This isn’t the first time Charles Munger Jr. has fought to safeguard California’s unbiased redistricting.
When a go well with filed by Arizona Republicans to disband their state’s fee threatened to topple California’s five-year-old panel, Munger rallied his former allies and braced for battle.
“I’m a redistricting reform zealot,” he told the Los Angeles Times in 2015.
Now, Munger is launching a brand new campaign, squaring off in opposition to Gov. Gavin Newsom and California Democrats in a November race that might reshape the remainder of President Donald Trump’s time period and the way forward for gerrymandering reform.
Newsom is main the push to persuade voters to permit his celebration to quickly override congressional maps drawn by the Munger-backed fee to create as many as 5 new US House seats for Democrats. The governor has argued California should “fight fire with fire” after Republicans in Texas and different states redrew their US House maps at the behest of Trump, who is making an attempt to stop Democrats from regaining House management in subsequent yr’s midterm elections.
If Proposition 50 passes, the state would reimplement unbiased congressional strains in 2031. But Munger and different critics argue the measure would completely undermine makes an attempt to finish gerrymandering.
Munger, who spent greater than a decade as a dominating pressure in California politics earlier than stepping again in 2016, has already spent greater than $30 million to defend the reforms he helped move greater than 15 years in the past.
That spending has made him a goal of Democrats, who’ve made him the face of a latest advert arguing he’s “spending millions to help Trump rig the election.” Supporters of Proposition 50 have additionally pointed to donations he’s made to teams that oppose abortion and homosexual marriage to paint him as a far-right conservative looking for merely to help his celebration.
A spokesperson for Munger, who declined to be interviewed, supplied a less complicated rationalization for his activism.
“Charles has no motive beyond preserving these landmark reforms,” Amy Thoma Tan mentioned in an announcement to NCS.
Like his seven siblings, Munger inherited his political fortune from his father and namesake, Charles T. Munger Sr., the right-hand man of Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett. Munger Sr. raised his youngsters “to be skeptical, even contrarian,” Charles’ half-sister Molly Munger, a prolific liberal donor in her personal proper, mentioned in “Poor Charlie’s Almanack,” a group of the elder Munger’s talks and speeches.
Munger Sr., who Forbes estimated had a web price of $2.6 billion upon his dying in 2023, began distributing his fortune to his kids whereas he was nonetheless alive.
The youthful Munger favored physics over enterprise. He graduated with a PhD in atomic physics from the University of California at Berkeley and spent a lot of his skilled profession working as an experimental physicist.
After a short stint as a Democrat – he made calls on behalf of former President Jimmy Carter throughout his first presidential run – he joined the Republican Party.
Those who’ve labored with him over the years say he tends to keep away from the highlight, however is at all times carrying certainly one of his signature bow ties when he is in public. He applies the similar stage of educational rigor to politics as he does to his scientific pursuits.
“Not to diminish the finances that he provided the state party and Republican candidates, but I found his advice and counsel worth more than the dollars he gave,” mentioned Jim Brulte, a former California Republican Party chair who made Munger chair of his initiatives committee.
Dan Schnur, a former Republican who acquired to know Munger whereas engaged on redistricting points practically twenty years in the past, described Munger as “quirky,” a scientist by coaching who introduced a equally bookish strategy to politics.
The two additionally crossed paths at the Lincoln Club of Northern California, a Bay Area fundraising group for “old school,” economically conservative however socially reasonable Republicans of which Munger was a member. Munger was not like most main donors, lots of whom Schnur mentioned may be loud, opinionated and stuffed with themselves.
“If anything, Charles was just the opposite of that – he tended to be very quiet, very circumspect, and when he did speak up, it tended to be in a much more solicitous manner,” Schnur mentioned. “You’d never know from the way he conducted himself that he was worth more than the rest of the room combined.”
Frustrated with the means Palo Alto faculties taught math, Munger joined the state’s curriculum fee in 2003. He waded into main political spending in 2005, when he gave $100,000 to an unsuccessful redistricting measure backed by former GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Three years later, he was introduced on as a funder to help Proposition 11, which created the Citizens Redistricting Commission tasked with drawing legislative maps. In 2010, Munger co-authored Proposition 20, which might additionally switch the energy to draw congressional strains to the unbiased fee.
He spent about $14 million on the two measures, however reformers who labored with him at the time mentioned he gave extra than simply his cash.
“He went over everything with a fine-toothed comb,” Kathay Feng, the former president of Common Cause, told the New York Times in 2010. “But it forced us to do our homework. He’s a thoughtful, geeky guy.”
Beyond his direct contributions to Proposition 20, Munger additionally helped finance the distribution of “Gerrymandering,” a documentary on legislative map drawing launched in September 2010. Munger helped mail 660,000 free DVDs of the movie to California voters and sponsored its theatrical launch.
A rival coalition backed by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi argued the redistricting fee was a pricey, complicated system that handed energy to unelected bureaucrats and mandated “Jim Crow economic districts.”
Duf Sundheim, a former California GOP chair and Munger-backed 2016 US Senate candidate, mentioned he recalled sitting in the foyer of the Silicon Valley Stanford Park Hotel with Munger, mailers from opponents of the redistricting fee. Munger would snigger and ask if he acknowledged the particular person being described.
“At one level, he thought it was just so ridiculous,” Sundheim instructed NCS. “At another level, I think he probably would have preferred it that he just not be involved in it at all.”
Then and now, Munger has been accused of being motivated primarily by a want to assist Republicans. The Yes on 50 marketing campaign has spent $600,000 on a latest TV advert tying Munger to Trump, in accordance to latest information from AdImpact.
“Munger was always eyed with suspicion by the right-wing, Tea Party types in the party because Munger was a big tent Republican. He knew that a successful party in California had to grow beyond its insignificant base,” mentioned Rob Stutzman, a California-based GOP strategist who beforehand labored for Schwarzenegger. “Any notion to tie him to carrying Trump’s agenda is, frankly, it’s a lie.”
Allies of the Yes on 50 marketing campaign have pointed to a Politico report on $158,000 in charitable contributions he’s given over the final 25 years to teams that oppose LGBTQ rights and abortion. They’ve additionally famous his donations to extra conservative poll initiatives, equivalent to the greater than $35 million he spent in 2012 on a failed proposition that will have restricted unions’ political spending.
“Munger is doing the dirty work of this dangerous, dictatorial president,” Yes on 50 spokesperson Hannah Milgrom mentioned in an announcement to NCS. “His millions are empowering Trump and helping him rig the 2026 election. If Munger succeeds, Trump wins – and our democracy loses.”
The top of Munger’s political exercise concluded in 2016, when he spent greater than $10 million to fund Proposition 54, which required state lawmakers to make laws public 72 hours earlier than passing it, put legislative conferences on-line and permit individuals to movie their very own movies of conferences.
Munger and his allies argued the rule would stop politicians from dashing by means of backroom offers, whereas the opposition argued that lawmakers wanted the flexibility to attain agreements with out prolonged exterior strain.
Steven Maviglio, a Democratic strategist who managed the marketing campaign to oppose Proposition 54, mentioned he believed that Munger is “in his heart of hearts, a do-gooder,” however had an unrealistic view of how the legislative course of works.
“For somebody who’s not involved with government, at all, he believes that that process is important,” Maviglio instructed NCS. “It’s a sort of amateurish view of the way government works, because if you haven’t experienced [it], you don’t really know the ugly side of sausage making.”
This time, Munger’s combat is lonelier. Though he and Schwarzenegger have mentioned the present redistricting push in particular person, in accordance to the latter’s spokesperson, the former governor is not a part of any marketing campaign. Munger’s marketing campaign has spent $1.9 million operating a TV advert that includes Schwarzenegger’s criticism of the Newsom plan, in accordance to AdImpact information.
The California League of Women Voters is additionally not opposing Proposition 50. And whereas Common Cause California initially opposed Proposition 50, the nationwide group mentioned it will not oppose mid-decade redistricting efforts in the state and despatched a fundraising pitch off its determination to return $200,000 Munger had given the group to assist combat the new measure.
“Common Cause won’t be bought,” the group wrote. “That’s what we said in our letter to Munger, and we hope it’s as important to you as it is to us.”
Asked for touch upon the break up with Common Cause, Munger mentioned in an announcement that he “had hoped to partner” with the group and the League of Women Voters, and it was “unfortunate both organizations reversed course.”
“I am disappointed that both have (so far) been silenced in this campaign, and hope that in the future each will return to the principles on which they were founded,” the assertion reads.
Munger vowed to combat Proposition 50 in a put up on X and laid out his opposition to the measure in a New York Times op-ed. While he condemned mid-decade redistricting in Texas, he warned that “returning to the evils of partisan gerrymandering in California is not the solution.”
He additionally acknowledged that, given the distinctive circumstances surrounding Trump’s involvement in redistricting, he confronted two choices himself: stand again as redistricting reform was undermined, or combat a longshot bid to defend the fee, and be labeled “a cat’s paw for Republicans seeking to gain House seats.”
“I’m choosing the latter option,” he wrote.