California Republicans today filed a second writ petition — Sanchez v. Weber — in the Supreme Court seeking to prevent the electorate from voting in November to temporarily redraw the state’s congressional districts.
The court denied the first petition last week, two days after it was filed, but before enactment of the legislation necessary to put the redistricting proposal on the ballot. The petition had asked for immediate action to stop the Legislature from acting. The court declined to stop the Legislature from voting, but seemed to leave open today’s second petition, apparently saying the first petition was premature.
Today’s petition asks the Supreme Court to keep off the November ballot ACA 8, the Legislature’s proposed constitutional amendment for temporary redistricting. It requests a court decision — with or without a hearing — in two weeks, by September 8. I do not see in the petition why September 8 is a critical date. The only reference to that day on the California Secretary of State’s web page of key dates for the November special election is: “Translations of Ballot Label and Ballot Title and Summary Available for Public Display” “August 31–September 8, 2025.”
Today’s petition reprises the lone argument made in the first, that the Legislature acted too quickly on the redistricting bills, in violation of California Constitution article IV, section 8(a). But it also alleges ACA 8 violates other state constitutional provisions — the separate-vote requirement of article XVIII, section 1; and the Citizens Redistricting Commission provisions and the once-a-decade-redistricting limitations of article XXI. The petition doesn’t mention how these arguments might be affected by the ACA 8 provision that the changes it makes are “notwithstanding any other provision of [California’s] Constitution or existing law.”
Category Archives: redistricting
“District Populations and Partisan Bias”
Barry Burden and Veronica Judson have written this article for Legislative Studies Quarterly. Here is the abstract:
We investigate whether the differing population sizes of legislative districts affect the ability to engage in partisan gerrymandering. We conjecture that larger populations facilitate partisan gerrymandering by providing mapmakers with more “raw material” to manipulate, and this might make such districts less compact. Evidence based on measures of partisan bias, district population, and compactness suggests that more populous districts encourage partisan distortion and do so partly through violations of compactness. Regression analysis of lower and upper chamber state legislative maps shows that more populous districts lead to more partisan bias in maps even after accounting for other aspects of districts and Voting Rights Act requirements that affect how states draw district lines.
“How California bluffed its way into a redistricting war with Trump”
When word got out that Texas might undertake an extraordinary mid-decade redistricting at Donald Trump’s behest, a handful of top California Democratic operatives floated an idea to Rep. Zoe Lofgren: Could California respond in kind?
Lofgren, the chair of California’s 43-member Democratic delegation, consulted in June with a trusted data expert who dismissed it as absurd — a foolhardy end-run around the state’s popular redistricting panel with no guarantee of yielding enough blue seats to fully offset Texas. Deterred by those misgivings, California Democrats instead spent weeks putting up a front, dangling the threat of a countermove without making any real plans to do so.
“It seemed to me worth a bluff,” Lofgren said. “If the Texans and Trump thought they’d go through all of this and they’d end up not gaining anything, maybe they would stop.”
“But they didn’t stop,” she added. “They just doubled down.”
So did California Democrats, especially Gov. Gavin Newsom. In a matter of weeks, they bluffed themselves into the marquee political contest of Trump’s second term, a high-voltage fight to shape the outcome of the 2026 midterms and the remaining years of his presidency.
“It got very real, very fast,” recounted Newsom, whose provocative podcast appearances and social media posturing lit the fuse for this slapdash effort — and positioned him as a de facto leader of the opposition party in advance of his likely 2028 White House run.
Texas Republicans approved a gerrymandered map early Saturday morning.
POLITICO spoke with nearly 50 people involved with the California effort, including lawmakers, political operatives, staffers and redistricting wonks. Many were granted anonymity to share details of private deliberations of the tightly-guarded process, which spanned multiple states and levels of government. Together, they paint a picture of a showdown propelled not by painstaking deliberations but by its own self-generating momentum and the opportunity for a rudderless Democratic party to remake itself as a political street brawler….
“A Texas County Cuts Over 100 Polling Sites as Trump Attacks Mail-In Voting Nationally”
Officials in a large North Texas county decided this week to cut more than 100 Election Day polling sites and reduce the number of early voting locations, amid growing concern about GOP efforts to limit voting access ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
The 3-2 vote on Tuesday by commissioners in Tarrant County, which includes Fort Worth, came one day after President Donald Trump vowed to end the use of mail-in ballots. The president lacks the unilateral power to decide how individual states run elections, but his declaration speaks to long-brewing and unfounded claims by some conservatives that the country’s electoral system is insecure and vulnerable to widespread fraud. Trump has repeatedly and falsely asserted that he won the 2020 presidential election instead of Joe Biden.
Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare, who heads up the commissioners court, has also raised numerous questions about the security of local elections, helping to launch an electoral integrity unit in the county after he became judge in 2022. As of last summer, however, the unit had received fewer than 100 allegations of voter fraud. He and fellow Republican commissioners also cut funding to provide free bus rides to the polls for low-income residents. “I don’t believe it’s the county government’s responsibility to try to get more people out to the polls,” O’Hare said at the time. And commissioners prohibited outside organizations from registering voters inside county buildings after Tarrant County GOP leaders raised concerns about what they said were left-leaning groups holding registration drives. (ProPublica and The Texas Tribune have previously written about O’Hare’s political influence in North Texas.)
On Tuesday, O’Hare voted with the two Republican commissioners on the court to reduce the number of polling sites in the county to 216, down from 331 in 2023. The decision also cut down the number of early voting sites.
County officials said the move was to save money, as they historically see low voter turnout in nonpresidential elections.
Throughout the meeting, O’Hare repeatedly emphasized that the cuts were intended to make the election more efficient. He argued that both the switch to county-wide voting in 2019, which allows voters to cast a ballot at any polling site in the county, and the expected low turnout made the cuts appropriate….
This is not the first time Tarrant County has been at the forefront of changing political headwinds. Earlier this summer, the commissioners, led by O’Hare, voted along party lines to redraw the county precincts; such changes usually happen after the decennial census rather than in the middle of the decade. O’Hare admitted the goal of the redrawn maps was to favor Republican candidates.
“This is about Republican versus Democrat, period,” O’Hare told Dallas television station WFAA ahead of the commissioners’ June 3 vote. “If it passes with one of the maps that I would want to see pass, it’s a very strong likelihood that we will have three Republicans on the Commissioners Court.”…
“Red vs. Blue: Who’s Next in the Redistricting Fight”
While both Texas and California are seeking to flip five seats, other states have fewer seats to target. Shawn Donahue, a political-science professor at the University at Buffalo, predicts Republicans would pick up four to six of House seats nationwide if a tit-for-tat redistricting fight were to break out. They currently have a 219-212 majority.
“If it’s a real dogfight for control of the House in 2026, that could make the difference,” he said….
“Advocates File Immediate Legal Challenge to Texas Gerrymander “
Hours after Texas lawmakers approved a new gerrymandered congressional map Saturday morning, Texans asked a court to block it.
The plaintiffs*, a group of Black and Latino Texans, filed an amended complaint in an ongoing challenge to the electoral districts Texas drew in 2021. The amended complaint alleges that the new map violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and the 14th Amendment by diluting the voting power of Black and Latino communities.
It also argues that the redistricting violates the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause “because it unnecessarily and unjustifiably considers racial and partisan demographics as part of a voluntary, mid-cycle redistricting,” and because it is “malapportioned” in violation of the principle of one person, one vote.In addition, the plaintiffs argue that the new redistricting “intentionally destroy[ed] majority-minority districts and replac[ed] them with majority-Anglo districts.” This was done, the plaintiffs charge, “explicitly because of the racial composition of those districts.”
Lawyers’ Committee statement:
Robert Weiner, the voting rights project director at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which represents the Texas NAACP in the ongoing lawsuit against Texas for racial gerrymandering, issued the following statement regarding the new redistricting law:
“This map is illegal. The architects of this racially discriminatory plan clearly targeted minority voters. The legislators bulldozed important majority minority districts. It eliminates opportunities of Black and Brown people to elect their preferred candidates in multiple Congressional districts.
“We are still in the midst of an ongoing lawsuit against the state of Texas because the existing maps dilute the votes of people of color. This new map increases discrimination. The legislators supercharged their efforts to undercut the voting strength of minority voters after the Department of Justice–misstating the law and abusing its power–told Texas to do that. This plan cannot stand.”
“As part of the ongoing case that we and others are challenging the 2021 maps, the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas in El Paso will hold a hearing on Wednesday, August 27th, to consider the schedule for litigation concerning Texas’s redistricting efforts.
“These states could redistrict before the 2026 midterms”
WaPo goes down the list.
“California voters will decide redistricting in November, escalating battle with Trump and Texas”
Ratcheting up the pressure in the escalating national fight over control of Congress, the California Legislature on Thursday approved a November special election to ask voters to redraw the state’s electoral lines to favor Democrats and thwart President Trump’s far-right policy agenda.
The ballot measure, pushed by Gov. Gavin Newsom and other state and national Democratic leaders, is the latest volley in a national political brawl over electoral maps that could alter the outcome of the 2026 midterm elections and the balance of power in the U.S. House of Representatives.
If voters approve the redrawn lines on Nov. 4, Democrats in the Golden State would see the odds tilted further in their favor, while the number of California Republicans in the House could be halved.
Newsom initially said that new electoral districts in California would only take effect if another state redrew its lines before 2031. But after Texas moved toward approving its own maps this week that could give the GOP five more House seats, Democrats stripped the so-called “trigger” language from the amendment — meaning that if voters approve the measure, the new lines would take effect no matter what.
The ballot measure language, which asks California voters to override the power of the independent redistricting commission, was approved by most Democrats in the Assembly and the Senate, where they hold supermajorities.
California lawmakers have the power to place constitutional amendments on the statewide ballot without the approval of the governor. Newsom, however, is expected later Thursday to sign two separate bills that fund the special election and spell out the lines for the new congressional districts.,,,
“Trump says Missouri will revise congressional districts to favor Republicans”
Missouri “is IN” for redrawing the state’s congressional districts in a special legislative session, President Donald Trump proclaimed Thursday on his social media platform.
With Texas moving quickly toward a mid-decade revision of its congressional map to tilt five districts toward the Republican Party, Missouri would now be expected to follow suit to help the GOP gain one more.
Missouri has eight congressional districts, and Democrats hold two. Any proposal is likely to split the 5th District, which is mainly in Kansas City, by adding Republican voters in sufficient numbers to take it away from incumbent Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver.
That would give Republicans seven of the state’s seats in the U.S. House.
For nearly a month, Trump has been pressuring Gov. Mike Kehoe and legislative leaders, with calls to at least one Republican lawmaker who expressed reluctance to go along.
“The Great State of Missouri is now IN,” Trump wrote. “I’m not surprised. It is a great State with fabulous people. I won it, all 3 times, in a landslide. We’re going to win the Midterms in Missouri again, bigger and better than ever before!”
And Kehoe, in a statement responding to Trump, inched closer to saying he intended to call a special session. At a news conference in his office Tuesday, Kehoe said no decision had been made.
“Governor Kehoe continues to have conversations with House and Senate leadership to assess options for a special session that would allow the General Assembly to provide congressional districts that best represent Missourians,” a statement sent by spokeswoman Gabby Picard read. “Governor Kehoe appreciates President Trump’s attention to this issue on behalf of Missourians.”..
“Obama applauds Newsom’s California redistricting plan as ‘responsible’ as Texas GOP pushes new maps”
Former President Barack Obama has waded into states’ efforts at rare mid-decade redistricting efforts, saying he agrees with California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s response to alter his state’s congressional maps, in the way of Texas redistricting efforts promoted by President Donald Trump aimed at shoring up Republicans’ position in next year’s elections.
“I believe that Gov. Newsom’s approach is a responsible approach. He said this is going to be responsible. We’re not going to try to completely maximize it,” Obama said at a Tuesday fundraiser on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, according to excerpts obtained by The Associated Press. “We’re only going to do it if and when Texas and/or other Republican states begin to pull these maneuvers. Otherwise, this doesn’t go into effect.”
While noting that “political gerrymandering” is not his “preference,” Obama said that, if Democrats “don’t respond effectively, then this White House and Republican-controlled state governments all across the country, they will not stop, because they do not appear to believe in this idea of an inclusive, expansive democracy.”
“Texas House to take up GOP congressional map delayed by Democrats’ walkout”
The Republican-led Texas House on Wednesday was set to advance a new congressional map crafted to hand five additional U.S. House seats to the GOP over fierce opposition from Democrats, who cast the plan as an attempt by President Donald Trump to stack the deck in next year’s midterm election.
Republican lawmakers are pursuing the unusual mid-decade redistricting plan, which has set off a national map-drawing war, amid pressure from Trump to protect the GOP’s slim majority in Congress. The effort comes just four years after the Legislature last overhauled the state’s congressional map following the 2020 Census.
Democrats in the Texas House staged a two-week walkout over the plan in a bid to stall the map’s passage and rally a national response among blue states, where lawmakers could launch their own retaliatory redistricting efforts. The roughly two dozen Texas Democrats who returned to Austin on Monday said they were starting the next phase of their fight: putting the screws on their Republican colleagues and establishing a record that could be used in a legal challenge to the map.
Republicans have said the new districts were drawn purely to maximize their partisan advantage, arguing that the GOP’s margins of victory in 2024 supported new lines that entrenched their hold on power. They have also framed the effort as a response to Democratic gerrymandering elsewhere…
“Democratic Texas lawmaker passes 24-hour mark on state House floor after refusing GOP demand for law enforcement escort”
Democratic Texas state Rep. Nicole Collier has now spent over 24 hours on the Texas House floor in protest after refusing a Republican demand to be placed under the watch of the state Department of Public Safety.
When Texas House Democrats returned to the Capitol in Austin on Monday, after having fled the state earlier this month in order to prevent a vote on a controversial Republican redistricting plan, House Speaker Dustin Burrows put constraints on their movements.
Burrows announced that the Democrats could only leave the House floor if they received written permission and agreed to be under law enforcement escort until the chamber reconvenes on Wednesday morning.
The Democrats who skipped out on previous attempts to meet quorum for a special session to approve the redrawn congressional maps will have an around-the-clock DPS escort to ensure their presence when the House convenes Wednesday, a legislative aide told CNN….
“California Republicans File Suit Seeking to Block Newsom Redistricting Plan”
Republican lawmakers in California have filed a lawsuit asking the State Supreme Court to stop Democrats from moving ahead this week with a plan to redraw congressional districts.
It was the latest move in an escalating national battle over redistricting that began this summer when President Trump asked Texas leaders to help Republicans maintain control of the House of Representatives by reshaping congressional districts and delivering five additional seats for their party.
California Democrats responded on Monday by introducing a package of bills to create new district boundaries that could help Democrats flip five seats in their state. Democratic state lawmakers, who control more than two-thirds of the California Legislature, plan to pass the bills on Thursday and put the proposal before voters in a Nov. 4 special election.
The emergency petition, filed by four Republican state legislators, argues that the State Constitution prohibits the Legislature from acting on the redistricting bills until Sept. 18 because new legislation requires a 30-day review period. The lawmakers said that more time was needed for the public to review the proposal, which would change the way some Asian American and Hispanic communities are represented….
At issue is a technical question of whether a bill is “introduced” at the time it is first assigned a bill number and drafted with preliminary language, or whether it must be fleshed out in full to begin the 30-day clock in the State Constitution. The state’s Constitution also has a rule that requires the final text of a bill be published for 72 hours before lawmakers can vote on it.
In the final weeks of the legislative session, California lawmakers for decades have rewritten bills, top to bottom, in a process colloquially referred to as “gut and amend.”…
The 72-hour rule is a more recent requirement, intended to ensure that such last-minute bills receive at least three days of review. To adhere to that rule, the full Assembly and Senate are waiting until Thursday to vote on the redistricting bills that were introduced on Monday.
Democrats cannot afford to wait beyond this week because of the preparation time that elections officials need for a special election in November….
MORE from At the Lectern.
“Republicans say they’ll sue to block California redistricting plan. Do they have a case?”
Bob Egelko for the SF Chronicle:
“By concocting this partisan redistricting scam, Gavin Newsom and Democrat politicians are openly violating the California Constitution and their oath of office,” DeMaio said in a news release. “Any vote … on this corrupt plan would be unlawful and unconstitutional.”
He argued that the state Constitution, under a ballot measure approved by the voters in 2008, allows only a bipartisan commission to draw district lines and does not permit them to be redrafted for political purposes.
The National Republican Congressional Committee also said Newsom’s plan would be challenged in court as well as the ballot box. Newsom “is shredding California’s Constitution and disenfranchising voters to prop up his Presidential ambitions,” Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., chair of the committee, said on X.
But Rick Hasen, a professor of law and political science at UCLA who has written widely on election law issues, said the Legislature can ask California voters to change the state Constitution by placing an amendment on the ballot with two-thirds majority votes in each house. Newsom and legislative Democrats introduced their measure on Monday.
“If it’s a constitutional amendment approved by voters, then there is no state law problem with amending the earlier constitutional amendment,” Hasen said….
Another election law professor, Justin Levitt of Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, who was a national policy adviser for democracy and voting rights under President Joe Biden, said DeMaio was correct that the California Constitution currently prohibits legislators from redrawing district lines.
“But that’s exactly why the Legislature is proposing a constitutional amendment,” Levitt said. “And I’m not aware of any limitation on the Legislature to propose such an amendment for the voters to consider.”…
Hasen of UCLA said Newsom’s proposal might be challenged on other legal grounds, such as the rule limiting California ballot measures to a single subject. But he said opponents’ strongest argument would probably be a political one – that the voters should reject a plan to suspend the nonpartisan redistricting program they approved 17 years ago.
DeMaio appeared to agree on Monday.
“If we stop it in court, fine,” he said at a press conference in the state Capitol. “But more than likely it will have to be stopped at the ballot box.”…