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California Gov. Gavin Newsom says he was reluctant to change his state’s redistricting rules, but eager to do something to give President Trump a black eye.
The desire for partisan pugilism won over principle, as Mr. Newsom signed a law putting his state’s new map to voters in a referendum in November.
He’s far from alone. A number of good-government groups on the left that decried Texas’s mid-decade redistricting that benefitted Republicans have cheered on California, saying the goose-gander analogy is clear.
But there are some major holdouts, even on the left.
The League of Women Voters, for one, has said it believes redrawing congressional maps for cheap political advantage in the middle of a 10-year census cycle is bad, whether it’s being done by Republicans aiding Mr. Trump or Democrats seeking to undercut him.
“Gerrymandering is a threat to democracy, regardless of who does it,” the league said.
California used to be hailed by many of those groups as a state that did it right. It uses a commission to redraw its lines, taking the task outside the hands of the state legislature.
The legislation Mr. Newsom signed last week overturns the commission’s current map and asks voters to approve a deeply partisan one that could reduce Republicans from 9 out of the state’s 52 U.S. House seats to just 4.
Mr. Newsom said he felt compelled to act in order to counter Texas, where the Republican-led legislature over the weekend wrote new maps that could erase five Democrat-held seats, boosting the GOP’s share to 30 of the state’s 38 House seats.
That works out to 21% of the seats, in a state where Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris won 42% of the vote last year.
In California, the GOP could be left with just 8% of seats in a state where Mr. Trump won 38%.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said his state was engaged in the unusual mid-decade redistricting because the Trump Department of Justice flagged a number of seats as potentially illegal racial gerrymanders.
Democrats say that was a pretext to give Mr. Abbott, a Republican, the excuse he needed to try to bolster the GOP’s thin House majority in next year’s midterm elections.
Of course, in the who-started-it game, Democrats could shoulder the blame after New York did its own mid-decade redistricting last year, netting three extra U.S. House seats in November.
The League of Women Voters opposed New York’s effort as well, showing consistency across the board.
Other left-wing voting groups, however, have embraced Mr. Newsom’s power grab as an ends-justify-the-means situation.
The National Democratic Redistricting Committee, run by former Obama-era Attorney General Eric Holder, cheered New York, derided Texas and congratulated California.
Mr. Holder said that was because California is asking the voters to overturn its maps and adopt what he called a “responsive, responsible and temporary” map.
“What California is doing to meet and balance Texas’s outrageous power grab achieves that purpose, and it has my absolute and total support,” he said.
Another group, Common Cause, was explicit in saying it was changing its own “playbook” to back Mr. Newsom — and, by extension, stick it to Mr. Trump.
“We will not pre-emptively oppose California or other states drawing new districts in response to gerrymandering in Texas,” Common Cause said in a fundraising appeal. “A blanket condemnation at this moment would be sitting on the sidelines in the face of authoritarianism.”
Michael Waldman, head of the Brennan Center for Justice, slammed Texas for its redistricting and gently chided California for its retaliation, saying it was “no surprise that Democrats are responding as they have.”
“But ultimately, a partisan redistricting arms race cannot be the only answer,” Mr. Waldman said.
He called for Congress to act on one of several Democrat-led proposals that would ban “partisan” gerrymandering.
Rep. Kevin Kiley, California Republican, also called for a ceasefire — and he’s written a bill to enforce disarmament. His legislation would nullify any maps adopted after the 2024 election.
That would allow New York’s partisan redistricting last year, but would cancel Texas and California and preempt any other states.
Mr. Kiley called gerrymandering “a plague on democracy wherever it occurs.”
But among those who count the most — California voters — battling Mr. Trump draws the lion’s share of support.
A University of California, Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll conducted for The Los Angeles Times found 46% of registered voters surveyed thought Mr. Newsom’s new map referendum a good idea, while 36% said it was a bad idea.
And 48% said they would vote for it, compared to nearly a third who were opposed, and 20% who were undecided.
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