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 

1. Proportionality: Any mid-decade redistricting should be a targeted response proportional to the threat posed by mid-decade gerrymanders in other states.
   
2. Public participation: Any redistricting must include meaningful public participation, whether through ballot initiatives or open public processes.
   
3. 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.
   
4. 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.
   
5. Endorsement of independent redistricting: Leaders pursuing mid-decade redistricting must publicly endorse citizen-led independent redistricting commissions as the long-term solution.
   
6. 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. 

California Playbook:

Sara Sadhwani is proud of her work on California’s independent redistricting commission, but now she wants voters to tear up the maps she and her colleagues spent hundreds, if not thousands, of hours crafting.

The Pomona political science professor grabbed political insiders’ attention when she backed state Democrats’ move to counter Texas Republicans’ planned gerrymander with one of their own.

Sadhwani, one of the commission’s Democratic members in 2020, believes partisan gerrymandering should be outlawed nationwide. But she argued democratic institutions have been so weakened by President Donald Trump’s administration that slanting California’s maps toward Democrats is necessary to push back on a Republican power grab — which is why she’s inviting voters to override her own work.

“These are extraordinary times,” she told Playbook. “At this moment, I’m not so worried about California’s democracy.”

You got a lot of attention for calling for the maps to be redrawn. Can you talk me through your thinking?

First of all, I’ll say that I stand by the maps that the commission drew. They are fair, they are competitive, and those are the kinds of maps that we should have for congressional districts across the nation. We expanded opportunities for Latinos, in particular, to elect their candidates of choice in ways that the Legislature never bothered to do in California. I’m incredibly proud of the work that we did in the largest state in the nation.

That being said, not all of the states are playing by the same set of rules. Certainly, we see the showdown happening in Texas. President Trump has talked about getting the FBI involved to get Democratic members back to the Texas Legislature. These are extraordinary times. At this moment, I’m not so worried about California’s democracy. We have strong democratic institutions here in the state of California, but I’m also a political scientist, and at the national level, what we’ve seen over the last 10 or even 20 years is a backsliding and a decay of our institutions that should worry all of us….