Newsom vows Texas will be ‘neutered’ by California. Will voters let him do it?
- Share via
See more from the L.A. Times in Google Search. Set us as preferred
- Such is the state of our union that even those determined to preserve it are ready to throw out its basic tenets to do so.
- The difference between Texas and California is our ballot initiative process, which will ultimately make voters responsible for any gerrymandering here.
Gov. Gavin Newsom made a ballsy threat this week to Texas legislators who are trying to gerrymander voting maps in favor of Republicans.
“Whatever they are doing will be neutered here in the state of California, and they will pay that price,” Newsom said. “They’ve triggered this response. And we’re not going to roll over, and we’re going to fight fire with fire.”
The “we” in that sentence is you, California voters, who may soon be asked to fix the Texas menace via the ballot box. If Newsom has his way, voters in November would face some version of an if/then question: “If Texas cheats on their voting maps, then (and only then) should California cheat on ours?”
In these days of creeping authoritarianism, it’s a fair query, but also one rife with personal interests and risks large enough to remake American democracy, or even inadvertently crush it.
But such is the state of our union that even those determined to preserve it are ready to throw out its basic tenets — myself included, sort of — and cause a national kerfuffle by considering remaking voting maps to supposedly benefit, if not a party, democracy as a whole.
“This is something that we have just never seen before, right?” Mindy Romero told me Tuesday. She’s an assistant professor and the founder of the Center for Inclusive Democracy at USC’s Sol Price School of Public Policy.
Romero is against gerrymandering, but also agrees that we are in “unprecedented times,” a phrase that doesn’t seem to do justice to the daily trampling of democratic safeguards by our president.
Most of you are aware by now that the Texas Legislature, allegedly after pressure from President Trump, is contemplating redrawing its voting maps in the hopes of scooping up more seats for Republicans in Congress during the 2026 midterms — the very election that Democrats are praying will deliver them control of at least one chamber.
California’s governor wants to redraw congressional lines to offset a Texas gerrymander. Is that snubbing voters who took the power from politicians? Or necessarily fighting fire with fire?
With the possibility that this Texas two-step could hand Trump an even more solidly compliant Congress, Newsom has come up with a plan to gerrymander our own maps. But to make it (hopefully) legal, he needs voters to go along with it because this ain’t Texas, and we don’t ignore rules. We bend them.
Whoever thought redistricting could be this exciting? But stay calm, redistricting nerds: It remains boring to the majority of voters, which is both the problem and the brilliance of the plan — you have to engage voters, but also not so much that they think too deeply.
The difference between Texas and California is our ballot initiative process, which would ultimately make voters responsible for any gerrymandering here. In Texas, it’s backroom stuff.
But will voters go for it? For many, it will come down to simple choices that miss the complexity of what is being asked: California vs. Texas, Newsom vs. Trump, democracy vs. authoritarianism.
Romero warns that once you smash a norm, even for a virtuous reason, it’s hard to get it back. She worries that despite Newsom’s claim that the rigged maps would disappear in 2030, the gerrymandering might remain.
California has one of the best systems in the country right now for nonpartisan redistricting, with an independent commission that draws lines without regard to party.
It was put in place because decades of gerrymandering left voters disenchanted.
In the 1980s, political icon Phillip Burton allegedly wrangled an infamous gerrymander that still shows just how bad things could be. He did it in part to protect the seat of his brother, John Burton ( a colorful fellow who served in both the state Legislature and Congress before becoming chair of the California Democratic Party) creating a district that wound around the Bay Area in a nonsensical fashion to scrape up the necessary votes.
“Oh, it’s gorgeous,” Phillip Burton described that questionable territory to the Washington Post at the time. “It curls in and out like a snake.”
That was just the way business was done before our redistricting commission was put in place in 2008, with a hefty push by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who remains a vocal critic of gerrymandering and who has vowed to fight Newsom’s plan.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday he plans to put new district lines in front of voters in a special election on Nov. 4, but only if Texas moves forward with its redistricting plans.
But that nonpartisan system was hard won, and in reality, neither party really loved the idea.
“We’ve gone through this and in cooler times,” Romero pointed out. “The Democrats and the Republicans in California did not want independent redistricting. Let’s make that clear. But a lot of people came together and worked towards this.”
So while any upcoming ballot measure will likely focus on the righteousness of fighting fire with fire, it’s also true that the Democratic party and some Democratic politicians would hope to reap personal gain from such a vote.
As much as this might be about saving democracy, politics is always about personal and party gain. Some California state legislators would surely desire to win a newly drawn seat in Congress. And, of course, there are Newsom’s political ambitions.
“It’s really difficult to disentangle people that may be sincerely scared for our democracy” from those “that may be jumping on this, seeing it as a political opportunity. And I think we have to be really honest about that,” Romero said.
That’s the choice that voters will ultimately be asked to make.
But we also can’t ignore the precarious nature of the times, and the reality that our checks and balances are disintegrating. Do we save election integrity and maybe risk democracy, or try to save democracy and risk election integrity?
Two paths lead into the dark. Do voters follow Newsom or Trump?
Insights
L.A. Times Insights delivers AI-generated analysis on Voices content to offer all points of view. Insights does not appear on any news articles.
Viewpoint
Perspectives
The following AI-generated content is powered by Perplexity. The Los Angeles Times editorial staff does not create or edit the content.
Ideas expressed in the piece
The author presents Newsom’s threat as a defensive response to unprecedented authoritarian times, describing it as a “fair query” given the “daily trampling of democratic safeguards” by the current president. The piece frames this as California voters potentially being asked to “fix the Texas menace via the ballot box” through an if/then proposition about fighting gerrymandering with gerrymandering.
The article emphasizes the distinction between California’s transparent ballot initiative process versus Texas’s “backroom stuff,” suggesting that California’s approach would make voters directly responsible for any gerrymandering decisions rather than leaving it to politicians alone. This democratic accountability is positioned as a key differentiator that could legitimize the retaliatory action.
The author acknowledges the precarious nature of current political times and suggests that traditional democratic norms may need to be bent to preserve democracy itself, presenting this as a choice between “saving election integrity and maybe risking democracy, or trying to save democracy and risking election integrity.”
The piece frames the ultimate decision as a binary choice for voters between following Newsom or Trump, characterizing it as democracy versus authoritarianism, with the implication that extraordinary circumstances may justify extraordinary responses to protect democratic institutions.
Different views on the topic
California Republican Party Chairwoman Corrin Rankin argues that Newsom’s actions could threaten Californians’ constitutional rights while setting a dangerous precedent, stating that the redistricting “undermines California’s nationally respected, voter-approved Citizens Redistricting Commission” and creates a precedent where “voters’ choices can be overruled whenever politicians find it politically convenient”[1].
Critics emphasize that California currently maintains “one of the best systems in the country right now for nonpartisan redistricting,” with an independent commission established in 2008 that draws lines without regard to party affiliation, representing a hard-won reform that took years to implement and should not be abandoned lightly.
Political experts warn about the irreversible nature of breaking democratic norms, with USC’s Mindy Romero cautioning that “once you smash a norm, even for a virtuous reason, it’s hard to get it back” and expressing concern that despite promises the gerrymandered maps would disappear in 2030, the practice might become permanent.
Congressional Representative Kevin Kiley has responded by proposing federal legislation to prevent early redistricting nationwide and protect independent commissions like California’s, suggesting that the solution should be systemic reform rather than retaliatory gerrymandering[2]. This approach would address the root problem without compromising California’s existing nonpartisan redistricting framework.
More From the Los Angeles Times
Podcasts
On screen, Errol Flynn played a series of daredevils, fortune hunters, and suave romantics. Off screen, he lived a life of outsize debauchery and recklessness, including a persistent interest in underage girls. In 1943, at the height of his fame, he faced trial in Los Angeles on charges of statutory rape.
In our first episode, the L.A. Times columnist George Skelton sizes up the governors he’s known, what made them successful and whether the next one can measure up.
How do you get more people to care about climate change — and tell riveting stories along the way? Boiling Point explored that question at a live event during this year’s New York City Climate Week at Columbia University’s Climate School.
