Schwarzenegger pushing back back against Newsom redistricting bid in California
The longtime Hollywood action star who was the last Republican elected governor in Democrat-dominated California is gearing up to oppose the push by current Gov. Gavin Newsom to scrap the state's non-partisan redistricting commission.
"He calls gerrymandering evil, and he means that. He thinks it's truly evil for politicians to take power from people," Schwarzenegger spokesperson Daniel Ketchell told Politico.
Newsom, whom pundits view as a likely contender for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination, aims to redraw California's congressional maps, to give the state five more blue-leaning House districts ahead of next year's midterm elections.
The push by Newsom is a counter effort to negate a move underway by Republicans in GOP-dominated Texas to create five more right-leaning congressional districts at President Donald Trump's urging.
The Republican push in Texas is part of a broader effort by the GOP across the country to keep control of their razor-thin House majority, and cushion losses elsewhere in the country, as the party in power traditionally faces political headwinds and loses seats in midterm elections.
Trump and his political team are aiming to prevent what happened during his first term in the White House, when Democrats stormed back to grab the House majority in the 2018 midterms.
"Texas will be the biggest one," the president told reporters recently, as he predicted the number of GOP-friendly seats that could be added through redistricting in the reliably red state. "Just a simple redrawing, we pick up five seats."
Scores of Texas Democrats in the state legislature fled the state, to prevent Republicans from holding votes to pass the new maps. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has called for those lawmakers to be arrested and prosecuted upon their return to the Lone Star State.
The moves by Republicans and Democrats to implement rare mid-decade redistricting is opposed by Schwarzenegger, who championed California's nonpartisan redistricting system.
"He's opposed to what Texas is doing, and he's opposed to the idea that California would race to the bottom to do the same thing," Ketchell added.
Schwarzenegger, during his tenure as governor, had a starring role in the passage of constitutional amendments in California in 2008 and 2010 that took the power to draw state legislative and congressional districts away from politicians and place it in the hands of an independent commission.
While the Republican push in Texas to upend the current congressional maps doesn't face constitutional constraints, Newsom's path in California is much more complicated.
The governor is moving to hold a special election this year, to obtain voter approval to undo the constitutional amendments that created the non-partisan redistricting commission. A two-thirds majority vote in the Democrat-dominated California legislature would be needed to hold the referendum.
"The proposal that we're advancing with the legislature has a trigger only if they move forward, to dismantling the protocols that are well-established," Newsom said on Monday. "Would the state of California move forward in kind? Fighting? Yes, fire with fire."
Newsom said the people of California would have the final say.
"We will offer them the opportunity to make judgments for themselves, again, only if Texas moves forward," Newsom said.
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