A day after Gov. Gavin Newsom held a splashy campaign rally to debut his ballot measure to redraw California’s congressional map, Arnold Schwarzenegger walked into a Santa Monica hotel for breakfast on Friday.
He was wearing a new custom-made T-shirt. It was emblazoned with an image of a raised fist, an expletive aimed at politicians and the phrase, “Terminate Gerrymandering.”
As governor of California from 2003 to 2011, Mr. Schwarzenegger led the charge to do just that. He fought to overhaul how the state draws political maps, ultimately winning when voters passed a pair of ballot measures that took that power away from politicians and gave it to an independent commission.
Now, Mr. Newsom is asking voters to set the independent commission’s work aside for the next three elections in favor of a map drawn to help elect more Democrats. He’s pitching it as a temporary pause on California’s bipartisan system that’s necessary to counter a Republican gerrymander President Trump is seeking in Texas.
And Mr. Schwarzenegger, a moderate Republican, finds himself fighting to preserve a key plank of his legacy as governor, a reform that has allowed what he calls his post-partisan style of politics to endure in California even as a brawling hyperpartisanship has become the national norm.
“I hate the idea of the Republicans redrawing the district lines in Texas, as much as I hate what the Californians are trying to do,” Mr. Schwarzenegger said in an interview at the Fairmont Miramar Hotel and Bungalows.
“But I’m thinking now about California, and about the people of California. I promised them that we are going to create a commission that would be independent of the politicians, and there will be an independent citizens commission drawing the lines. So I’m not going to go back on my promise. I’m going to fight for my promise.”…
Category Archives: redistricting
“Democrats’ Proposed New California Map Puts Five GOP Seats in Danger”
As Texas Republicans appear poised to thwart Democrats’ brief quorum break and pass a brutal new gerrymander, California Democrats’ plans to retaliate with their own aggressive map are coming into view.
Democrats’ California proposal is a mirror image of Republicans’ Texas plan in the sense that it flips three of the other party’s seats into solid Democratic pickups and makes two other GOP seats much more winnable, though still competitive. The plan would also shore up support for Democrats in the state’s competitive blue-held districts, including two rated as Toss Up and two rated as Lean Democrat by the Cook Political Report.
But unlike in Texas, where the GOP legislature can draw the state’s map however and whenever it wants, Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democrats in Sacramento must first convince voters to permit them to enact a gerrymander — something that’s far from guaranteed….
Texas calls second special session for redistricting
Gov. Abbott called a second special session Friday morning, calling the legislature into action for a second shot at redistricting maps (and, at least in theory, other issues).
The call for the first special session asked the legislature to consider “[l]egislation that provides a revised congressional redistricting plan in light of constitutional concerns raised by the U.S. Department of Justice.”
The call for the second special session just asks the legislature to consider “[l]egislation that provides a congressional redistricting plan.”
Guess they finally realized the DOJ’s pretext didn’t pass the laugh test.
“Texas Democrats say they will return to state once session ends, California unveils retaliatory map”
Texas House Democrats who left the state in protest of proposed congressional redistricting said Thursday they will return to the state after the Legislature adjourns Friday and California’s state lawmakers introduce a retaliatory redistricting map in their state assembly.
In a statement, members of the minority party said their lawyers had advised them to return “to build a strong public legislative record for the upcoming legal battle” against the proposed reconfiguration of Texas’ congressional districts. The new map, stalled since dozens of Democrats left the state Aug. 3, is designed to net the GOP five additional seats in the U.S. House. President Donald Trump pressured state leaders to undertake the effort mid-decade — a rarity — as the GOP tries to hold onto its thin majority in Congress.
Gov. Greg Abbott, who has asked the state’s Supreme Court to remove House Democratic Caucus leader Gene Wu from office, said earlier this week he would continue calling special legislative sessions — starting Friday after both chambers of the Legislature adjourn. House Speaker Dustin Burrows said he would gavel out for the session if the lower chamber continued to lack a quorum, or the minimum number of present members required to conduct business.
The House, which needs 100 of its 150 members present to establish a quorum, has not reached that threshold since most of the chamber’s 62 Democrats left the state for Chicago, Massachusetts and New York in an effort to stop the proposed redistricting. Democratic lawmakers say the new map is an attack on the representation of minority voters in the districts being redrawn, while Republicans have defended their right to redraw district lines for partisan gain whenever they want….
The TBD details on California’s redistricting special election
Justin here. Today, California Gov. Newsom announced what he’d been foreshadowing for a while now — an effort to seek voters’ approval for new congressional district lines in a Nov. 4 special election. (Rick noted the border patrol “escort” for the press conference. I can’t help note that the Japanese American National Museum – for those who haven’t been, it’s got a tremendously powerful series of exhibits on the WWII internment — is a little on the nose as a backdrop for a militarized show of force at a political event.)
The exact contours of the legislative package to make the redistricting initiative happen probably won’t be crystal clear until the legislature gets back next week. But among the pieces I’ll be watching:
- Timing. Current law seems to say that the governor can call a special election 148 days out. The legislature, of course, can change that law — and it’ll have to in order to hit a November 4 special election target (82 days away from today). (That timing provision can be changed by statute, I believe – the date change doesn’t have to itself go on the ballot.) I’ll be looking for whether this is a one-time-only change or whether there are more general conditions for the exception.
(Update: Derek Mueller reminds me that there’s another statute that doesn’t regulate when an election can be scheduled, but does say that the legislature can only put an initiative on the ballot for a scheduled election if that election is at least 131 days away. That statute would also need amending to run this Nov. 4 – and I’ve got the same questions as above.) - Funding. Part of the reason for leaving time before a special election is to give election officials the runway they need to run the thing. As Doug Chapin used to hammer home on the regular — fast, accurate, cheap: pick any two. This schedule will be fast, and the results have to be accurate. I’ll be looking to see who’s picking up the extra tab for the pre-election prep overtime.
- Substance. The best reading of the state constitution is that maps are drawn by an independent commission, once per decade. That authority can be changed with a ballot initiative. But the reporting says that Newsom also plans to “put a new map” in front of voters on Nov. 4. The change to authority has to be in the constitution, but I imagine the map would be an initiated statute (and not itself constitutionalized). There’s nothing inherently weird about having both a constitutional change and a statutory change in the same measure — the proposition to put the commission in place in the first instance combined the two. But a single initiative to both change the process and pass a new specific map has some risks under the state’s single-subject rule. Two separate initiatives create questions about what happens if the electorate passes one but not the other. I’ll be looking to see how the package resolves those questions.
- Additional constraints. Article XXI is the part of the state constitution that gives authority to the commission. It also has a bunch of other constraints, procedural and substantive. If the new initiative is effectively a temporary contingent carveout, how temporary? What’s the threshold of the contingency? How complete a carveout? Texas has essentially no state rules for drawing congressional districts – the only rules are the few rules in federal law. For its response, does California do the same?
- Additional triggers. Newsom has said that California will respond to Texas in the maps he puts forward. I’m told that California and Texas aren’t the only two states in the Union. If another state says that it’s re-redrawing its maps to respond to California, does the initiative include provisions for re-re-redrawing the maps to respond to the response? Does the initiative include a provision allowing for later legislative amendment of the (presumably statutory) map?
Lots still TBD here.
“The Dangers of America’s Gerrymandering Problem—And How to Fix It”
Benjamin Schneer and Maxwell Palmer in TIME:
Instead, we believe it is possible to make reforms that keep the current electoral system while also overcoming some of its flaws. We’ve developed a process-based solution that has a number of appealing properties. It’s inspired by the problem parents face when dividing a cake between two children. How can they make sure everyone gets an equal slice? One child cuts the cake in two, and the other child chooses between the two pieces.
Our approach, which we call the “Define-Combine Procedure,” splits the map drawing process into two simple stages. First, one party divides the state into twice the number of needed districts—for example, 20 sub-districts for a state that needs 10 congressional seats. Then, the second party pairs those sub-districts into the final 10 districts. The result is a fairer map than either party would have drawn on its own. Instead of mutually assured gerrymandering, this approach leads to mutually assured representation.
“Poll: California voters back independent congressional maps, complicating Gavin Newsom’s redistricting push”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom faces a major hurdle in his quest to revamp his state’s congressional lines, according to a new poll: Californians’ deep support for its current independent redistricting commission.
By nearly a two-to-one margin, voters prefer keeping an independent line-drawing panel to determine the state’s House seats, the latest POLITICO-Citrin Center-Possibility Lab survey found. Just 36 percent of respondents back returning congressional redistricting authority to state lawmakers.
“It’s not surprising, in the sense that California has voted twice for this independent review commission not all that long ago,” said Jack Citrin, a veteran political science professor at UC Berkeley and partner on the poll. “And there’s a lot of mistrust and cynicism about politicians and the Legislature. That’s reflected here as well.”
California Democrats are plowing ahead with a high-stakes gambit to redraw the state’s lines to counter a proposed gerrymander by Texas Republicans spurred by President Donald Trump. California officials are expected to unveil newly redrawn maps at the end of this week that would position Democrats to nab five extra seats, neutralizing the Texas redraw….
“A strange GOP divide is forming over Trump’s gerrymandering plans”
President Donald Trump’s aggressive redistricting push is sparking public concern from an unusual mix of Republicans.
Resistance to mid-decade redraws is running the ideological gamut and cutting across levels of government. While many are backing Trump’s gambit to protect the GOP’s House majority in the midterms, a growing number of Republican lawmakers are airing concerns — a list that spans lawmakers from swing districts in blue states to safe territory in ruby-red Florida.
Trump and his team have convinced once-wary Texas Republicans to draw a new House map and lobbied the GOP governors of Missouri and Indiana to at least “seriously” consider following suit, but the Republican governor of New Hampshire has ruled out pursuing any changes because “the timing is off.” And GOP state lawmakers across the country — who hold the power to redraw lines in several of the states at the forefront of what’s becoming a nationwide redistricting arms race — are finding themselves similarly split.
These strange divisions underscore the complex political dynamics of the president’s latest power play. It’s become a loyalty test that could boost Republicans’ chances of keeping their trifecta in Washington, but one that also carries significant electoral risk for several of their own members in Congress and potential for broader voter backlash.
Trump’s team is barreling forward, bullish about having more opportunities to redraw maps across the states than Democrats and brushing off concerns as primarily coming from members whose seats are at risk. Administration officials and allies are working to fire up his base by noting that Democrats have already gerrymandered several states in their favor and have limited moves left to play. And MAGA online influencers like Steven Bannon and Charlie Kirk are encouraging their fans to jam Greg Abbott’s phone lines so the Texas governor ratchets up pressure on quorum-breaking Democrats to return and let Republicans pass a new congressional map. But even that is showing some limits.
“Redistricting is not really an ideological exercise as much as a self-interest exercise,” California-based GOP strategist Rob Stutzman said. “The safer you are and enjoy being in the majority, the more your self interest is ‘lets see Texas get scrambled and if we sacrifice some colleagues from blue states, in California and New York, so be it.’”
But for those more vulnerable Republicans, “this poses a substantial risk to your career,” Stutzman said. And that’s why some are reflecting at least a “growing private sentiment of ‘is this really worth it?’”…
“Trump Isn’t the Only One to Blame for the Gerrymander Mess”
David Daley NYT oped:
President Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Texas Republicans have reignited the gerrymandering wars. The brazen power grab in Texas pushed Democrats to start their own efforts to unravel independent commissions established by voters, and now it’s threatening to tilt the whole country into chaos.
Mr. Trump and his G.O.P. allies are surely the instigators, but the true architect of this mess, the person who bears as much or more responsibility for it, is Chief Justice John Roberts and his conservative Supreme Court. Over several years of rulings, this court has effectively rolled back laws that had for generations protected the right to vote.
The current frenzy is just the latest example of the most antidemocratic feature of American politics in 2025. It’s the toxic combination of the conservative Supreme Court majority and a political party that believes longstanding norms are for suckers and that lacks any commitment to fair play and majority rule.
Since he joined Ronald Reagan’s Justice Department in 1981 as a young foot soldier in the nascent conservative legal movement, Chief Justice Roberts has pursued the patient, steady bleeding of the Voting Rights Act. In 2013, he wrote the 5-to-4 decision in Shelby County v. Holder that effectively ended preclearance, the Voting Rights Act’s most effective enforcement mechanism, and liberated states, many clustered in the South, from federal oversight of legislative maps…
“The Downballot’s live guide to redistricting in every state”
At Donald Trump’s instigation, Republican lawmakers across the country are moving forward with plans to redraw their congressional maps outside of the normal once-a-decade redistricting process—purely for partisan political gain.
In response, Democrats nationwide are preparing to counter these gerrymanders with new maps of their own. And in some cases, the courts, rather than legislators, could soon step in to impose changes.
In this continually updated guide, The Downballot is keeping track of the latest redistricting developments in each state—28 in all. Next to each state’s name, you’ll find a breakdown of how many members of each party it elected to the House in 2024.
States not on this list include those whose congressional delegations are effectively maxed out for one side or the other (such as Massachusetts and Oklahoma); those where political considerations make any mid-decade remap very unlikely (such as Arizona and Michigan); or those that have just a single district (like Alaska and Delaware).
You can also check out our special report explaining how every blue state (and several purple ones) can respond to these new Republican efforts to further gerrymander the maps in red states….
“How a U.S. Senate Race Is Shaping the Fight Over Redistricting in Texas”
NYT:
The standoff in Texas over redrawing the state’s U.S. House districts to a sharply tilted Republican advantage has played out before the backdrop of a contentious U.S. Senate race that may well be making the redistricting fight more contentious.
On the Republican side, the incumbent senator, John Cornyn, has set aside his often conciliatory demeanor, as he vies with his Senate primary opponent, Attorney General Ken Paxton, to see who can look tougher with runaway Democratic lawmakers.
On the Democratic side, State Representative James Talarico and former Representatives Beto O’Rourke and Colin Allred have used the standoff to gain publicity and rally the Democratic base around the notion that democracy itself is at stake. All three are potential rivals in the Senate race.
As the candidates position themselves, they’ve woven threats of prosecution and lawsuits with taunts and dares at the other party — and, in the case of Mr. Cornyn and Mr. Paxton, at each other — with few incentives for compromise….
“The midterm map fight favors the GOP — and could help them stay in power”
WaPo:
President Donald Trump’s push to redraw the congressional map has fueled a redistricting arms race, with blue and red states rushing to counter each other.
But it’s an uneven fight.
Republicans appear to hold the advantage in the nationwide scramble, according to strategists and nonpartisan analysts, with more opportunities to shift the lines in their favor ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. Democrats have vowed to “fight fire with fire” since the GOP moved to add five red seats in Texas, but they face many barriers.
Republicans are eyeing ways to add a dozen or more red House districts across Texas, Florida, Missouri, Ohio and Indiana, despite some legal hurdles and reservations from local Republicans. Democrats are looking to retaliate with five more blue seats in California, and they are exploring other options, including in Maryland and Illinois. They control fewer states than Republicans, however, and they have already maximized their power in others. In some cases, they would have to work around independent commissions set up to prevent gerrymandering.
“The Republicans are pretty likely to come out ahead — it’s just a question of how much they come out ahead,” said Kyle Kondik, an elections analyst for the nonpartisan site Sabato’s Crystal Ball.
Democrats say they are determined to blunt Trump’s push for more red seats, even if they cannot stop it. As Republicans defend a 219-212 House majority with four vacancies, even small shifts in the map could tip control of Congress in 2026…
“Texas Democrats to return home for second special session, ABC13 sources confirm”
ABC13 has confirmed with multiple sources that House Democrats will return to Texas.
Eyewitness News has not confirmed the date, but we do know that Democrats believe they’ve accomplished their mission by killing the first special session and by raising national awareness about the mid-decade redistricting effort.
It is unclear which day they will be in Austin at the Capitol, but they stress that they will push for Hill Country flooding relief to be the priority.
Good Government Group Common Cause Will Bless Time-Limited Mid-Decade Re-redistricting, with Conditions
Announcement via email:
Common Cause today reaffirmed its commitment to fair, people-powered democracy, making clear that independent redistricting commissions remain the gold standard for ending partisan gerrymandering.
However, as political leaders in states like Texas are imposing mid-decade partisan maps to distort the will of the people ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, the organization announced it will closely evaluate, but not automatically condemn, countermeasures to these actions….
Common Cause’s position follows decades of advocacy against partisan gerrymandering, including taking Common Cause v. Rucho to the Supreme Court, drafting provisions in the Freedom to Vote Act to ban partisan gerrymandering, and championing independent redistricting commissions nationwide.
Common Cause’s Six Fairness Criteria for Mid-Decade Redistricting
- Proportionality: Any mid-decade redistricting should be a targeted response proportional to the threat posed by mid-decade gerrymanders in other states.
- Public participation: Any redistricting must include meaningful public participation, whether through ballot initiatives or open public processes.
- Racial equity: Redistricting must not further racial discrimination or dilute the political voice of Black, Latino, Indigenous, Asian American, and Pacific Islander, or other communities of color.
- Federal reform: Leaders pursuing mid-decade redistricting must publicly endorse the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act, including provisions banning mid-decade redistricting and partisan gerrymandering.
- Endorsement of independent redistricting: Leaders pursuing mid-decade redistricting must publicly endorse citizen-led independent redistricting commissions as the long-term solution.
- Time-limited: Any new redistricting maps must expire following the 2030 Census, which counts all people in our country, and be replaced through the regular decennial redistricting process.