They worked hard to draw fair political maps. How do they feel about Newsom undoing them?
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- Members of California’s voter-created redistricting commission differ over an attempted gerrymander.
- They share a deep pride in their even-handedness, which took more than a year of effort.
For Patricia Sinay, one of the highlights of her life was serving on the California Citizens Redistricting Commission, which spent well over a year painstakingly plotting out the state’s political boundaries.
“I got to witness democracy at its core,” said Sinay, 58, who lives in Encinitas and works as a consultant in the world of nonprofits.
“There were 14 very diverse people who came at this work from different backgrounds,” she said. “Some may have known more than others about redistricting. But by the end we were all experts and focused on the same thing, which was creating fair maps for the people of California.”
Now, a good deal of that work may come undone, as voters are being asked to scrap the even-handed congressional lines drawn by Sinay and her fellow commissioners in favor of a blatantly gerrymandered map that could all but wipe out California’s Republican representation in Congress.
Sinay, a Democrat, is ambivalent.
She understands the impetus behind the move, a tit-for-tat response to a similar Republican gerrymander in Texas, done at President Trump’s behest to shore up the GOP’s chances ahead of a perilous 2026 midterm election.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said the proposed partisan redistricting that favors Democrats is a necessary counterweight to President Trump’s threat to American democracy.
“I think what President Trump requested is absolutely abhorrent. I think that Texas doing this is absolutely abhorrent,” Sinay said. “I do not support the actions of the current administration. I think that their actions are absolutely dangerous and scary.”
But, she said, “I don’t think this is the best way to stop what the administration is doing.”
Sinay noted Republicans have more gerrymandering opportunities nationwide than Democrats, should political adversaries go that route, and she questioned the cost of California’s Nov. 4 special election, which could run into hundreds of millions of dollars.
“There are too many people right now that are hurting that could use that money in much better ways,” Sinay said.
Other commissioners disagree.
Sara Sadhwani, 45, a Democrat who teaches political science at Pomona College, spoke at Gov. Gavin Newsom’s rally kicking off the gerrymandering effort and testified before the state Senate, urging lawmakers to put the matter before voters so they can give Democrats a lift.
“These are extraordinary times,” Sadhwani said, “and extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures.”
Trena Turner, a pastor in Stockton and fellow commissioner, said she’s tremendously proud of the commission’s work and believes its impartial approach to political line-drawing is a model the rest of America should embrace.
But, she said, “I don’t think we should be playing by individual rules, different rules from state to state,” given what’s taken place in Texas and the threat of GOP gerrymandering in other places, such as Florida.
“The voices that we need to speak up for now are not just our individual congressional districts,” said the 64-year-old Democrat. “We need to speak up for the voices of our nation, for the soul of our nation.”
Neal Fornaciari, a Republican who chairs the redistricting commission, said individual members are speaking strictly for themselves. (Though its map-making function was completed at the end of 2021, the commission remains in existence.)
Commissioners “are exercising their 1st Amendment right to free speech,” said Fornaciari, 63, a retired mechanical engineer who lives in Shingletown, in the far north of California. But, he emphasized, “The commission is in no way involved in this redistricting effort.”
He even declined to state his personal views on the Democratic gerrymander, lest someone mistakenly assume Fornaciari was speaking on the commission’s behalf.
The body was created in 2008 when California voters approved Proposition 11, also known as the Voters First Act. Spearheaded by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the measure sought to bring balance to legislative races by taking redistricting away from lawmakers, who tended to draw the state’s political lines to suit their interests and minimize competition.
The high-stakes fight over political boundaries could shape control of the U.S. House – and determine Gov. Gavin Newsom’s political future.
In 2010, voters extended the commission’s oversight to congressional races.
Consisting of 14 members, the panel is divided among five Democrats, five Republicans and four members with no party affiliation. More than 30,000 Californians applied for the positions.
The 14 who landed the job survived a grueling selection process, overseen by the nonpartisan state auditor, which involved detailed questionnaires, multiple essays and face-to-face interviews. The final lineup included a seminary professor, a structural engineer and an investigator for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
Over the course of 16 months — and through days sometimes lasting 12 hours or more — commissioners produced 176 maps. They created district boundaries for 52 members of Congress, 120 state lawmakers and four members of the Board of Equalization, which oversees tax collection in California.
Commissioners worked for free, receiving no salary, though they did get a $378 per diem on days they spent in session.
It’s a point of pride that no one sued to overturn the commission’s work, a rarity in the highly litigious field of redistricting.
“Most of the time if you watched our meetings I doubt if you could have correctly guessed all our political affiliations,” Russell Yee, a Republican commissioner, said in an email. “We approved our final maps unanimously. We proved that citizens can rise above political, racial, regional, and generational differences to do the public’s work together in an open and successful manner.”
(All commission meetings were open to the public, with proceedings livestreamed on the internet.)
Yee, 64, the academic director at a small Christian study center in Berkeley, said he was generally opposed to the Democratic gerrymandering effort “because two wrongs don’t make a right. The ends do not justify the means.”
However, while Yee leans against Proposition 50, as the November ballot measure has been designated, he will “keep listening with an open mind.”
See how your neighborhood shifts under California’s proposed congressional district changes.
Even if voters crumple up and toss the congressional maps Yee and others drafted, none felt as though their labors were wasted. For one thing, they said, the other political boundaries, for state legislative contests and the Board of Equalization, will remain intact. And the congressional lines yielded a set of highly competitive races in 2020 and 2024.
“We’ve shown twice now that independent, citizen redistricting can work well even in a state as populous, demographically diverse, and geographically complex at California,” Yee said.
For her part, Sinay, the nonprofit consultant, is uncertain about Proposition 50.
One thing she wants, Sinay said, is reassurance “this isn’t a permanent power grab” and that congressional redistricting will, in fact, revert to the commission after the next census, as Newsom and gerrymandering proponents have promised. Sidelining self-interested politicians is definitely a better way to draw political maps, she suggested, but ultimately it’s up to voters to decide.
“I will definitely support whatever the people of California want,” Sinay said.
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Ideas expressed in the piece
California’s independent redistricting commission represents democracy at its core, with 14 diverse commissioners from different backgrounds working collaboratively to create fair maps for all Californians, as evidenced by their unanimous approval of final maps after 16 months of intensive work[1]. The commission’s nonpartisan approach successfully produced competitive races in 2020 and 2024, proving that citizen-led redistricting can work effectively even in a complex state like California.
While the commission’s work should ideally remain intact, extraordinary circumstances such as Texas Republicans’ gerrymandering at President Trump’s urging justify extraordinary measures to protect Democratic representation in Congress[1]. Democrats supporting the redistricting plan argue that fighting fire with fire is necessary when facing coordinated Republican efforts to manipulate congressional maps nationwide, particularly when California Democrats risk losing influence in a perilous 2026 midterm election.
The proposed congressional map redesign serves as a defensive response to preserve the balance of power rather than an offensive partisan power grab, with supporters emphasizing that the changes would be temporary until the next redistricting cycle in 2031[1][2]. Legislative supporters frame the November special election as essential for protecting democracy against what they characterize as Trump’s “power grab” and unconstitutional manipulation of electoral boundaries.
Different views on the topic
Republican state legislators have filed legal challenges arguing that the redistricting plan represents an unconstitutional power grab that undermines the voter-created Citizens Redistricting Commission and silences public input[3]. They contend that the Democratic-led effort circumvents the transparent, nonpartisan process that California voters specifically established to prevent politically motivated redistricting, calling it a “secret backroom deal to protect politicians.”
The estimated cost of over $200 million for the November special election raises serious fiscal concerns, particularly given California’s projected budget deficit, with Republican lawmakers questioning whether adequate funds have been allocated and criticizing the lack of detailed cost estimates[3]. Assembly Republicans argue that taxpayers should not bear the burden of an expensive special election when those resources could be better used to address pressing needs of struggling Californians.
Some redistricting commissioners oppose the gerrymandering effort on principle, arguing that “two wrongs don’t make a right” and that the ends do not justify the means, regardless of Republican actions in other states[1]. Critics within the commission warn that abandoning nonpartisan redistricting principles could set a dangerous precedent and that Republicans nationwide have more gerrymandering opportunities than Democrats, potentially backfiring if other states follow California’s example.
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