Friday, August 22, 2025

California Lawmakers Vote for Special Election on Redrawn District Maps

CITY NEWS SERVICE

A redrawn congressional district map aimed at shifting five U.S. House seats to Democrats will go before California voters this November, a move some Republican state legislators — including Sen. Tony Strickland, R-Huntington Beach — said violates the state constitution.

State lawmakers voted Thursday to put the newly proposed California congressional map — a direct counter to legislative redistricting efforts in Texas to increase the number of GOP House seats there — before voters in a Nov. 4 special election.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement shortly after the vote, “The People of California will be able to cast their vote for a congressional map. Direct democracy that gives us a fighting chance to STOP Donald Trump’s election rigging. Time to fight fire with fire.”

Just before Thursday’s vote, California Republican legislators accused their Democratic counterparts in Sacramento of pushing a redistricting plan without proper oversight or notice to the public.

During a Thursday morning news conference on the steps of the Capitol, Sen. Brian Jones, R-San Diego, called the efforts an “attack on democracy” and “nothing less than rigging the election.”

The minority leader also accused Democrats of refusing to explain how the newly proposed maps were drawn.

“Gerrymandering by politicians is never OK, whether in California, Texas or anywhere else. Our state should be the model for fair elections and not the model for rigged elections,” Jones said. “This is not about good government. It’s about rigging the system to protect Democrat power.”

Proposition 50 — also known as the Election Rigging Response Act — is an attempt to negate the Texas legislature’s effort to flip five congressional districts to the GOP side through a redrawn map. That effort passed the Texas House of Representatives on Wednesday and is headed to the state’s Senate, where it’s expected to pass and move on to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk.

California Democrats, led by Newsom, have called the Texas plan gerrymandering, and California’s counter-push has drawn national notice.

The proposed California maps would similarly shift five seats to Democrats and override the state’s independent redistricting commission that is typically responsible for drawing district maps.

Newsom said in a statement earlier this week, “California and Californians have been uniquely targeted by the Trump Administration, and we are not going to sit idle while they command Texas and other states to rig the next election to keep power — pursuing more extreme and unpopular policies. This proposal would give Californians a choice to fight back — and bring much needed accountability and oversight to the Trump Administration.”

Republicans filed a lawsuit to block the redistricting plan, but the California Supreme Court rejected the legal challenge on Wednesday.

Assemblyman Carl DeMaio, R-San Diego, who filed a citizens’ initiative earlier this week that called for a ban on elected office for state legislators who vote to approve the redistricting proposal, called the proposal a “seize of power from the citizens.”

“What’s happening behind us in this building today is unconstitutional, it is wrong, it is illegal. It is also corrupt,” DeMaio said during Thursday’s gathering outside the Capitol.

Strickland, who was one of several California GOP lawmakers who filed the emergency petition this week challenging the proposal, reiterated an argument in the Republicans’ legal filings that a 30-day public review period is required.

He said the new district lines were “drawn behind closed doors” and would lead to predetermined elections down the line.

“That means your voice won’t matter in California when it comes to congressional elections,” Strickland said.

Corrin Rankin, chair of the California Republican Party, issued a statement calling the move by state Democrats “a blatant power grab” that subverts the entire concept of the state’s independent redistricting commission.

“Voters established the commission to guarantee fairness and transparency, and Democrats just shredded it to protect their own power,” Rankin said. “This special election will waste hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on a rushed special election at a time when Californians are struggling with the cost of living, crime, and homelessness. It’s an abuse of taxpayer money and a direct attack on democracy in our state.”

But Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin hailed the move by California.

“When faced with the reality that he was going to lose in the midterms, Donald Trump did what he always does: He cheated,” Martin said in a statement. “He thought he could rig the maps, Democrats would fold, and we’d all move on. Governor Gavin Newsom and the California Democrats had another idea: giving Donald Trump a showdown and meeting the moment to fight back against Trump’s craven, authoritarian power grab. Every Californian should vote for Democrats’ measure to level the playing field.”