Governor Gavin Newsom plans a special election asking voters to approve a partisan redrawing of congressional districts to offset a Republican redistricting in Texas. The redistricting would erase as many as five GOP House seats from the map drawn by California's independent redistricting commission, which voters created over a decade ago to remove partisan self-interest from line-drawing. The strategy offers short-term partisan advantage but appears impulsive and shortsighted and will not rescue Democrats from broader political weakness. Democrats face a pliant Republican Congress and a conservative Supreme Court, while opposition to Donald Trump fuels the impulse to retaliate. Newsom seems focused on positioning for 2028.
It seems Gov. Gavin Newsom will have his way, with help from the Democratic-run Legislature, and voters will be asked in November to approve a partisan gerrymander aimed at offsetting a similar Republican power grab in Texas. As many as five GOP House seats could be erased from the congressional map drawn by California's independent redistricting commission, which voters established more than a decade ago - expressly to take the line-drawing away from a bunch of self-interested politicians.
Look, I get it. Donald Trump truly knows no bottom when it comes to undermining democratic norms, running a familial kleptocracy and, in the felicitous phrase of Gustavo Arellano, my fellow Times columnista, treating the Constitution like a pee pad. Democrats are powerless in Washington, where a pliant Republican-controlled Congress and a supine right-wing Supreme Court have shown all the deference of a maître d' squiring Trump to his favorite table.
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