‘Crazy hill to die on': Newsom jolts California with bid to throw out House maps

Yahoo

17-07-2025

Gavin Newsom suddenly can't stop talking about Texas gerrymandering — and a provocative idea to counter it in California.
On podcasts and social media, the California governor has threatened that if Texas follows President Donald Trump's advice and redraws its congressional districts to shore up the GOP's slender House majority, California should throw out its own maps to boost Democrats, circumventing or overhauling the state's voter-approved redistricting commission.
It's a proposal capturing the imagination of a Democratic Party spoiling for another fight with Republicans and desperate to regain a foothold in Washington. This week, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries privately huddled with members of the California delegation to discuss redistricting at the bloc's weekly lunch. And in California, text threads are ablaze with discussions of what a redraw would look like, who would benefit, and how it would affect active efforts to recruit candidates and raise money.
But it's also a longshot. And to many Democrats in Newsom's home state, it's a new obsession bordering on bizarre — or even anti-democratic.
'Trying to save democracy by destroying democracy is dangerous and foolish,' said Assemblymember Alex Lee, the head of the state Legislature's Pprogressive Ccaucus. 'By legitimizing the race to the bottom of gerrymandering, Democrats will ultimately lose.'
Or as one Democratic political consultant granted anonymity to speak freely put it, 'The idea of taking away the power from the citizens and giving it back to the politicians — the optics of that is horrendous and indefensible.'
The consultant said, 'That's insane. That's a crazy hill to die on.'
Newsom has defended the proposal as a break-the-emergency-glass maneuver to preserve what he has cast as America's besieged democracy, arguing Democrats have to become more aggressive and creative to have a shot at blocking Trump's agenda.
'I'm not going to be the guy who said I could-shoulda-woulda. I'm not going to be passive in this moment,' Newsom told reporters on Wednesday, saying he felt compelled to act because of 'the existential threat of what Donald Trump and some of these Republican states are trying to do.'
And Newsom is not without support in the party after Democrats' throttling in November.
'A lot of people are looking for a fight from the Democratic Party, and Governor Newsom's response to Texas is the kind of thing I think they are looking for,' said Neera Tanden, a former Biden administration official and president and CEO of the Center for American Progress, the influential Democratic think tank. 'People who argue we shouldn't look at measures like this — I think fundamentally they're responsible for Democrats' backsliding because what we see time and time again is the Republican Party is ruthless to achieve their goals.'
Newsom has laid out two options for a retaliatory redistricting, both of which present legal and political challenges.
He could test a novel legal theory by asking the Legislature to create new maps now, rather than wait for decennial redistricting. Or he could ask voters, who in 2010 resoundingly approved the creation of a non-partisan process, to support a Democratic gerrymander in a state where Republicans hold just nine of 52 seats despite comprising a quarter of the electorate.
The idea startled Sacramento, where lawmakers and staffers were scrambling to decipher Newsom's intentions. And it's generated intense skepticism among good government advocates who see it as Newsom, a likely 2028 presidential contender, simply posturing.
'Pretty much everything the governor says lately we have to look through the lens of his eventual run for president,' said Mindy Romero, founder and director of the Center for Inclusive Democracy at the University of Southern California. 'It just looks like blustering. It just looks like an attempt to get attention and headlines and show himself sparring directly with the president or with Republican leadership.'
Newsom is not alone in his frustration with Texas. Democrats around the country are decrying Texas' move to redraw its seats — particularly as Trump has floated having four additional red states manipulate maps to boost the GOP. The effort has some national Democrats feeling heartburn for the power that some blue states handed independent redistricting commissions to draw district lines while red states like Texas weaponized theirs.
Following his meeting with members of the California delegation on Wednesday, Jeffries said in a brief interview, 'It was a thoughtful and robust discussion. An important one, given what's happening in Texas, but beyond that, I'll defer to Zoe Lofgren and Pete Aguilar.'
He said, 'The governor and the California delegation are going to play an important role in whatever happens moving forward, but I'm thankful that the conversation is taking place, and it's a very active one.'
Lofgren, the dean of the delegation, played roles in California Democrats' previous redistricting pushes, too, and was the former chair of the congressional committee overseeing federal elections. California Democrats were largely tight-lipped about their meeting Wednesday afternoon with Jeffries, but attendees told POLITICO the delegation was largely supportive of Newsom's threats to push for new maps if Texas went ahead with its mid-cycle redistricting.
'If Texas moves forward with an egregious mid-decade redistricting, this cannot go unanswered,' Lofgren and Aguilar, the Democratic Caucus chair, said in a statement. 'If their record of throwing 17 million people off their health insurance to hand out billionaire tax breaks was popular, they wouldn't have to redraw their maps to try to hold on to power."
Other members of the California delegation, even those from purple districts, signaled they could support such a push.
'Democrats need to stop bringing a butter knife to a gun fight,' said Rep. Dave Min, who last cycle defended a battleground Orange County seat. 'I think all of us want to see a fair process, but if Republicans are going to try to cheat and redistrict, I think Democratic states are going to consider all options.'
Rep. Derek Tran said, 'I'm looking at it and keeping an open mind.'
Political consultants in California certainly are.
'Every Democratic strategist involved in competitive races in California is not only talking about this but has clear vision on what they'd like to see,' said one Democratic strategist who was granted anonymity to describe private conversations.
That could complicate life for vulnerable incumbents. Redistricting is a zero-sum game: Moving Democratic voters into one district necessarily means excising them from another — a perilous proposition in an area, like purple Orange County, where multiple competitive districts abut one another.
It may never get there. For now, Democrats are trying to differentiate plans from posturing as Newsom escalates another tit-for-tat political standoff.
'It's like a game,' said Democratic political consultant Andrew Acosta, 'to see who can out-politicize each other.'
Newsom, said Paul Mitchell, an expert on California redistricting, may simply be making a bluff intended to deter Texas — 'playing poker with a state that thinks it invented poker.'
Melanie Mason contributed to this report.