Column: Newsom responds to Trump’s gutter politics

SACRAMENTO — In fighting President Trump, Gov. Gavin Newsom reminds me of actor Gene Hackman’s hard-nosed character in the movie “Mississippi Burning.”

Hackman plays a take-no-prisoners FBI agent, Rupert Anderson, who is investigating the disappearance of three young civil rights workers in racially segregated 1964 Mississippi. His partner and boss is stick-by-the-rules agent Alan Ward, played by Willem Dafoe.

The 1988 film is loosely based on a true story.

The two agents eventually find the victims’ murdered bodies and apprehend the Ku Klux Klan killers after Anderson persuades Ward to discard his high-road rule book in dealing with uncooperative local white folks.

“Don’t drag me into your gutter, Mr. Anderson,” Ward sternly tells his underling initially.

Anderson shouts back: “These people are crawling out of the SEWER, MR. WARD! Maybe the gutter’s where we oughta be.”

And it’s where they go. Only then do they solve the case.

Newsom contends Trump is playing gutter politics by pressuring Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and the GOP-controlled Legislature to redraw the state’s U.S. House seats in an effort to elect five additional Republicans in next year’s midterm elections. House seats normally are redrawn only at the beginning of a decade after the decennial census.

Democrats need to gain just three net seats to retake control of the House and end the GOP’s one-party rule of the federal government.

Trump is trying to prevent that by browbeating Texas and other red states into gerrymandering their Democrat-held House districts into GOP winners.

Republicans currently hold 25 of Texas’ 38 House seats. Democrats have 12.

In California, it’s just the opposite — even more so. Out of 52 seats, Democrats outnumber Republicans 43 to 9, with room to make it even more lopsided.

“We could make it so that only four Republicans are left,” says Sacramento-based redistricting guru Paul Mitchell, vice president of Political Data Inc.

Mitchell already is crafting potential new maps in case Newsom follows through with his threat to retaliate against Texas by redrawing California’s districts to help Democrats gain five seats, neutralizing Republican gains in the Lone Star State.

Newsom and the Legislature would be seizing redistricting responsibility from an independent citizens’ commission that voters created in 2010. They took the task away from lawmakers because the politicians were acting only in their own self-interest, effectively choosing their own voters. As they do in Texas and most states, particularly red ones.

But the governor and Democrats would be ignoring California voters’ will — at least as stated 15 years ago.

And Newsom would be down in the political gutter with Trump on redistricting. But that doesn’t seem to bother him.

“They’re playing by a different set of rules,” Newsom recently told reporters, referring to Trump and Republicans. “They can’t win by the traditional game. So they want to change the game. We can act holier than thou. We could sit on the sidelines, talk about the way the world should be. Or we can recognize the existential nature that is the moment.”

Newsom added that “everything has changed” since California voters banned gerrymandering 15 years ago.

That’s indisputable given Trump’s bullying tactics and his inhumane domestic policies.

“I’m not going to be the guy that said, ‘I could have, would have, should have,’” Newsom continued. “I’m not going to be passive at this moment. I’m not going to look at my kids in the eyes and say, ‘I was a little timid.’”

Newsom’s own eyes, of course, are on the White House and a potential 2028 presidential bid. He sees a national opportunity now to attract frustrated Democratic voters who believe that party leaders aren’t fighting hard enough against Trump.

Newsom continued to echo Hackman’s script Friday at a news conference in Sacramento with Texas Democratic legislators.

Referring to Trump and Texas Republicans, Newsom asserted: “They’re not screwing around. We cannot afford to screw around. We have to fight fire with fire.”

But yakking about redrawing California’s congressional maps is easy. Actually doing it would be exceedingly difficult.

“Texas can pass a plan tomorrow. California cannot,” says Tony Quinn, a former Republican consultant on legislative redistricting.

Unlike in California, there’s no Texas law that forbids blatant gerrymandering.

California’s Constitution requires redistricting by the independent commission.

Moreover, a 1980s state Supreme Court ruling allows only one redistricting each decade, Quinn says.

Trying to gerrymander California congressional districts through legislation without first asking the voters’ permission would be criminally stupid.

Newsom would need to call a special election for November and persuade voters to temporarily suspend the Constitution, allowing the Legislature to redraw the districts.

Or the Legislature could place a gerrymandered plan on the ballot and seek voter approval. But that would be risky. A specific plan could offer several targets for the opposition — the GOP and do-gooder groups.

In either case, new maps would need to be drawn by the end of the year to fit the June 2026 primary elections.

Mitchell says polling shows that the independent commission is very popular with voters. Still, he asserts, “there’s something in the water right now. There’s potential that voters will not want to let Trump run ramshackle while we’re being Pollyannish.”

“The reality is that a lot of Democrats would hit their own thumb with a hammer if they thought it would hurt Trump more.”

Mitchell also says that California could out-gerrymander Texas by not only weakening current GOP seats but by strengthening competitive Democratic districts. Texas doesn’t have that opportunity, he says, because its districts already have been heavily gerrymandered.

Democratic consultant Steve Maviglio says Newsom is “trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube” and doubts it will work. “Unilaterally disarming was a mistake.

“But Newsom’s not wrong. They play hardball. We don’t.”

Newsom and California Democrats should fight Trump and Texas Republicans in the MAGA gutter, using all weapons available.

As Hackman’s character also says: “Don’t mean s— to have a gun unless you (sic) ready to use it.”

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Texas Republicans aim to redraw House districts at Trump’s urging, but there’s a risk
The TK: The Age-Checked Internet Has Arrived
The L.A. Times Special: Trump’s top federal prosecutor in L.A. struggles to secure indictments in protest cases

Until next week,
George Skelton

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