Gavin Newsom teased a redistricting fight with Texas. Can he even do that?
Newsom began making comments last week after Abbott announced plans for the Republican-dominated Texas Legislature to draw new congressional maps in a special legislative session. Texas, like other states, redrew its maps after the 2020 census. New map-drawing normally wouldn't happen until the next census in 2030 absent a successful lawsuit forcing a state to redo them. But the New York Times has reported Trump's political advisers are pushing for Texas to redraw its maps ahead of the midterms to be more favorable to Republicans.
The California Legislature, where Democrats hold supermajorities in both chambers, 'could gerrymander like no other state,' Newsom told liberal news outlet the Tennessee Holler in an interview that published Thursday, referring to the practice of redrawing districts to favor a certain political party.
'I saw what Gov. Abbott did today … These guys are not f---ing around,' Newsom said. 'They're playing by a different set of rules … We've been playing fair but it made me question that entire program. These guys are going to do everything in their power to maintain their power.'
Newsom added that it's imperative for his party to take back control of the House of Representatives. Currently, Republicans hold 220 seats in the House compared to Democrats' 212, a number that shrunk in recent months after three Democrats died in office, leaving vacancies. But that majority will be tough for the GOP to hold in the midterms, when a president's party typically has trouble holding onto seats.
Newsom has become more aggressively political in recent weeks. After trying to play nice with Trump in the first months of his second presidency, Newsom abandoned those efforts last month when the president deployed National Guard troops to the streets of Los Angeles in response to protests. Since then, he has given a primetime address accusing Trump of assaulting democracy; launched a social media onslaught against the president and other Republican officials; and gone on a tour through parts of South Carolina he billed as an effort to challenge the GOP on its home turf.
In a post where he included a video of his comments to the Holler, Newsom wrote: 'Texas is using a special session about emergency disaster aid to redistrict their state and cheat their way into more Congressional seats. These guys have no shame. CA is watching — and you can bet we won't stand idly by.'
But California's laws constrain Newsom from responding in kind to any efforts in Texas to redraw maps to favor Republicans. Voters in California took that power from the state Legislature in 2008 and handed it to an independent redistricting commission, which draws the lines for California's congressional and state legislative districts. Though Newsom is correct that Democrats dominate the Legislature, they do not dominate the redistricting commission. By law, the commission comprises five Democrats, five Republicans and four commissioners not affiliated with either party.
Sara Sadhwani, a politics professor at Pomona College who serves as one of the Democratic commissioners, said the governor doesn't have any power over the commission's activities and can't force it to draw new maps in Democrats' favor.
'In this national context, I can understand the governor's inclination to want to retaliate,' she said. 'However the people of California have made it clear at the ballot that the governor does not have that power.'
California's system is somewhat unusual — in most states, the parties can wield significant influence over the redistricting process, especially in places where one party controls state government.
'I certainly understand and recognize that the balance of power hinges on redistricting, and when all states are not playing fair, the fact that California does puts Democrats at a disadvantage,' Sadhwani said.
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Miami Herald
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Politico
11 minutes ago
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Joe Neguse's office … National Association of Realtors' Kathryn Crenshaw … Eun Kim … Naomie Pierre-Louis … Ericka Perryman … Andrew Usyk … Helen Hare … Erica Fein … Nate Gaspar … Electric Power Research Institute's Arshad Mansoor … Rob Ellsworth of the Majority Group TRIVIA MONDAY'S ANSWER: John McKechnie correctly answered that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is the son of Sen. Charles Goodell, who succeeded the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. TODAY'S QUESTION, from John: In honor of tonight's MLB All-Star Game, name the Hall of Famer who once unsuccessfully ran for Congress in Maryland. The first person to correctly guess gets a mention in the next edition of Inside Congress. Send your answers to insidecongress@
