California Passes New Map To Gerrymander GOP Out Of State
The article discusses California’s recent approval of Proposition 50, a ballot measure that allows Democrats to bypass the state’s independent redistricting commission and implement a new congressional map designed to favor their party. Passed with strong voter support, this measure enables Democrats to counter anticipated Republican gains following Texas’s redistricting efforts, prompted by a Department of Justice (DOJ) finding that identified unlawful racial gerrymandering in four Texas districts. While Texas redrew its districts to comply with legal rulings, California Democrats leveraged the situation to further partisan gerrymandering, despite previous voter rejection of similar attempts and opposition to dismantling the independent commission. the article highlights the broader context of partisan redistricting battles across states and suggests that California’s move may encourage Republican-led states to pursue their own strategic redistricting efforts.
Californians voted to pass Proposition 50, the controversial ballot initiative that will allow Democrats in the Golden State to bypass the state’s redistricting committee and gerrymander the state further in Democrats’ favor.
The ballot initiative passed, according to multiple projections, with two-thirds of Californians supporting the measure with nearly half of votes reported.
Proposition 50 allows Democrats to use a new congressional map for 2026 through 2030 that was designed to offset likely Republican pickups that will result after Texas redrew its congressional maps in order to comply with a recent Department of Justice finding. Notably, Californians rejected similar efforts to repeal the independent redistricting commission in recent years, but Democrats (with the support of Gov. Gavin Newsom) passed a new congressional map (Proposition 50) anyway, because, you know, “democracy.”
The push by California Democrats to gerrymander their state came after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott called a special legislative session to address the redrawing of congressional districts after the DOJ found that four districts were unlawfully gerrymandered on racial grounds.
As the Federalist previously reported, the DOJ contended that Texas’ congressional maps violated the Voting Rights Act and the 14th Amendment. The DOJ pointed to the recent Petteway v. Galveston County ruling from the 5th Circuit, which held that the Voting Rights Act (VRA) does not require minority-coalition districts. Minority-coalition seats are voting districts where multiple racial or ethnic minorities are grouped together to form a majority of the population. The DOJ argued the four districts in question were originally drawn to create minority-coalition seats (or were the result of coalition districts nearby) and therefore must be redrawn.
The Texas Legislature passed a new congressional map in August, though it is being challenged in court.
But California Democrats, seemingly unable to differentiate between partisan gerrymandering (like what they’re doing) and redistricting to comply with the law (as Texas did), weaponized the issue and circumvented the state’s redistricting committee.
Such a decision should encourage Republican states that have long played by the rules that Democrats no longer follow to redistrict their states to their advantage. Such states include Indiana — where the governor has signaled efforts to redistrict — and Kansas, where top House Republicans “dropped efforts to force a redraw of U.S. House districts” for now, according to The Associated Press.
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