The California Legislature on Thursday permitted Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s contentious redistricting plan, sending it to Newsom’s desk for an anticipated signature as state Democrats sought to maneuver rapidly to counter a Trump-backed effort so as to add to the GOP’s Home majority by redrawing Texas’ congressional maps.
The new map 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 more likely to be costly and unpredictable given how rapidly the hassle 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 alternative 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 mentioned they might undertake comparable efforts.
Though California Republicans have denounced the redistricting plan as a “tit-for-tat technique,” the state’s Democrats on Thursday touted that the hassle is completely different from Texas since will probably be finally permitted by the state’s voters.
“In California, we’ll do no matter it takes to make sure that voters, not Donald Trump, will determine the path of this nation,” mentioned Meeting Speaker Robert Rivas. “It is a proud second within the historical past of this meeting. Californians, we imagine in freedom. We is not going to let our political system be hijacked by authoritarianism, and immediately, we give each Californian the facility to say no. To say no to Donald Trump’s energy seize and sure to our folks, 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 deliver the measure to the ground. The measure now goes to the Texas Senate, the place it’s more likely to move.
Shortly after the Texas Home handed the maps, Newsom posted “It is on” on social media. 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 broadly seen as a attainable 2028 presidential contender — sarcastically congratulated Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott on X, saying, “you’ll now go down in historical past as one in all Donald Trump’s most loyal lapdogs. Shredding our nation’s founding ideas. What a legacy.”
President Trump late Wednesday congratulated Texas Republicans for advancing the brand new maps, writing on social media that “Every part Handed, on our strategy 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 slender majority in the mean time, and Democrats profitable again three seats within the 2026 midterms may very well be sufficient to flip management of the chamber if the traces used within the 2024 election have been nonetheless in place. Redistricting in pink states might change that dynamic considerably nonetheless, and with it the influence of the ultimate two years on Mr. Trump’s second time period in workplace.
Texas and California are the 2 largest 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 might additionally try to redraw a Democratic district within the coming weeks, and new maps are additionally anticipated in Ohio, the place a redraw caused by state regulation might influence a number of the pink 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 assist for his state’s redistricting effort.
“That is about taking again our nation,” Newsom advised reporters. “That is concerning the Democratic Celebration now punching again forcefully and really deliberately.”
A draft congressional map unveiled by California Democrats late final week would closely influence 5 of the state’s 9 Republican U.S. Home members. It could redraw Reps. Doug LaMalfa and Kevin Kiley’s Northern California districts, tweak Rep. David Valadao’s district within the Central Valley and rearrange components of densely populated Southern California, impacting Reps. Ken Calvert and Darrell Issa. And a few extra aggressive Democrat-held districts may very well be tilted farther from the GOP.
There is not 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.
Not like Texas, California has an impartial 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 offers Californians the appropriate to overview new laws for 30 days. However Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero mentioned 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 telephone interview with CBS Information on Wednesday, California Senate Minority Chief Brian Jones, a Republican, condemned Newsom’s redistricting efforts.
“This entire course of is illegitimate from the start and violates the present California Structure,” Jones mentioned. “The voters spoke with a loud voice in 2008 and 2010 that they have been taking this course of out of the politicians’ arms and placing the accountability into an impartial 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 associated fee that Californians are already paying to subsidize this corrupt administration, these prices appear effectively price paying at this second,” mentioned Democratic state Assemblyman Isaac G. Bryan.
Democratic lawmakers and Newsom have repeatedly emphasised that these redistricting efforts wouldn’t do away with the impartial fee and that the brand new maps he is hoping to place in place would be the traces used by means of the 2030 election. The fee would return to drawing the state’s congressional maps after the 2030 census, in accordance with Newsom, who says that is solely being completed as a response to Mr. Trump and Texas’ redistricting.
That notion was rejected by Jones, who mentioned: “Rising up, I used to be taught two wrongs do not make a proper, so no, it’s not justified.”
contributed to this report.
