California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday signed into regulation a contentious congressional redistricting plan, as state Democrats search to counter a Trump-backed effort so as to add to the GOP’s Home majority by redrawing Texas’ congressional maps.
The new map — which nonetheless must be permitted by voters — would shift 5 of California’s Republican U.S. Home seats to be extra favorable to Democrats within the 2026 midterm elections.
The laws simply handed the Democratic-led Meeting and Senate on Thursday. After Newsom’s signature, will probably be added to the poll on Nov. 4 for the voters’ last say. That election is prone to be costly and unpredictable given how rapidly the trouble has come collectively and the way little time there may be between the legislature’s actions and voters beginning to have their say.
California Democrats insisted that they had no selection however to undertake the brand new maps after President Trump intervened in Texas and requested Republican lawmakers to redraw the districts to protect the GOP’s razor-thin majority within the U.S. Home. Following Newsom’s declaration that he would redraw California’s maps, a number of different states stated they’d undertake comparable efforts.
“They fired the primary shot, Texas. We would not be right here had Texas not performed what they simply did,” Newsom stated at a signing ceremony Thursday. “We’re neutralizing what occurred [in Texas] and we’re giving the American individuals a good likelihood.”
Though California Republicans have denounced the redistricting plan as a “tit-for-tat technique,” the state’s Democrats on Thursday touted that the trouble is totally different from Texas since will probably be finally permitted by the state’s voters.
“In California, we are going to do no matter it takes to make sure that voters, not Donald Trump, will determine the path of this nation,” stated Meeting Speaker Robert Rivas. “This can be a proud second within the historical past of this meeting. Californians, we imagine in freedom. We won’t let our political system be hijacked by authoritarianism, and in the present day, we give each Californian the facility to say no. To say no to Donald Trump’s energy seize and sure to our individuals, to our state and to our democracy.”
California responds to Texas’ redistricting
The Republican-led Texas Home on Wednesday permitted the brand new congressional maps after a two-week delay when Democrats left the state to disclaim a quorum to convey the measure to the ground. The measure now goes to the Texas Senate, the place it’s prone to move.
Shortly after the Texas Home handed the maps, Newsom posted to social media: “It is on.” When Texas first launched its redistricting effort, Newsom had vowed to redraw the Golden State’s congressional districts to counter the Lone Star State’s plan and neutralize any potential GOP positive factors.
Newsom — who’s extensively seen as a potential 2028 presidential contender — sarcastically congratulated Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott on X, saying, “you’ll now go down in historical past as one in every of Donald Trump’s most loyal lapdogs. Shredding our nation’s founding rules. What a legacy.”
President Trump late Wednesday congratulated Texas Republicans for advancing the brand new maps, writing on social media that “All the pieces Handed, on our approach to FIVE extra Congressional seats and saving your Rights, your Freedoms, and your Nation, itself.” He additionally inspired GOP-led Indiana and Florida to tackle redistricting.
The comparatively uncommon mid-decade redistricting gambit comes as each events put together to face off in 2026 and has main implications nationwide. Republicans have a slim majority in the meanwhile, and Democrats profitable again three seats within the 2026 midterms could possibly be sufficient to flip management of the chamber if the strains used within the 2024 election have been nonetheless in place. Redistricting in purple states may change that dynamic considerably nevertheless, and with it the affect of the ultimate two years on Mr. Trump’s second time period in workplace.
Texas and California are the 2 greatest redistricting battlegrounds, however Mr. Trump has pushed comparable efforts in GOP-led Indiana and Florida, and New York Democrats have floated redrawing their Home map. The Republican-led state of Missouri may additionally attempt to redraw a Democratic district within the coming weeks, and new maps are additionally anticipated in Ohio, the place a redraw led to by state regulation may affect a number of the purple state’s Democratic members of Congress.
Earlier this week, former President Barack Obama acknowledged that he was not a fan of partisan gerrymandering however he backed Newsom’s redistricting plan anyway at a fundraiser in Martha’s Winery and on social media, calling it a “good, measured strategy.”
Lower than 24 hours earlier than California’s scheduled vote, Newsom joined a press name with Democratic celebration leaders, urging help for his state’s redistricting effort.
“That is about taking again our nation,” Newsom advised reporters. “That is concerning the Democratic Social gathering now punching again forcefully and really deliberately.”
A draft congressional map unveiled by California Democrats late final week would closely affect 5 of the state’s 9 Republican U.S. Home members. It will redraw Reps. Doug LaMalfa and Kevin Kiley’s Northern California districts, tweak Rep. David Valadao’s district within the Central Valley and rearrange elements of densely populated Southern California, impacting Reps. Ken Calvert and Darrell Issa. And a few extra aggressive Democrat-held districts could possibly be tilted farther from the GOP.
There isn’t any assure that Democrats will win in all 5 newly recast districts.
California Republicans push again towards redistricting
Democrats maintain giant majorities in each chambers of California’s state legislature. However some authorized hurdles nonetheless lie forward, and Republicans within the state have pushed again towards the redistricting plans.
In contrast to Texas, California has an unbiased redistricting fee that was created by voters earlier this century. To overtake the present congressional map, a constitutional modification would must be handed by a two-thirds vote in California’s Meeting and Senate and be permitted by voters within the fast-moving fall election.
On Wednesday, the California Supreme Court docket denied a GOP try to cease the mid-cycle redistricting. California Republicans had legally challenged Democrats’ efforts, claiming the state’s structure provides Californians the fitting to assessment new laws for 30 days. However Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero stated they “failed to satisfy their burden of building a foundation for reduction at the moment.”
The GOP legislators who filed the authorized problem advised CBS Information the ruling is “not the top of this combat,” vowing to maintain combating the redistricting plan within the courts.
In a cellphone interview with CBS Information on Wednesday, California Senate Minority Chief Brian Jones, a Republican, condemned Newsom’s redistricting efforts.
“This complete course of is prohibited from the start and violates the present California Structure,” Jones stated. “The voters spoke with a loud voice in 2008 and 2010 that they have been taking this course of out of the politicians’ palms and placing the duty into an unbiased fee.”
Democrats confronted a flurry of questions from Republican lawmakers throughout hearings this week on the alleged lack of transparency within the drafting of those maps and the monetary implications of the Nov. 4 particular election.
“If we’re speaking about the price of a particular election versus the price of our democracy or the fee that Californians are already paying to subsidize this corrupt administration, these prices appear nicely value paying at this second,” stated Democratic state Assemblyman Isaac G. Bryan.
Democratic lawmakers and Newsom have repeatedly emphasised that these redistricting efforts wouldn’t do away with the unbiased fee and that the brand new maps he is hoping to place in place would be the strains used via the 2030 election. The fee would return to drawing the state’s congressional maps after the 2030 census, in line with Newsom, who says that is solely being performed as a response to Mr. Trump and Texas’ redistricting.
That notion was rejected by Jones, who stated: “Rising up, I used to be taught two wrongs do not make a proper, so no, it isn’t justified.”
contributed to this report.
