One of many nice conceits of California is its place on the leading edge — of vogue, tradition, expertise, politics and different sides of the methods we stay and thrive.
Not so with Proposition 50.
The redistricting measure, which handed resoundingly Tuesday, doesn’t break any floor, chart a recent course or shed any mild on a greater pathway ahead.
It’s, to make use of a favourite phrase of California’s governor, merely the newest iteration of what has come to outline as we speak’s politics of fractiousness and division.
The truth is, the redistricting measure and the partisan passions it stirred supply an ideal reflection of the place we stand as a splintered nation: Democrats overwhelming supported it. Republicans have been overwhelmingly opposed.
Nothing new or novel about that.
And if Proposition 50 performs out as supposed, it might make issues worse, heightening the nation’s polarization and rising the animosity in Washington that’s rotting our authorities and politics from the within out.
You’re welcome.
The argument in favor of Proposition 50 — and it’s a powerful one — is that California was merely responding to the scheming and underhanded actions of a rogue chief government who desperately must be checked and balanced.
The one obvious restraint on President Trump’s authoritarian impulse is whether or not he thinks he can get away with one thing, as congressional Republicans and a supine Supreme Court docket look the opposite manner.
With GOP management of the Home hanging by the merest of threads, Trump got down to enhance his get together’s prospects within the midterm election by browbeating Texas Republicans into redrawing the state’s congressional traces lengthy earlier than it was time. Trump’s hope subsequent 12 months is to realize as many as 5 of the state’s Home seats.
Gov. Gavin Newson responded with Proposition 50, which scraps the work of a voter-created, nonpartisan redistricting fee and modifications the political map to assist Democrats flip 5 of California’s seats.
And with that the redistricting battle was joined, as states throughout the nation appeared to rejigger their congressional boundaries to profit one get together or the opposite.
The upshot is that much more politicians now have the posh of selecting their voters, as an alternative of the opposite manner round, and if that doesn’t trouble you possibly you’re not all that huge a fan of consultant democracy or the need of the individuals.
Was it essential for Newsom, eyes mounted on the White Home, to escalate the red-versus-blue battle? Did California have to leap in and be part of the political race to the underside? We gained’t know till November 2026.
Historical past and Trump’s sagging approval scores — particularly relating to the financial system — counsel that Democrats are effectively positioned to realize not less than the handful of seats wanted to take management of the Home, even with out resorting to the machinations of Proposition 50.
There’s, in fact, no assure.
Gerrymandering apart, a pending Supreme Court docket determination that might intestine the Voting Rights Act may ship Republicans effectively over a dozen seats, tremendously rising the percentages of the GOP sustaining energy.
What is definite is that Proposition 50 will in impact disenfranchise thousands and thousands of California Republicans and Republican-leaning voters who already really feel ignored and irrelevant to the workings of their house state.
Too unhealthy for them, you may say. However that feeling of neglect frays religion in our political system and may breed a type of to-hell-with-it cynicism that makes electing and cheering on a “disruptor” like Trump appear to be an inexpensive and interesting response.
(And, sure, disenfranchisement is simply as unhealthy when it targets Democratic voters who’ve been nullified in Texas, North Carolina, Missouri and different GOP-run states.)
Worse, slanting political traces in order that one get together or the opposite is assured victory solely widens the gulf that has helped flip Washington’s into its present slough of dysfunction.
The dearth of competitors means the best worry many lawmakers have is just not the prospect of dropping to the opposite get together in a common election however relatively being snuffed out in a major by a extra ideological and excessive challenger.
That makes cooperation and cross-party compromise, a vital lubricant to the way in which Washington is meant to work, all of the harder to realize.
Witness the federal government shutdown, now in its document thirty sixth day. Then think about a Congress seated in January 2027 with much more lawmakers assured reelection and anxious primarily with appeasing their get together’s activist base.
The animating impulse behind Proposition 50 is comprehensible.
Trump is working the most openly corrupt administration in fashionable historical past. He’s gone past transgressing political and presidential norms to brazenly trampling on the Structure.
He’s made it plain he cares solely about those that assist him, which excludes the vast majority of People who didn’t want to see Trump’s return to the White Home.
As if anybody wanted reminding, his (patently false) bleating a couple of “rigged” California election, issued simply minutes after the polls opened Tuesday, confirmed how reckless, misguided and profoundly irresponsible the president is.
With the midterm election nonetheless practically a 12 months off — and the 2028 presidential contest eons away — lots of these offended or despondent over the benighted state of our union desperately needed to do one thing to push again.
Proposition 50, nevertheless, was a shortsighted answer.
Newsom and different proponents stated the retaliatory poll measure was a manner of combating hearth with hearth. However that scent within the air as we speak isn’t victory.
It’s ashes.
