In a 2-1 ruling, a three-judge panel in Los Angeles denied requests from state Republicans and the U.S. Justice Department to block the map from being used in future elections. The complaint accused California of violating the Constitution by using race as a factor to favor Hispanic voters when drawing the new district lines.

The map, aimed at giving Democrats a shot at flipping as many as five House seats next year, was decisively approved by voters through Proposition 50 in November. The effort was pushed by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is eying a 2028 presidential run, to counter a similar effort in Texas backed by President Donald Trump to help Republicans win five House seats. Republicans currently hold nine of California’s 52 congressional seats.

The ruling is a victory for Democrats in the state-by-state mid-decade redistricting battle that could help determine which party wins control of the U.S. House in 2026. Following the tit-for-tat showdown between the nation’s two most populous states, several Republican-led states including Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio have adopted new district lines that could provide a partisan advantage. Republican-run Utah was ordered by a judge to adopt a map that creates a Democratic-leaning district. The Justice Department has only sued California.

“Republicans’ weak attempt to silence voters failed,” Newsom said in a statement.

Republicans are expected to appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. A representative for state Republicans didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

California Democrats said that the new map was legal because it was drawn for partisan advantage. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that partisan gerrymandering is a political question and not one for the federal courts to decide. The California panel of judges affirmed the state’s characterization, saying there was not strong evidence to support the maps were drawn based on race.

“After reviewing the evidence, we conclude that it was exactly as one would think: it was partisan,” the judges wrote.

In dissent, U.S. District Judge Kenneth Lee, appointed by Trump, said that at least one district was drawn using race as a factor “to curry favor with Latino groups and voters.”

The ruling also comes after the Supreme Court ruled in December to allow Texas to use its new map for the 2026 election because it was drawn with partisan goals. Conservative Justice Samuel Alito wrote in a concurring opinion that the California map was also approved for political advantage, signaling it may also stand.

New U.S. House maps are drawn across the country after the census every 10 years. Some states like California rely on an independent commission to draw maps while others like Texas let politicians draw them. The effort to create new maps in the middle of the decade is highly unusual.

House Democrats need to gain just a handful of seats next year to take control of the chamber, which could thwart Trump’s agenda for the remainder of his term and open the way for congressional investigations into his administration. Republicans hold a narrow margin of control in the House with 218 seats to Democrats’ 213.

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Repeating his false claim that former President Biden beat him in 2020 because the election was rigged, Trump argued that the November special election about redistricting in California would be rigged, as would the 2026 midterm election to determine control of Congress.

“No mail-in or ‘Early’ Voting, Yes to Voter ID! Watch how totally dishonest the California Prop Vote is! Millions of Ballots being ‘shipped,’” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “GET SMART REPUBLICANS, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!!!”

Proposition 50, a ballot measure proposed by Gov. Gavin Newsom and other California Democrats to redraw the state’s congressional districts to boost their party’s ranks in the U.S. House of Representatives, is on the Nov. 4 ballot.

The rare mid-decade redistricting effort was in response to Trump urging GOP-led states, initially Texas, to increase the number of Republicans in the House in the 2026 midterm election to allow him to continue implementing his agenda in his final two years in the White House.

Newsom responded to Trump on X: “Ramblings of an old man that knows he’s going to LOSE.”

Trump has not weighed in on the merits of Proposition 50, while prominent Democrats who support it have, including former President Obama.

More than 4 million mail-in ballots — 18% of the ballots sent to California’s 23 million voters — had been returned as of Friday, according to a vote tracker run by Democratic redistricting expert Paul Mitchell, who drew the proposed maps on the ballot. Democrats continue to outpace Republicans in returning ballots, 51% to 28%. Voters registered without a party preference or with other political parties have returned 21% of the ballots.

Early-voting centers also opened in 29 counties on Saturday.

Turnout figures were alarming Republicans leaders before Trump’s message.

“It’s simple. Republicans need to stop complaining and vote. We ask and ask and ask and yet turnout still lags,” the San Diego GOP posted on X. “To win this one GOP turnout needs to be materially better than average. It’s very doable but won’t just happen. Work it.”

Republicans historically voted early while Democrats were more likely to cast ballots on election day. Trump upended this dynamic, creating dissonance with GOP leaders across the nation who recognized the value of banking early votes. And it completely contradicts the messaging by the opponents of Proposition 50.

Jessica Millan Patterson, a former chair of the state GOP and leader of the “No on Prop. 50 — Stop Sacramento’s Power Grab” committee, has been a longtime proponent of urging Republican voters to cast ballots as early and conveniently as possible.

“Sacramento politicians rushed this costly election for partisan gain, and mistakes have been made,” she said Sunday evening. “If Californians want change from our state’s failed one-party rule, it starts by turning out to vote no on Proposition 50.”

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Maps for new House of Representatives districts going before California voters Nov. 4 would dilute — if not outright erase — GOP voters’ influence in Riverside County by splitting up red cities that form a backbone of support for Republicans Ken Calvert of Corona and Darrell Issa of San Diego County.

If approved by voters, Proposition 50, also known as the Election Rigging Response Act, would obliterate Calvert’s purple district, potentially jeopardizing his three-decade run on Capitol Hill. Issa would go from a safe red district to one with a plurality of Democratic voters.

The new maps drawn by Democrats leave existing districts in San Bernardino County and eastern Los Angeles County relatively untouched, letting incumbents of both parties run for safe seats.

The shifting lines also spare Reps. Mark Takano, D-Riverside and Raul Ruiz, D-Palm Desert, whose districts include much of Riverside County.

Not surprisingly, California Republicans are seething over the overtly partisan mapmaking.

Republican Party of Riverside County Chairwoman Lori Stone called the new maps “nothing short of a blatant power grab” by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom.

“Inland Californians have already been heavily disenfranchised through gerrymandering and now he is openly talking about erasing our voice altogether,” Stone, a Murrieta city councilmember, said via email.

California Democratic leaders, who used their supermajority to zip Prop. 50 through the legislature, argue the new maps wouldn’t be needed if Texas’ Republican majority, prompted by President Donald Trump, hadn’t redrawn the Lone Star State’s House districts to add more red seats ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

“Californians believe in democracy and freedom, and we will not stand by while the House is hijacked by authoritarianism,” Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, D-Salinas, said after Newsom signed legislation authorizing the November special election.

Currently, the GOP holds a narrow House majority. A few flipped seats — or gerrymandered districts — could decide control of the chamber for the remainder of Trump’s term, effectively empowering or blunting his agenda.

Historically, the president’s party loses congressional seats in midterms. And recent polls show Democrats in good position to win back the House after losing it in 2024.

Political redistricting in California normally happens 10 years after the census. An independent commission, legally obligated to exclude partisanship from mapmaking, draws the lines with public input.

Prop. 50 asks voters to use the new maps — drawn without public feedback — for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections, after which the commission would take back the mapmaking pen.

The new maps for California’s 52 House districts would not affect boundaries for state legislative districts. Nor does Prop. 50 ask voters to elect anyone.

Prop. 50 comes as Inland Republicans, after watching local Democrats gain voters and rack up a string of wins in competitive races since 2012, enjoyed a fruitful 2024 election cycle.

Trump became the first GOP presidential candidate in 20 years to win Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Underdog Republicans won two Assembly seats in Riverside County. And since 2020, the GOP has outpaced Democrats in voter registration in more than 30 Inland cities.

Inland Republicans also are making their mark statewide.

Former Inland GOP Assemblymember Bill Essayli is now U.S. attorney for much of Southern California. Republican and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco is running for governor. And conservative Chino Hills school board President Sonja Shaw hopes to become the new state superintendent of public instruction.

Currently, five Democrats and four Republicans represent Riverside and San Bernardino counties in the House. Most have a clear path to reelection with the new maps, including Rep. Jay Obernolte, R-Hesperia.

If voters approve redistricting, Obernolte likely would run in the new version of his 23rd Congressional District, which includes communities he now represents in San Bernardino County’s High Desert and the San Bernardino mountains. The new 23rd would expand south to include Blythe in far eastern Riverside County.

Like Obernolte’s current district, the redrawn 23rd has a plurality of GOP voters. Ruiz, Takano and Reps. Pete Aguilar, D-San Bernardino, and Norma Torres, D-Ontario, would likely run in blue districts encompassing much of the same turf they represent now.

Not all cities would stay in the same district if the new maps are approved.

Claremont, for example, would go from a seat held by Rep. Judy Chu, D-Pasadena to the district where Torres would likely run in 2026. Chino Hills, Eastvale, Norco — a GOP stronghold — and north Corona also would go into a district where 43% of registered voters are Democrats compared to 26% for Republicans.

In an emailed statement, Norco Mayor Greg Newton said he’s concerned Norco “will not receive the same level of advocacy or support in a (new) district that crosses county lines, with much larger cities who have different needs than Norco.”

“We had a redistricting commission, who was conscientious about fair representation,” Newton added. “I don’t believe the time spent doing that work should be dismissed. Redistricting should be done by the people, not the politicians.”

Temecula Mayor Brenden Kalfus noted that his city, founded in 1989, has always been represented by Republicans in the House and has “benefitted greatly” by getting tens of millions of federal dollars for infrastructure.

Kalfus said the city will work with whoever represents it.

“I respect the will of the voters,” he said via email. “I respected the previous will of the voters to have an independent redistricting commission redraw the congressional lines … and I will also respect the will of the voters in November 2025, should they decide to adopt redrawn lines mid-cycle.”

Right now, Rep. Young Kim, R-Anaheim Hills, represents the 40th Congressional District, which includes parts of Orange County along with parts of Chino Hills and Corona.

Redistricting likely would put Kim, a top 2026 Democratic target, in a red district with a bigger slice of the Inland Empire. The redrawn 40th would merge parts of Orange County with Canyon Lake, Lake Elsinore, Menifee, Temescal Valley, Wildomar and south Corona.

Marcia Godwin, a professor of public administration at the University of La Verne, said via email that the proposed 40th’s shape “seems to be related to Voting Rights Act compliance along with the need for Republicans in Calvert’s district to be relocated.”

“It may be incidental that Kim has been rated as one of the more effective representatives and has cosponsored bills in Democrats more than the typical Republican members,” Godwin added.

The 40th’s proposed redesign goes to the heart of Democrats’ strategy to boost their prospects by splitting up Riverside County’s red cities. Issa, for example, would lose GOP-friendly Murrieta to the redrawn 40th.

Instead, Issa’s 48th Congressional District would inherit deep blue Palm Springs. That district, which would include northeast San Diego County, would go from red — 48% Republican, 29% Democratic — to slightly blue, with 37% of voters being Democrats compared to 33% for Republicans.

The new 48th “may be more competitive than has been portrayed,” Godwin said.

“If you look just at the 2024 presidential vote, it looks like the gerrymander will be successful. If you look at several election cycles, it appears to be more evenly divided. It appears that the Democratic Party is counting on a boost in turnout from Democratic voters.”

It could be even worse for Calvert, who would lose his 41st Congressional District entirely. The new 41st would be outside the Inland Empire, potentially forcing Calvert, who’s on Democrats’ target list, to either run in a blue district or compete with fellow Republican Kim in the new 40th.

The current 41st’s demise would upend the campaigns of the half dozen or so Democrats who plan to challenge Calvert in 2026.

One, Jason Byors, recently announced plans to run for Assembly. At least two others — Anuj Dixit and Brandon Riker — plan to run in the new 48th.

“Palm Springs is my home,” Riker said via email. “While the district lines may change, my mission stays the same: to fight for this community every single day.”

Most people dislike gerrymandering and want independent commissions to draw political districts, Shaun Bowler, a UC Riverside political science professor, said via email.

He noted that the U.S. Supreme Court in 2019 allowed partisan mapmaking by refusing to overturn a GOP gerrymander in North Carolina. It’s unclear, he added, whether the high court’s conservative majority “will stand by its own precedent or overturn what California is doing because this time it is the Democrats” doing it.

“Starting down this road of gerrymandering and partisan courts means that institutions are undermined because people don’t  see them as legitimate,” Bowler said.

“There may be short-term partisan gains … but with serious longer-term costs as public support erodes. It’s why many of the people who study politics and history are really quite nervous.”

The post How California redistricting would affect the Inland Empire appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

“We’re doing it mindful that we want to model better behavior,” Newsom told reporters in Los Angeles earlier this month, nodding to the independent system his state currently uses to draw districts. “ … But we cannot unilaterally disarm. We can’t stand back and watch this democracy disappear.”

President Donald Trump’s call for Republicans to redraw U.S. House districts so the party can win more seats in the 2026 midterm elections — to gerrymander them — has triggered a redistricting frenzy this summer that also threatens to prompt moves by Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and New York, among others. Ohio was already set to redraw its lines, even before the current fracas.

The battle for partisan advantage is placing Democratic politicians, advocates of less partisan maps and others who support curbs on gerrymandering in an uncomfortable position, pitting their desire for change against fears that Trump will take advantage of their scruples to wring more GOP seats out of a handful of key states. Some say they accept that Democratic states need to respond, while others warn retaliation will only yield short-term gains.

The Texas House passed a new map on Wednesday, clearing the way for a final vote in the state Senate and Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s signature. In California, lawmakers passed their own map on Thursday, setting up a statewide vote in November over the new districts.

Other states are now likely to follow, as Republicans and Democrats scramble for a political leg up.

But gerrymandering opponents say the current moment has the potential to produce new energy for their movement. More people are paying attention to gerrymandering, they say, and new polls show the public opposes the practice. The rush to redraw maps demonstrates the need for Congress to set national limits, they say.

“I think that the gerrymandering wildfire that we’re seeing across the country right now calls real attention to the urgent need for a national standard,” said David Daley, an author of books on gerrymandering and a senior fellow at FairVote, a Maryland-based nonpartisan group that supports ranked choice voting and multimember House districts to end the practice. “We will never have reform if a handful of states can act on their own.”

At the same time, some gerrymandering opponents fear states will unravel hard-fought victories. They wonder whether temporary measures, such as California potentially setting aside the independent commission it uses to redraw maps, could become permanent.

‘An unprecedented time’

State legislatures exercise primary control over congressional redistricting in 39 states, according to All About Redistricting, a compendium of information on map-drawing hosted by Loyola Law School in California. While some states use other methods, only nine states rely on independent commissions, which typically limit participation by elected officials and are favored by many gerrymandering opponents.

Most states draw maps once a decade after the census, making the mid-decade maneuvers and counter-maneuvers highly unusual (six states currently have only one representative, eliminating the need to draw district lines). But just a few seats could determine who controls the U.S. House. Republicans currently hold 219 seats to Democrats’ 212, with four vacancies.

“We affirm that gerrymandering, both racial and political, disenfranchises voters,” Virginia Kase Solomón, president and CEO of Common Cause, an organization that has long advocated for changes to the redistricting process, said during a press call the day before Newsom’s announcement.

“But this is an unprecedented time of political upheaval,” she said. People don’t want to see a situation develop where maps are redrawn every two years, she added.

The new Texas map could ease the path for Republicans to win an additional five seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Texas lawmakers rapidly advanced the redraw this week once Democratic state lawmakers returned to the state. They had traveled to other states to deny Texas House leaders the quorum required to approve the map, but returned after Newsom outlined California’s response.

Gerrymandering typically involves “packing” and “cracking.” “Packing” refers to the concentration of opposition party voters in a small number of districts to reduce competition elsewhere. “Cracking” means diluting the voting power of the opposing party’s supporters across many districts.

Texas Republicans have been frank that they are pursuing the redraw for partisan advantage. But they emphasize that no prohibition exists, in Texas or nationally, against mid-decade redistricting and that a 2019 U.S. Supreme Court decision cleared the way for states to draw maps for partisan purposes, removing the power of federal courts to police political gerrymandering.

The new maps give Republicans a chance of winning additional districts but doesn’t guarantee victories, they add.

“The underlying goal of this plan is straightforward: improve Republican political performance,” Texas state Rep. Todd Hunter, a Republican who carried the bill in the Texas House, said during floor debate on Wednesday. He added a short time later: “According to the U.S. Supreme Court, you can use political performance, and that is what we’ve done.”

Tricky terrain

As Texas moves forward and California prepares to respond, Common Cause illustrates the tricky terrain anti-gerrymandering advocates are now navigating.

The group, headquartered in Washington, D.C., fought to enact the California Citizens Redistricting Commission in 2008. But earlier this month, Common Cause declined to condemn California’s retaliation, saying it will judge the effort by whether the maps are a proportional response to gerrymanders in other states, whether the process includes meaningful public participation, and whether the maps expire and are replaced after the 2030 census through the state’s regular redistricting process, among other criteria.

Newsom’s proposal, the Election Rigging Response Act, will ask California voters in November to temporarily set aside the state’s redistricting commission and approve the new map drawn by the legislature. The commission would resume drawing maps following the census.

Recent polling shows widespread public opposition to gerrymandering. A YouGov poll of 1,116 Americans conducted in early August found 69% believe it should be illegal to draw districts in a way that makes it harder for members of a particular political party to elect their preferred candidates. The poll’s margin of error was plus or minus 4 percentage points.

The number of Americans who say gerrymandering is a big problem has jumped in recent years. In the YouGov poll, 75% of respondents said it is a major problem when districts are intentionally drawn to favor one party, up from 66% in a 2022 survey.

Some California Republicans have responded to Newsom’s proposal by defending the commission system. A group of Republicans sued in state court to block the plan, but the California Supreme Court on Wednesday denied a request to temporarily halt the effort.

‘Is this bad for reform?’

While members of the public might say they favor citizen-led commissions, they may not care deeply about the issue, said David Hopkins, a political science professor at Boston College who has written on polarization in American politics. He called gerrymandering a “classic process subject” that comes off as “inside baseball” to many people.

“The legislators in states that haven’t adopted commissions clearly don’t feel any particular political pressure to do so,” Hopkins said.

Some Republicans in states weighing a mid-decade gerrymander also discount the risk of a public backlash.

In Missouri, Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe may call a special session this fall to redraw the state’s map in hopes of gaining an additional GOP seat in the U.S. House. James Harris, a Missouri Republican consultant with close ties to GOP officials in the state, said he wasn’t concerned redistricting would create momentum to change the process.

Missouri voters in recent years have approved ballot measures favored by Democrats, including one in 2018 that empowered a nonpartisan demographer to draw state legislative districts, though not congressional districts. But Republicans led a successful campaign to convince voters to repeal the changes two years later.

Harris painted any new potential map as part of a national effort to help Trump — who received 58.5% of the vote in Missouri last November.

“I think the lens is wanting to make sure the president has a majority in Congress so he can actually govern for the last two years versus two years of investigations, gridlock,” Harris said.

Advocates of less partisan maps said lawmakers aren’t likely to surrender their own role in mapmaking. While some state courts may limit redistricting excesses, federal courts stopped policing partisan gerrymandering following the Supreme Court’s 2019 decision. And the high court may soon weaken the judiciary’s power to block race-based gerrymandering.

Samuel Wang, director of the Princeton Gerrymandering Project, which supports eliminating partisan gerrymandering, said the “one good thing” about the redistricting battle is that it’s prompted voters to pay attention to an arcane and technical issue. That could be a positive in the long run, he said, “if people can keep a cool head.”

Wang has written online that any response to Texas should remain measured and proportionate. California offers Democrats the only clean option to strike back, Wang wrote. Five Democratic seats could be added by redrawing the state.

“Is this bad for reform? I mean, I’m torn,” Wang told Stateline. “Because on the other hand, Democrats have been, over the last few decades, vocal in their advocacy for voting rights in various forms and now that advocacy is in question because they find a need to fight fire with fire.”

“So I guess the way I would characterize it is if they can hold it in check and not do it in every single state and just engage in whatever they’re doing where it will make a difference,” he said, “then we might not lose all the progress that’s been made.”

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The ballot measure, pushed by Gov. Gavin Newsom and other state and national Democratic leaders, is the latest volley in a national political brawl over electoral maps that could alter the outcome of the 2026 midterm elections and the balance of power in the U.S. House of Representatives.

If voters approve the redrawn lines on Nov. 4, Democrats in the Golden State would see the odds tilted further in their favor, while the number of California Republicans in the House could be halved.

Newsom initially said that new electoral districts in California would only take effect if another state redrew its lines before 2031. But after Texas moved toward approving its own maps this week that could give the GOP five more House seats, Democrats stripped the so-called “trigger” language from the amendment — meaning that if voters approve the measure, the new lines would take effect no matter what.

“They fired the first shot, Texas,” Newsom said before signing the bills Thursday. “We wouldn’t be here if Texas had not done what they just did, if Donald Trump didn’t do what he just did.”

The ballot measure language, which asks California voters to override the power of the independent redistricting commission, was approved by most Democrats in the Assembly and the Senate, where they hold supermajorities.

Lawmakers have the power to place constitutional amendments on the statewide ballot without the approval of the governor. Newsom later signed two bills that fund the special election and spell out the lines for the new congressional districts.

Democrats’ rush to the ballot marks a sudden departure from California’s 15-year commitment to independent redistricting, often held up as the country’s gold standard. The state’s voters stripped lawmakers of the power to draw lines during the Great Recession and handed that partisan power to a panel of 14 citizens chosen in an exhaustive process — long and detailed questionnaires, multiple essays, face-to-face interviews — overseen by the nonpartisan state auditor.

The change, Democrats said, was forced by an extraordinary change in circumstances: After decades of the United States redrawing congressional lines once a decade, Trump and his political team have leaned on Republican-led states to redraw their district lines before the 2026 midterm elections to help Republicans retain control of the House.

“His playbook is a simple one: Bully, threaten, fight, then rig the rules to hang onto power,” said Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas. “We are here today because California will not be a bystander to that power grab. We are not intimidated, and we are acting openly, lawfully, with purpose and resolve, to defend our state and to defend our democracy.”

Republicans in the state Assembly and the state Senate criticized Newsom’s argument that Democrats must “fight fire with fire,” saying retaliation is a slippery slope that would erode the independent redistricting process California voters have chosen twice at the ballot box.

“You move forward fighting fire with fire, and what happens? You burn it all down,” said Assembly Minority Leader James Gallagher (R-Yuba City). He said Trump was “wrong” to push Gov. Greg Abbott to redraw Texas’ lines to benefit Republicans, and so was California’s push to pursue the same strategy.

State Senate Majority Leader Lena Gonzalez (D-Long Beach), who co-authored the bill drawing the proposed congressional districts, said Democrats had no choice but to stand up, given the harm the Trump administration has inflicted on healthcare, education, tariffs and other policies that affect Californians.

“What do we do? Just sit back and do nothing?” Gonzalez said. “Or do we fight back and provide some chance for our Californians to see themselves in this democracy?”

Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones (R-Santee) said the effort is “a corrupt redistricting scheme to rig California’s elections” that violates the “letter and the spirit of the California Constitution.”

“Democrats are rushing this through under the guise of urgency,” Jones said. “There is no emergency that justifies this abuse of process.”

Two Assembly Democrats present on Thursday did not vote in favor of the constitutional amendment. Jasmeet Bains (D-Delano), who is running for Congress against Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford) in the San Joaquin Valley, voted no, and Progressive Caucus chair Alex Lee (D-San Jose) did not vote. Assemblymember Dawn Addis (D-Morro Bay) was on bereavement leave.

Democrats will face an unusual messaging challenge with the November ballot measure, said Matt Lesenyie, an assistant professor of political science at Cal State Long Beach.

The opponents of mid-decade redistricting are stressing that the measure would “disadvantage voters,” he said, which is “wording that Democrats have primed Democrats on, for now two administrations, that democracy is being killed with a thousand cuts.”

“It’s a weird, sort of up-is-down moment,” Lesenyie said.

How did we get here?

Trump’s political team began pressuring Abbott and Texas Republicans in early June to redraw the state’s 38 congressional districts in the middle of the decade — which is very uncommon — to give Republicans a better shot at keeping the House in 2026.

“We are entitled to five more seats,” Trump later told CNBC.

Some Texas Republicans feared that mid-decade redistricting could imperil their own chances of reelection. But within a month of the White House floating the idea, Abbott added the new congressional lines, which would stack the deck against as many as five Texas Democrats in Congress, to the Legislature’s special session in July.

By mid-July, Newsom was talking about California punching back. In an interview with the progressive news site the TN Holler, Newsom said: “These guys, they’re not f—ing around. They’re playing by a totally different set of rules.”

Democrats in Texas fled the state for nearly two weeks, including some to California, to deny Republicans the quorum they needed to pass the new lines. Abbott signed civil arrest warrants and levied fines on the 52 absent Democrats while they held news conferences in California and Illinois to bring attention to the fight.

While the Texas drama unfolded, consultants for the campaign arm of House Democrats in California quietly drew up maps that would further chop down the number of Golden State Republicans in Congress. The proposed changes would eliminate the district of Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Corona) and dilute the number of GOP voters in four districts represented by Reps. Doug LaMalfa, Kevin Kiley, David Valadao and Darrell Issa.

The Democrats agreed to return to Texas last week and pointed to California’s tit-for-tat effort as one measure of success, saying the Golden State could neutralize any Republican gains in Texas.

Since then, other Republican-led states have begun to contemplate redistricting too, including Indiana, Florida and Missouri. Trump’s political allies are publicly threatening to mount primary challenges against any Indiana Republican who opposes redrawing the lines.

In California, the opposition is shaping up as quickly as the ballot measure.

California voters received the first campaign mailer opposing the ballot measure a day before the Legislature voted to approve it. A four-page glossy flier, funded by conservative donor and independent redistricting champion Charlie Munger Jr., warned voters that mid-decade redistricting is “weakening our Democratic process” and “a threat to California’s landmark election reform.”

Republicans have also gone to court to try to stop the measure, alleging in an emergency petition with the state Supreme Court that Democrats violated the state Constitution by ramming the bills through without following proper legislative procedure. The high court Wednesday rejected the petition.

A wave of legal challenges is expected, not only in California but in any state that reconfigures congressional districts in the expanding partisan brawl.

Assemblymember Carl DeMaio (R-San Diego) said Thursday morning that a lawsuit challenging the California ballot measure would be filed in state court by Friday evening. He said Republicans also plan to litigate the title of the ballot measure and any voter guide materials that accompany it.

And, he said, if voters approve the new lines, “I believe we will have ample opportunity to set the maps aside in federal court.”

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The redrawn maps, unveiled Friday afternoon, Aug. 15, would radically reshape the Inland Empire’s political landscape and put Calvert, R-Corona, and Issa, a San Diego Republican who represents southwest Riverside County, in hostile territories compared to their current districts.

As for Jay Obernolte, R-Hesperia, a proposed district would be similar to the one he currently represents.

“We strongly believe that this map serves the best interest of California voters, while also attempting to push back against the corrupt scheme occurring in Texas and other Republican-majority states where Republicans — doing the bidding of their DC party bosses — are considering adopting a clearly racially gerrymandered, partisan map at the expense of their voters,” Julie Merz, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee executive director, said in a letter attached to the proposed maps.

Calvert took to social media Friday to denounce the redrawn districts.

“I’m committed to defeating Newsom’s power grab in this special election,” the congressmember posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Voters decided to give redistricting powers to the Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission and take it away from politicians drawing their own districts.”

“The gerrymandered maps released today are exactly why voters don’t trust Sacramento politicians. I will fight to keep redistricting power with our citizens.”

Calvert currently represents a district that includes Calimesa, Canyon Lake, Indian Wells, Lake Elsinore, La Quinta, Menifee, Norco, Palm Desert, Palm Springs, Rancho Mirage, Wildomar and parts of Corona, Eastvale and Riverside. Issa’s current district includes Murrieta and Temecula, along with much of San Diego County.

The new districts would split up Norco and Canyon Lake — both solidly red cities — and replace them with bluer communities. Murrieta and part of Temecula — both GOP bastions — would be stripped from Issa’s district.

Calvert narrowly won reelection in 2022 and 2024 in a purple district. Giving him more Democratic voters would make it harder to extend a congressional career that started in the 1990s. Similarly, adding deep blue Palm Springs to what’s essentially Issa’s current district would pose a challenge for him.

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday, Aug. 14, launched California’s campaign to redraw congressional boundary lines, a partisan effort meant to favor Democrats in the state as a counter to similar, Republican-led plans elsewhere in the country in the battle for which party controls the U.S. House of Representatives.

California’s redistricting efforts would only apply to congressional boundary lines, and the changes, should voters approve them, would only be implemented if Republican-led states also move forward with partisan redistricting at the behest of President Donald Trump for the 2026 midterm elections, Newsom said.

These new congressional lines would be in place for elections in 2026, 2028, and 2030, and then the state would revert to having an independent commission decide congressional district boundaries.

The draft maps still need to be approved by the California Legislature, and with a Democratic majority in the statehouse, that’s expected to happen. Both the state Senate and Assembly elections committees have hearings scheduled for Tuesday, Aug. 19.

Voters would then need to give final approval to the maps in a special election on Nov. 4.

California Republicans have largely decried efforts to redo California’s congressional maps mid-cycle. Redistricting is typically done every 10 years, consistent with new census data, and boundary lines are decided by an independent group.

Merz, though, said the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s proposal for California keeps communities together better than what has been proposed in Texas, where Republicans are hoping to shore up extra House seats in 2026.

“Our proposed map was created using traditional redistricting criteria, consistent with guidelines laid out by the California’s Citizen Redistricting Commission,” Merz said.

“It allows for more compact districts than in the current Commission-drawn map, keeps more communities and neighborhoods together, splits fewer cities and makes minimal disruptions to the Commission-drawn map so as to impact as few residents as possible.”

Here’s a look at the proposed maps for Riverside and San Bernardino counties:

23rd Congressional District: Big Bear City and Yucaipa would be part of a sprawling district stretching north of Barstow and out to Blythe. It’s similar to Hesperia Republican Jay Obernolte’s current district.

Thirty-eight percent of the district’s voters would be registered Republicans, compared to 32% for Democrats and 29% for no-party-preference and third-party voters.

25th Congressional District: San Jacinto and much of the Coachella Valley would become part of this district. Roughly 4 in 10 voters in this district are registered Democrats, 28% are Republicans and 28% are no party preference/third party.

28th Congressional District: Part of Rancho Cucamonga would be merged into a district stretching north to Wrightwood and east to include Pasadena, Altadena, Arcadia, San Gabriel, Rosemead and Monterey Park. The voter registration breakdown is 45% Democrat, 31% no party preference/third party and 23% Republican.

31st Congressional District: Chino, San Dimas, Montclair and La Verne would be part of a district stretching to Monrovia and West Covina. Forty-four% of its voters would be Democrats, compared to 25% for Republicans and 28% for no-party-preference and third-party voters.

33rd Congressional District: This district would encompass San Bernardino, Rialto, Highland, Colton, Redlands and part of Rancho Cucamonga. Its voter registration would be 44% Democratic, 30% no party preference/third party and 25% Republican.

35th Congressional District: Claremont, Upland, Ontario, Fontana, Chino Hills, Eastvale, Norco and part of Corona would be in this district. Its voter registration would be 43% Democratic, 29% no party preference/third party and 26% Republican.

39th Congressional District: Jurupa Valley, Riverside, Moreno Valley and Perris would be included in a district similar to the current 39th, which is represented by Riverside Democrat Mark Takano. It’s a blue district with 44% of voters being Democrats, 29% registered as no party preference/third party and 25% registered as Republicans.

40th Congressional District: Rancho Santa Margarita and Villa Park would be included in this district that would stretch east into the Inland Empire, picking up the Temescal Valley, Lake Elsinore, Menifee and Murrieta.

Registered Republicans would have the advantage, making up 40% of the proposed district, compared to 31% Democratic and 27% no party preference/other.

48th Congressional District: Hemet, Palm Springs and part of Temecula would join a district stretching into northern San Diego County. The district would be 37% Democratic, 33% Republican and 29% no party preference/third party.

The post Proposed changes to Inland Empire’s congressional districts emerge appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

It wasn’t close.

Proposition 20 passed by a lopsided 61%-to-38% margin, giving congressional line-drawing authority to an independent mapmaking commission and thus ending decades of pro forma elections by injecting much-needed competition into California’s House races.

Now, Gov. Gavin Newsom is talking about undoing voters’ handiwork.

Newsom said he may seek to cancel the commission, tear up the boundaries it drew and let Democratic partisans draft a new set of lines ahead of next year’s midterm election — all to push back on President Trump and Texas Republicans, who are attempting a raw power grab to enhance the GOP’s standing in 2026.

The threatened move is a long shot and, more than anything, a ploy to boost Newsom’s White House ambitions.

It’s also highly presumptuous on his part, reflecting an increased arrogance among lawmakers around the country who are saying to voters, in effect, “Thank you for your input. Now go away.”

Take what just happened in Missouri. Last year, 58% of voters approved a ballot measure increasing the state minimum wage and requiring employers to provide paid sick leave. This month, Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe signed legislation that limited the minimum wage increase and scrapped the sick leave requirement altogether.

In two other states, Alaska and Nebraska, lawmakers similarly tried but failed to, respectively, overturn voter-passed measures on paid sick leave and a hike in the minimum wage.

“It’s a damning indictment of representative democracy when elected officials are scared of the will of their own voters,” said Alexis Magnan-Callaway of the Fairness Project, a union-backed advocacy group that focuses on state ballot measures.

It is indeed.

But it’s part of a pattern in recent years of lawmakers, mainly in Republican-led states, undercutting or working to roll back voter-designed measures to enshrine abortion rights, expand Medicare and raise the minimum wage.

To be clear, those measures were passed by voters of all stripes: Democrats, Republicans, independents.

“People are transcending party lines to vote for issues that they know will impact their communities,” said Chris Melody Fields Figueredo, executive director of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, a progressive organization. By ignoring or working to nullify the result, she said, lawmakers are helping contribute “to what we’re seeing across the country, where people are losing faith in our institutions and in government.”

And why wouldn’t they, if politicians pay no mind save to ask for their vote come election time?

In a direct attack on the initiative process, at least nine state legislatures passed or considered laws in their most recent session making it harder — and perhaps even impossible — for citizens to place measures on the ballot and seek a popular vote.

There can be issues with direct democracy, as Sean Morales-Doyle of the Brennan Center for Justice pointed out.

“There can be times when systems can be abused to confuse voters,” he said, “or where voters do things without maybe fully understanding what it is they’re doing, because of the way ballot measures are drafted or ballot summaries are offered.”

But it’s one thing to address those glitches, Morales-Doyle said, and “another thing to just basically say that we, as the representatives of voters, disagree with what voters think the best policy is and so we’re going to make it harder for them to enact the policy that they desire.”

In Texas, Republicans are wielding their lopsided power in hopes of erasing as many as five Democratic-leaning congressional seats, boosting the GOP’s chances of keeping control of the House in the 2026 midterm election. Trump, staring at the prospect of an emboldened, subpoena-wielding Democratic House majority, is backing the effort whole-hog.

That, Newsom said, is the fighting-fire-with-fire reason to tear up California’s congressional map and gerrymander the state for Democrats just as egregiously as Texas Republicans hope to do. “We can sit on the sidelines, talk about the way the world should be. Or, we can recognize the existential nature that is this moment,” the governor asserted.

It’s awfully hard to argue against corralling the errant Trump and his Republican enablers. Still, that’s no reason to ignore the express will of California voters when it comes to reining in their own lawmakers.

Taking Newsom’s gerrymander threat at face value, there are two ways he could possibly override Proposition 20.

He could break the law and win passage of legislation drawing new congressional districts, face an inevitable lawsuit and hope to win a favorable ruling from the California Supreme Court. Or he could call a costly special election and ask voters to reverse themselves and eliminate the state’s nonpartisan redistricting commission, at least for the time being.

It’s a hard sell. One presumes Newsom’s message to Californians would not be: “Let’s spend hundreds of millions of your tax dollars so you can surrender your power and return it to politicians working their will in the backrooms of Washington and Sacramento.”

But that’s the gist of what they would be asked to do, which bespeaks no small amount of hubris on Newsom’s part.

If elections are going to matter — especially at a time our democracy is teetering so — politicians have to accept the results, whether they like them or not.

Otherwise, what’s the point of having elections?

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