{"id":93529,"date":"2025-07-26T07:38:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T07:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/93529\/"},"modified":"2025-07-26T07:38:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T07:38:10","slug":"newsom-pushes-2026-redistricting-in-california-to-fight-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/93529\/","title":{"rendered":"Newsom pushes 2026 redistricting in California to fight Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Alexei Koseff<\/a>, CalMatters<\/p>\n

This story was originally published by CalMatters<\/a>. Sign up<\/a> for their newsletters.<\/p>\n

What seemed a few weeks ago like a far-fetched political fantasy ahead of the 2026 midterms has quickly evolved into a high-stakes showdown enveloping states across the country.<\/p>\n

As Texas this week began an off-cycle redistricting process<\/a> meant to shore up Republicans\u2019 slim House majority, Gov. Gavin Newsom appeared Friday with a group of Democratic legislators from that state, reaffirming his intention for California to respond with new maps of its own that would benefit Democrats.<\/p>\n

Following a meeting with the Texas lawmakers at the historic governor\u2019s mansion in downtown Sacramento, Newsom told reporters that \u201ceverything is at stake if we\u2019re not successful next year in taking back the House of Representatives\u201d \u2014 not only blunting President Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s agenda, but protecting American democracy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we don\u2019t put a stake into the heart of this administration, there may not be an election in 2028,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re not screwing around. We can\u2019t afford to screw around either. We have got to fight fire with fire.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s one major obstacle to the governor\u2019s ambitions, however: While the Legislature draws district lines in Texas, California relies on a bipartisan citizen redistricting commission protected by the state Constitution.<\/p>\n

In 2008, voters narrowly approved an amendment removing California legislators\u2019 power to draw their own seats. Two years later, voters overwhelmingly passed another amendment expanding the commission\u2019s authority to congressional maps.<\/p>\n

The independent commission in California became a national model for advocates who hoped to end the partisan gerrymandering that has contributed to a decline in competitive House seats<\/a> and the country\u2019s fractious, sectarian politics.<\/p>\n

Now Newsom, who said he otherwise supports independent redistricting, is exploring multiple options for working around the commission to squeeze more Democratic districts out of California, if Texas follows through on its plan.<\/p>\n

That would probably involve calling a special election, Newsom said, though he is still discussing with the Legislature what sort of proposal they might present to voters. Would it include a new map to approve or create another process to draw on? Would the commission be temporarily or permanently repealed?<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a fluid conversation,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re gaming all those things out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump turns up the heat in Texas<\/p>\n

States typically redraw their congressional seats once per decade, after the census, to ensure the districts are all roughly equal in population. The most recent maps were drawn after the 2020 election and took effect in 2022.<\/p>\n

But last month, Trump\u2019s political team began pressuring Republican leaders in Texas<\/a> to revisit the state\u2019s district lines and create additional GOP seats. The party won a five-seat majority in the House last November, the narrowest in nearly a century, leaving little room for error as Trump tries to enact his legislative agenda and putting control of the chamber at risk if next year\u2019s midterm is a wave election against the unpopular president<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Despite opposition from Republicans in the Texas congressional delegation \u2014 who worried that diluting their conservative voter bases in redistricting could inadvertently make their seats vulnerable \u2014 Gov. Greg Abbott earlier this month called a special session<\/a> of the Legislature to redraw the maps. He is targeting four Democratic seats in the Dallas and Houston areas that the Trump administration has deemed \u201cunconstitutional racial gerrymanders\u201d because they have high numbers of Black and Latino voters. The first public hearing took place on Thursday<\/a>, with Texas Democratic lawmakers slamming the move as a \u201cpower grab.\u201d<\/p>\n

The boldly political maneuver juiced similar efforts<\/a> in other Republican states, including Ohio and Missouri, that could further pad a GOP majority, while setting off alarm bells among Democrats nationally.<\/p>\n

But even as party leaders voice their outrage, they have fewer options to fight back<\/a>, because congressional districts in many of the largest Democratic states, such as California, New York and New Jersey, are drawn by independent commissions.<\/p>\n

No one has been more outspoken than Newsom, who weeks ago began publicly floating the idea of sidestepping California\u2019s commission to redraw more congressional districts in Democrats\u2019 favor if Texas moves forward with its plan.<\/p>\n

But it’s no sure thing in California<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a legally dubious and politically fraught endeavor. Even some of Newsom\u2019s fellow Democrats have expressed skepticism because of the precedent it would set, including <\/a>Assemblymember Alex Lee of Milpitas<\/a>, whose vote may be needed to place a measure on the ballot. Common Cause California, a nonprofit that advocates for government in the public interest and backed the formation of the independent commission, blasted it as a \u201cdangerous move\u201d<\/a> that would \u201cput our state\u2019s democracy on the line during a time of national instability.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton is already threatening to sue to stop a new map<\/a> and has added to his platform a plan to require the redistricting commission to include more GOP seats.<\/p>\n

Because of the legal risks in having the Legislature simply draw new congressional districts, the most likely route is a special election asking voters to overturn the independent commission, said Paul Mitchell, a Democratic redistricting consultant.<\/p>\n

The problem is that the commission remains highly popular with voters in polling, Mitchell said. To get around that, Newsom may need to make concessions, like a temporary pause that resumes the independent redistricting process in 2031, after the next census.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s \u2018in emergency, break glass,\u2019 not \u2018let\u2019s burn down the whole building,\u2019\u201d Mitchell said.<\/p>\n

Even then, he said, Democrats would need to maintain the drumbeat of frustration over how the party is being harmed in Texas for months to turn out a motivated electorate in an unusual special election.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like lightning in a bottle right now,\u201d Mitchell said. \u201cAre they going to be able to keep this a front-burner issue for people?\u201d<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on CalMatters<\/a> and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives<\/a> license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Alexei Koseff, CalMatters This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters. What seemed…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":93530,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[32566,69,1854,50,31363,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-93529","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-california-democrats","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-gavin-newsom","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-u-s-congress","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114918398559463144","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}