Democrats are banking in a massive method on California and its governor, Gavin Newsom, to assist them combat again towards Republicans in a burgeoning gerrymandering arms race.
Texas Democrats are reportedly considering ending their walkout, which was supposed to forestall the Texas GOP’s energy seize however by no means actually stood a likelihood of halting new GOP-friendly maps. That places much more focus on Newsom, who signaled late Tuesday that he’s now pressing forward together with his effort to redraw California’s maps to retaliate towards Texas Republicans’ effort.
But it’s a risky bet – each for Democrats and for Newsom.
And you might perceive if Republicans are inclined to attempt to name their bluff.
California supplies Democrats’ best opportunity to retaliate towards Texas Republicans’ extraordinary effort to gerrymander a extra Republican congressional map in the course of the last decade. That’s for a few causes.
One is that California might feasibly offset 5 new Republican districts in Texas with 5 new Democratic-leaning ones of their very own. Another is that Democrats simply don’t have many opportunities to combat again elsewhere, to the extent this arms race spreads to different states. And the third is that California supplies the specter of hitting again rapidly – in time for the 2026 midterm elections – in contrast to in a state like, say, New York.
Democrats are clearly hoping this risk a minimum of offers Republicans pause.
But what if Democrats and Newsom truly observe by way of? That’s the place historical past suggests issues might get messy.
The drawback for them is that, in contrast to Texas Republicans, they should bounce by way of extra hoops to make this occur. California Democrats would first must get voters to sign off on a ballot measure in November to do away with the state’s redistricting fee. Newsom is expressing confidence that it’s going to go.
“I think the voters will approve it. I think the voters understand what’s at stake,” the governor mentioned Friday. “We live in the most un-Trump state in America.”
But the trick right here is one way or the other getting voters to again a extra politicized redistricting course of – to successfully vote in favor of gerrymandering. And that’s one thing they’ve been reluctant to do, together with in California.
More than a dozen states have put redistricting commissions on the poll in latest a long time, and voters have supported them about two-thirds of the time, in line with Ballotpedia. When they’ve rejected them, it’s usually been in crimson states fairly than blue ones like California.
The most up-to-date vote on such a fee got here final yr, in Ohio. And voters rejected the fee. But that appeared to owe largely to slanted language utilized to the measure by the state’s Republican leaders. That language instructed the brand new fee was truly going to result in extra gerrymandering.
(The language described the measure as an effort to “repeal constitutional protections against gerrymandering” and mentioned the brand new fee can be “required to gerrymander the boundaries” of the state’s districts.)
That language appeared to matter. A late ballot that requested in regards to the fee in a extra impartial method confirmed voters supported the idea by 23 points, 57%-34% – proper earlier than they rejected the precise measure by 8 factors, 54%-46%.
Of course, California voters wouldn’t be requested to put in a new redistricting fee; they’d be requested to do away with one.
But historical past looms there, too. Indeed, California voters have already rejected such an effort by a extensive margin, again in 2010.
California voters had narrowly authorized a redistricting fee in 2008, and the 2010 poll featured a measure to repeal that poll measure, Proposition 27. It failed 59%-41%.
The dynamics at this time are clearly a minimum of considerably completely different. Newsom appears to consider left-leaning voters will be satisfied that turnabout is honest play and that Texas’ gambit is value re-politicizing the method in California.
But that may very well be a troublesome trick, significantly given how tuned-out Americans usually are on redistricting. Huge majorities dislike gerrymandering, however polls additionally recommend they don’t follow it too closely.
How many California voters who like the concept of a extra impartial redistricting course of are going to know the state of affairs in Texas effectively sufficient and conclude they need to scrap that precept within the title of political expediency? The 2024 Ohio instance suggests the prospect of voting in favor of gerrymandering is a massive hurdle.
And the dangers right here prolong to Newsom.
This is his massive play on the nationwide stage proper now. He’s making a large present of it, together with trolling President Donald Trump and Republicans with some very Trump-esque missives on social media on Tuesday evening.
But think about a state of affairs through which the voters don’t go together with it and reject the poll measure. That can be a large setback for the notion of Newsom’s political prowess as he gears up for what many consider is more likely to be a 2028 presidential marketing campaign. Such a failure would additionally probably embolden different Republican-controlled states to press ahead within the gerrymandering arms race, figuring out that Democrats can’t actually combat again.
Newsom appears assured he could make it occur. But as talked about, Democrats don’t have a lot of nice choices to attempt to combat again towards Texas Republicans’ gambit. So it’s comprehensible in the event that they really feel that they should attempt one thing.
It’s simply the one thing may be very sophisticated – and would supply a actual take a look at for Newsom.