Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is ready to campaign against a partisan gerrymandering plan that current officeholder Gavin Newsom is hoping to place on the November ballot, according to a spokesperson.
“He calls gerrymandering evil, and he means that. He thinks it’s truly evil for politicians to take power from people,” said Schwarzenegger spokesperson Daniel Ketchell. “He’s opposed to what Texas is doing, and he’s opposed to the idea that California would race to the bottom to do the same thing.”
California’s last Republican governor was the leading man behind the pair of constitutional amendments that more than a decade ago yanked authority for drawing legislative districts from politicians and placed it in the hands of a newly created independent commission. After the successes of those two measures at the California ballot, Schwarzenegger campaigned for similar changes (with mixed results) in Michigan, Colorado, Virginia and Ohio.
Now, the fight has returned to his home state, as Newsom aims to redraw California’s U.S. House maps before the midterm elections to offset a similar Republican-led effort unfolding in Texas. Since such a move would undo the constitutional language added by the Schwarzenegger amendments, it would require voter approval. Newsom said today he is “very” confident he can secure the two-thirds legislative supermajority he would need to put the question on a November special-election ballot.
Schwarzenegger is preparing to take a starring role in a “No” campaign, reuniting many of the forces that came together in 2008 to pass Prop 11 (which created the commission for California legislative maps) and in 2010 for Prop 20 (which extended its authority to congressional maps). Several of the leading outside groups that gave good-government ballast to the earlier efforts — including the League of Women Voters and California Common Cause — are challenging Newsom’s proposal.