SACRAMENTO — California Democrats on Monday kicked off the process to redraw the state’s congressional districts, an extraordinary action they said was necessary to neutralize efforts by President Trump and Texas Republicans to increase the number of GOP lawmakers in Congress.
If approved by state lawmakers this week, Californians will vote on the ballot measure, labeled Proposition 50, in a special election in November.
At a news conference unveiling the legislation, Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg) and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Hollister) said they agreed with Gov. Gavin Newsom that California must respond to Trump’s efforts to “rig” the 2026 midterms by working to reduced by half the number of Republicans in the state’s 52-member congressional delegation.
They said doing so is essential to stymieing the president’s far-right agenda.
“I want to make one thing very clear, I’m not happy to be here. We didn’t choose this fight. We don’t want this fight,” said Assemblymember Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park). “But with our democracy on the line, we cannot run away from this fight, and when the dust settles on election day, we will win.”
Republicans accused Democrats of trying to subvert the will of the voters, who passed independent redistricting 15 years ago, for their own partisan goals.
“The citizens seized back control of the power from the politicians in 2010,” said Assemblymember Carl DeMaio (R-San Diego), flanked by GOP legislators and signs in the Capitol rotunda that said, “Rigged map” and “Defend fair elections.”
“Let me be very clear,” DeMaio said. “Gavin Newsom and other politicians have been lying in wait, with emphasis on lying … to seize back control.”
After Trump urged Texas to redraw its congressional districts to add five new GOP members to Congress, Newsom and California Democrats began calling to temporarily reconfigure the current congressional district boundaries, which were drawn by the voter-approved independent redistricting commission in 2021.
Other states are also now considering redrawing their congressional districts, escalating the political battle over control of the U.S. House of Representatives. Congressional districts are typically reconfigured once every decade after the U.S. census.
Newsom, other Democratic lawmakers and labor leaders launched a campaign supporting the redrawing of California’s congressional districts on Thursday, and proposed maps were sent to state legislative leaders on Friday.
The measures that lawmakers will take up this week would:
- Give Californians the power to amend the state Constitution and approve new maps, drawn by Democrats, that would be in place for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 congressional elections, if any GOP-led states approve their own maps.
- Provide funding for the November special election.
- Return the state to a voter-approved independent redistricting commission to redraw congressional districts after the 2030 census.
Whereas Texas and several other GOP-led states are considering an unusual mid-decade redistricting to keep the Republican Party’s hold on Congress, Ohio is an anomaly. If its congressional districts are not approved on a bipartisan basis, they are valid for only two general elections and can then be redrawn.
McGuire said California would go forward if Ohio does.
“The state of Ohio has made it clear that they are wanting to be able to proceed. They’re one of the few states in the United States of America that actually allow for … mid-decade redistricting,” he said. “We firmly believe that they should cool it, pull back, because if they do, so will California.”
Republicans responded by calling for a federal investigation into the California Democratic redistricting plan, and vowed to file multiple lawsuits in state and federal court, including two this week.
“We’re going to litigate this every step of the way, but we believe that this will also be rejected at the ballot box, in the court of public opinion,” DeMaio said.
He also called for a 10-year ban on holding elected office for state legislators who vote in support of calling the special election, although he did not say how he would try to do that.
McGuire dismissed the criticism and threats of legal action, saying the Republicans were more concerned about political self-preservation than the will of California voters or the rule of law.
“California Republicans are now clutching their pearls because of self-interest. Not one California Republican spoke up in the Legislature, in the House, when Texas made the decision to be able to eliminate five historically Black and brown congressional districts. Not one,” he said. “What I would say: Spend more time on the problem. The problem is Donald Trump.”
