done with the Voting Rights Act,” American University Washington College of Law Professor Stephen Wermiel said.
Once the Supreme Court hears arguments today, a decision will most likely be released in the late spring or early summer.
Keep watching for the latest from the Washington News Bureau:
It’s been more than 60 years since Utah backed a Democrat for president. The state’s last Democratic U.S. senator left office nearly half a century ago and the last Utah Democrat to serve in the House lost his seat in 2020.
Late last month, a judge tossed out the state’s slanted congressional lines and ordered Utah’s GOP-run Legislature to draw a new political map, ruling that lawmakers improperly thumbed their noses and overrode voters who created an independent redistricting commission to end gerrymandering.
It’s a welcome pushback against the growing pattern of lawmakers arrogantly ignoring voters and pursuing their preferred agenda. You don’t have to be a partisan to think that elections should matter and when voters express their will it should be honored.
Otherwise, what’s the point of holding elections?
Anyhow, redistricting. Did you ever dream you’d spend this much time thinking about the subject? Typically, it’s an arcane and extremely nerdy process that occurs once a decade, after the census, and mainly draws attention from a small priesthood of line-drawing experts and political obsessives.
Suddenly, everyone is fixated on congressional boundaries, for which we can thank our voraciously self-absorbed president.
Trump started the whole sorry gerrymandering business — voters and democracy be damned — by browbeating Texas into redrawing its congressional map to try to nab Republicans as many as five additional House seats in 2026. The paranoid president is looking to bolster his party ahead of a tough midterm election, when Democrats need to gain just three seats to win a House majority and attain some measure of control over Trump’s rogue regime.
Meantime, the political race to the bottom continues.
Lawmakers in Republican-run Florida, Indiana, Missouri and Ohio may tear up their congressional maps in favor of partisan gerrymanders, and Democrats in Illinois and New York are being urged to do the same.
When all is said and done, 10 or so additional seats could be locked up by one party or the other, even before a single ballot is cast; this when the competitive congressional map nationwide has already shrunk to a postage stamp-sized historic low.
If you think that sort of pre-baked election and voter obsolescence is a good thing, you might consider switching your registration to Russia or China.
Utah, at least, offers a small ray of positivity.
In 2018, voters there narrowly approved Proposition 4, taking the map-drawing process away from self-interested lawmakers and creating an independent commission to handle redistricting. In 2021, the Republican-run Legislature chose to ignore voters, gutting the commission and passing a congressional map that allowed the GOP to easily win all four of Utah’s House seats.
The trick was slicing and dicing Democratic-leaning Salt Lake County, the state’s most populous and densely packed, and scattering its voters among four predominantly Republican districts.
“There’s always going to be someone who disagrees,” Carson Jorgensen, the chairman of the Utah Republican Party, said airily as lawmakers prepared to give voters their middle finger.
In July 2024, Utah’s five Supreme Court justices — all Republican appointees — found that the Legislature’s repeal and replacement of Proposition 4 was unconstitutional. The ruling kicked the case over to Salt Lake County District Judge Dianna Gibson, who on Aug. 25 rejected the partisan maps drawn by GOP lawmakers.
Cue the predictable outrage.
“Monday’s Court Order in Utah is absolutely Unconstitutional,” Trump bleated on social media. “How did such a wonderful Republican State like Utah, which I won in every Election, end up with so many Radical Left Judges?”
In Gibson’s case, the answer is her appointment by Gov. Gary R. Herbert, a Republican who would be considered a radical leftist in the same way a hot fudge sundae could be described as diet food.
Others offered the usual condemnation of “judicial activism,” which is political-speak for whenever a court decision doesn’t go your way.
“It’s a terrible day … for the rule of law,” lamented Utah’s Republican Sen. Mike Lee, who is apparently concerned with legal proprieties only insofar as they serve his party’s president and the GOP, having schemed with Trump allies in their failed attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
In a ruling last week rejecting lawmakers’ request to pause her decision, Gibson wrote that “Utah has an opportunity to be different.”
“While other states are currently redrawing their congressional maps to intentionally render some citizen votes meaningless, Utah could redesign its congressional plan with the intention to protect its citizens’ right to vote and to ensure that each citizen’s vote is meaningful.”
That’s true. Utah can not only be different from other states, as Gibson suggested.
Judge Dianna Gibson holds a hearing on Utah’s congressional maps process, in Salt Lake City on Friday, Aug. 29, 2025. Judge Gibson previously ruled — based on a decision last year by the Utah Supreme Court — that the Legislature had violated voters’ constitutional right to make laws when legislators repealed Proposition 4, the citizen-passed Better Boundaries initiative. (Pool photo by Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune)
Third District Court Judge Dianna Gibson issued a decision late Tuesday denying Utah lawmakers’ attorneys’ request to push pause on her ruling last week that tossed out the state’s current congressional boundaries and ordered lawmakers to draw a new map.
“By granting a stay and proceeding with the 2026 election under the current 2021 Congressional Plan, this Court would be sanctioning the Legislature’s violation of the people’s constitutional right to reform their government through redistricting legislation,” the judge wrote in the decision.
Last week, Gibson ruled the Utah Legislature unconstitutionally overturned Better Boundaries’ ballot initiative known as Proposition 4, a voter-approved law that created an independent redistricting commission meant to prevent partisan gerrymandering. The 2021 Utah Legislature repealed and replaced it with a new law, SB200, which turned that commission into an advisory body that lawmakers could ignore — which they ultimately did when they adopted the 2021 congressional map.
Delaying the order “would sanction the wholesale repeal of Proposition 4 and would irreparably harm the people of Utah,” the judge wrote Tuesday. “Given the Court’s ruling, this Court cannot conclude that a ‘stay’ would be just under the circumstances.”
Gibson’s ruling has major implications for the future of Utah’s federal political landscape. Before the 2021 map was adopted, one of Utah’s four U.S. House seats was competitive for Democrats. Today, Republicans consistently dominate all four.
Her ruling comes during a time when fights over redistricting are on the national stage. While redistricting efforts in Texas, California and other states are playing out mid-decade — fueled by President Donald Trump’s aim to bolster the U.S. House’s slim GOP majority in the 2026 midterm elections — Utah’s effort for an independent and nonpartisan process is court ordered.
Gibson, in her decision issued Tuesday, said the state could set itself apart from other states.
“Utah has an opportunity to be different,” the judge wrote. “While other states are currently redrawing their congressional plans to intentionally render some citizen votes meaningless, Utah could redesign its congressional plan with an intention to protect its citizens’ right to vote and to ensure that each citizen’s vote is meaningful.”
Gibson also acknowledged that the “timing of this ruling,” along with the injunction on the 2021 Congressional Map, “presents challenges for the Legislature … to accomplish its duty” to draw a new map in compliance with Proposition 4 in time for the 2026 elections.
In an effort to address those timing challenges, Gibson asked the lieutenant governor’s office if there would be any flexibility — even if it’s a matter of days — to push back the previously set deadline of Nov. 1for the court to select a new map while also allowing enough time for counties to finalize their precincts before candidates can begin filing in January.
In a court filing also submitted Tuesday, attorneys for Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson wrote that after consulting with county clerks “and due to the extenuating circumstances of this litigation, the deadline for congressional map submission for this election cycle is Nov. 10, 2025.”
Given that new deadline, it’s likely Gibson will offer some adjustments to the proposed timeline she included in her order last week, which gave lawmakers, plaintiffs and third parties until Sept. 24 to submit their proposed congressional maps for the court to choose from.
President Donald Trump announced that the Department of Justice (DOJ) will pursue a lawsuit against California over its new congressional map.
Trump declared in the Oval Office that the DOJ would file the lawsuit to challenge the California map, which would add five Democratic seats to the U.S. House if approved by voters in a special November election.
“I think I’m going to be filing a lawsuit pretty soon, and I think we’re going to be very successful in it,” said the President, per CNBC.
“We’re going to be filing it through the Department of Justice. That’s going to happen.”
Trump did not specify the grounds under which the DOJ would file the lawsuit.
Newsom quickly responded to the potential lawsuit on social media, stating that California is prepared to take on the challenges.
This redistricting effort in California follows numerous warnings from Gov. Gavin Newsom that the state would take action if Texas creates a new map, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
Under California law, an independent commission generally handles redistricting. Still, Newsom and the California legislature passed a bill to put a new measure on the November ballot, according to the National Review. The measure asks voters whether to temporarily suspend that commission until after the 2030 Census, allowing Democrats to redraw districts for the 2026, 2028, and 2030 election cycles.
The ballot initiative has split public opinion, with a recent UC Berkeley poll showing 48% in favor, 36% opposed, and 20% undecided, per the National Review.
This new map also directly counters Texas Republicans’ mid-decade gerrymandering efforts by enabling Democrats to try to regain an electoral edge in congressional representation.
These changes in California come just days after the Texas legislature announced that a new congressional map had been approved by both the Texas Senate and House of Representatives, with the responsibility now falling upon Gov. Greg Abbott to approve the changes, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
The updated Texas map would give Republicans five additional U.S. House seats, which would be offset by the five seats gained by Democrats in the new California congressional map.
The Utah Legislature will need to rapidly redraw the state’s congressional boundaries after a judge ruled Monday that the Republican-controlled body circumvented safeguards put in place by voters to ensure districts aren’t drawn to favor any party.Related video above — Get the Facts: Redistricting or Gerrymandering? The current map, drawn in 2021, divides Salt Lake County — the state’s population center and a Democratic stronghold — among the state’s four congressional districts, all of which have since elected Republicans by wide margins.District Court Judge Dianna Gibson made few judgments on the content of the map but declared it unlawful because lawmakers had weakened and ignored an independent commission established by voters to prevent partisan gerrymandering. The nature of the violation lies in “the Legislature’s refusal to respect the people’s exercise of their constitutional lawmaking power and to honor the people’s right to reform their government,” Gibson said in her ruling.New maps will need to be drawn quickly for the 2026 midterm elections. Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, the state’s top elections official, asked the courts for the case to be finalized by November to leave time for the process before candidates start filing in early January. But appeals promised by Republican lawmakers could help them run out the clock to possibly delay adopting new maps until 2028.The ruling creates uncertainty in a state that was thought to be a clean sweep for the GOP as the party is preparing to defend its slim majority in the U.S. House. Nationally, Democrats need to net three seats next year to take control of the chamber. The sitting president’s party tends to lose seats in the midterms, as was the case for President Donald Trump in 2018.Trump has urged several Republican-led states to add winnable seats for the GOP. In Texas, a plan awaiting Gov. Greg Abbott’s approval includes five new districts that would favor Republicans. Ohio Republicans already were scheduled to revise their maps to make them more partisan, and Indiana, Florida and Missouri may choose to make changes. Some Democrat-led states say they may enter the redistricting battle, but so far only California has taken action to offset GOP gains in Texas.
The Utah Legislature will need to rapidly redraw the state’s congressional boundaries after a judge ruled Monday that the Republican-controlled body circumvented safeguards put in place by voters to ensure districts aren’t drawn to favor any party.
Related video above — Get the Facts: Redistricting or Gerrymandering?
The current map, drawn in 2021, divides Salt Lake County — the state’s population center and a Democratic stronghold — among the state’s four congressional districts, all of which have since elected Republicans by wide margins.
District Court Judge Dianna Gibson made few judgments on the content of the map but declared it unlawful because lawmakers had weakened and ignored an independent commission established by voters to prevent partisan gerrymandering. The nature of the violation lies in “the Legislature’s refusal to respect the people’s exercise of their constitutional lawmaking power and to honor the people’s right to reform their government,” Gibson said in her ruling.
New maps will need to be drawn quickly for the 2026 midterm elections. Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, the state’s top elections official, asked the courts for the case to be finalized by November to leave time for the process before candidates start filing in early January. But appeals promised by Republican lawmakers could help them run out the clock to possibly delay adopting new maps until 2028.
The ruling creates uncertainty in a state that was thought to be a clean sweep for the GOP as the party is preparing to defend its slim majority in the U.S. House. Nationally, Democrats need to net three seats next year to take control of the chamber. The sitting president’s party tends to lose seats in the midterms, as was the case for President Donald Trump in 2018.
Trump has urged several Republican-led states to add winnable seats for the GOP. In Texas, a plan awaiting Gov. Greg Abbott’s approval includes five new districts that would favor Republicans. Ohio Republicans already were scheduled to revise their maps to make them more partisan, and Indiana, Florida and Missouri may choose to make changes. Some Democrat-led states say they may enter the redistricting battle, but so far only California has taken action to offset GOP gains in Texas.
The Texas senate has given final approval to a redrawn congressional map that gives Republicans a chance to pick up as many as five congressional seats, fulfilling a brazen political request from Donald Trump to shore up the GOP’s standing before next year’s midterm elections.
It will now be sent to governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, who is expected to quickly sign it into law, however Democrats have vowed to challenge it in court. The Texas house of representatives approved the map on Wednesday on an 88-52 party-line vote, before the senate approved it early on Saturday.
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.
Senator Carol Alvarado revealed her filibuster plans to delay its final passage, in a post on social media. “Republicans think they can walk all over us. Today I’m going to kick back,” Alvarado’s post read. “I’ve submitted my intention to filibuster the new congressional maps. Going to be a long night.”
But the planned filibuster was thwarted by a procedural motion by Republicans. It now heads to the governor for final approval.
Alvarado’s delay tactics were the latest chapter in a weeks-long showdown that has roiled the Texas Legislature, marked by a Democratic walkout and threats of arrest from Republicans.
Democrats had already delayed the bill’s passage during hours of debate, pressing senator Phil King, the measure’s sponsor, on the proposal’s legality, with many alleging that the redrawn districts violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting voters’ influence based on race – an accusation King vehemently denied.
“I had two goals in mind: that all maps would be legal and would be better for Republican congressional candidates in Texas,” said King, a Republican.
“There is extreme risk the Republican majority will be lost” in the US House if the map does not pass, King said.
The vote comes after California Democrats set a special election for November in which they will ask voters to approve a new congressional map in their state. That map would add up to five seats for Democrats, a move designed to offset the new map in Texas. California governor Gavin Newsom launched that effort after Texas began its push to redraw its maps.
Republicans currently hold 25 of Texas’s 38 congressional districts. Under the redrawn map, they would be favored in 30 districts. Abbott called a special session last month to draw new maps after Trump requested that he do so.
The new map eliminates Democratic-held districts in Austin, Houston and the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex and replaces them with Republican ones. It also tweaks the lines of two districts currently held by Democrats in south Texas to make them more friendly to Republicans. Swift lawsuits are expected challenging the new districts under the Voting Rights Act amid allegations the new lines make it harder for voters of color to elect their preferred candidates.
Lawmakers passed the maps after Democrats in the Texas house of representatives left the state for two weeks, denying Republicans the necessary quorum to conduct legislative business. The Democrats returned to the state on Monday after California Democrats began moving ahead with a plan to redraw their state’s congressional map.
Even after Democrats returned to Austin, protests continued at the state capitol this week as Republicans pushed the new map through. The efforts were galvanized by Nicole Collier, a Democratic state representative from Fort Worth who refused to sign a “permission slip” necessary to leave the house floor. Collier refused and remained confined to the house floor and her office until Wednesday.
The Texas push set off an unusual mid-decade redistricting battle before next year’s midterm elections, in which Republicans are expected to lose seats in the US House. Republicans currently have a three-seat majority and the president’s party typically performs poorly in a midterm election. Republicans are also expected to redraw the maps in Florida, Ohio, Missouri and potentially Indiana.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, Democratic lawmakers and their allies on Thursday launched a special election campaign urging California voters to approve new congressional districts to shrink the state’s Republican delegation, a move that could determine control of Congress next year and stymie President Trump’s agenda.
The special election effort is a response to Republican-led states, notably Texas, pushing at Trump’s behest to redraw their congressional maps to favor Republicans and reduce the number of Democrats in the narrowly divided U.S. House of Representatives.
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Speaking to a fired-up partisan crowd at the Japanese American National Museum in downtown Los Angeles, Newsom described the effort by Republicans as a desperate effort by a failed president to hold on to power by keeping Congress under his control.
“He doesn’t play by a different set of rules — he doesn’t believe in the rules,” Newsom said. “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 recognize the cards that have been dealt, and we have got to meet fire with fire.”
The governor was joined by California’s U.S. senators, Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff; Southern California’s Democrats in Congress, and union leaders who would provide the funding and volunteers for the campaign.
The ballot measure, the “Election Rigging Response Act,” would temporarily scrap the congressional districts enacted by the state’s voter-approved independent redistricting commission.
“We are ready to do whatever it takes to stop this power grab and fight back against any and all attacks on our democracy, on our students and on public education,” said Erika Jones, secretary-treasurer of the California Teachers Assn., which represents 310,000 public school teachers.
The gerrymandering plan in California could increase the Democratic Party’s dominance in the state by making five House districts more favorable to Democrats, according to a draft map reviewed by The Times. Those changes could reduce by more than half the number of Republicans representing California in Congress.
Outside the rally, which took place on a historic site where Japanese American families boarded buses to incarceration camps during World War II, Border Patrol agents gathered and arrested at least one person. Newsom told the crowd inside that he doubted it was a coincidence.
Republicans criticized Newsom’s effort as antidemocratic and a thinly veiled attempt to boost a future presidential campaign.
The ballot measure, said Christian Martinez, spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee, the campaign arm of House Republicans, is about “consolidating radical Democrat power, silencing California voters and propping up his pathetic 2028 presidential pipe dream.”
For Newsom’s plan to work, the Democratic-led state Legislature must vote to place the measure on the Nov. 4 ballot. The final decision would be up to California voters.
California should not “stoop to the same tactics as Texas,” said Amy Thoma, spokesperson for the Voters First Coalition, which includes Charles Munger Jr., the son of a billionaire who bankrolled the ballot measure that created the independent commission.
“Two wrongs do not make a right, and California shouldn’t stoop to the same tactics as Texas. Instead, We should push other states to adopt our independent, nonpartisan commission model across the country,” Thoma said. She said Munger will vigorously oppose any proposal to circumvent the independent commission.
Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who championed independent redistricting in California and around the country, “believes that the politicians in Texas are ripping off the people with their gerrymander and that California’s best way to respond is by standing with the people, not by stooping to their level and rigging our system against the voters,” said his spokesperson, Daniel Ketchell.
Since voters approved independent congressional redistricting in 2010, California’s districts have been drawn once per decade, after the U.S. census, by a panel split between registered Democrats, registered Republicans and voters without a party preference.
The commission is not allowed to consider the partisan makeup of the districts, nor protecting incumbents, but instead looks at “communities of interest,” logical geographical boundaries and the Voting Rights Act.
The current map was drawn in 2021 and went into effect for the 2022 election.
Newsom is pushing to suspend those district lines and put a new map tailored to favor Democrats in front of voters on Nov. 4. That plan, he has said, would have a “trigger,” meaning a redrawn map would not take effect unless Texas or another GOP-led state moved forward with its own.
Sara Sadhwani, who served on the redistricting commission that approved the current congressional boundaries, said that while she is deeply proud of the work she and her colleagues completed, she approved of Newsom’s effort because of unprecedented threats to democracy.
“Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures,” Sadhwani said, citing the immigration raids, the encouragement of political violence and the use of National Guard troops in American cities. “And if that wasn’t enough, we are watching executive overreach that no doubt is making our Founding Fathers turn in their graves. … These are the hallmarks of a democracy in peril.”
If voters approved the ballot measure, the new maps would be in effect for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections, until the independent commission redraws the congressional boundaries in 2031.
To meet Newsom’s ambitious deadline, the Legislature would need to pass the ballot language by a two-thirds majority and send it to Newsom’s desk by Aug. 22. The governor’s office and legislative leaders are confident in their ability to meet this threshold in the state Assembly and Senate, where Democrats have a supermajority.
Newsom first mentioned the idea in mid-July, meaning the whole process could be done in about five weeks. Generally, redrawing the state’s electoral lines and certifying a measure to appear before voters on the ballot are processes that take months, if not more than a year.
In California, the gerrymandering plan taking shape behind closed doors would increase the Democratic Party’s dominance in the state by making five House districts more favorable to Democrats, according to a draft map reviewed by The Times.
Those changes could reduce by more than half the number of Republicans representing California in Congress. California has the nation’s largest congressional delegation, with 52 members. Nine are Republicans.
In the plans under discussion, a Northern California district represented by Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale) could shift to the south, shedding rural, conservative voters near the Oregon border and picking up left-leaning cities in Sonoma County. Sacramento-area Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Rocklin) would see his district shift toward the bluer center of the city.
The plan would also add more Democrats to the Central Valley district represented by Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford), who has been a perennial target for Democrats.
Southern California would see some of the biggest changes: Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Bonsall) would see his safely Republican district in San Diego County become more purple through the addition of liberal Palm Springs. And Reps. Young Kim (R-Anaheim Hills) and Ken Calvert (R-Corona) would be drawn into the same district, which could force the lawmakers to run against each other.
The plan would also shore up Democrats who represent swing districts, such as Reps. Dave Min (D-Irvine) and Derek Tran (D-Orange).
It could also add another district in southeast Los Angeles County, in the area that elected the first Latino member of Congress from California in modern history. A similar seat was eliminated during the 2021 redistricting.
Trump’s prodding of Texas Republicans to redraw their maps has kicked off redistricting battles across the nation. That includes Florida, Ohio, Indiana and Missouri, where Republicans control the statehouse, and New York, Maryland, Illinois, New Jersey, Oregon and Washington, where Democrats are in power.
Democratic lawmakers in Texas fled the state to block the Republican-led Legislature from approving a new map, preventing it from reaching the quorum necessary to approve the measure.
A second special session is expected to begin Friday. The absent lawmakers are facing threats of fines, civil arrest warrants and calls for being removed from office.
Times staff writer Taryn Luna in Sacramento contributed to this report.