Gerrymandering and JB Pritzker's Inferno
New York's Gov. Kathy Hochul called the Texas Republican plan 'nothing short of a legal insurrection.' She pledged to redraw her state's congressional lines 'as soon as possible,' declaring that 'we are at war' and that 'all is fair in love and war.'
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, said he would 'fight fire with fire' and override the provision in California's Constitution requiring that a nonpartisan commission set the state's congressional lines. Instead, he would urge the Legislature to draw a map offsetting any gains the GOP makes in Texas.
Welcome to the sixth ditch of the eighth circle of hell, where in the 'Divine Comedy' Dante met the hypocrites, condemned for eternity to wear gold-plated lead cloaks.
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San Francisco Chronicle
6 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Newsom is the face of California's redistricting push. That could help him — and hurt the plan
SACRAMENTO — By launching a campaign to redraw California's congressional districts, Gov. Gavin Newsom has once again placed himself at the center of the national political conversation. That's helpful to Newsom as he positions himself to run for president in 2028 — something he has not explicitly admitted but has long been evident in his efforts to build a national donor base and boost his visibility in other states, including a recent visit to South Carolina. But it could prove detrimental to the redistricting campaign itself if Republicans can convince voters to view the measure as a power grab by Newsom, rather than the Democrats' framing as a fight against President Donald Trump. For loyal Democratic voters, the key constituency Newsom would need to win in a presidential primary, that framing seems to be working. Newsom has surged in popularity on social media with his persistent attacks on Trump and is earning praise from liberals hungry for their leaders to take on the president more aggressively. 'He's staking out a position as the kind of person who fights,' said Hans Noel, a government professor at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. 'A lot of Democrats want to see that.' To successfully campaign for president, Newsom needs to shore up support from Democratic leaders and boost his popularity outside of California, Noel said. With the redistricting measure, Newsom risks criticism from people who disagree with his tactics and don't want to see Democrats abandon independent redistricting. But the campaign is undeniably helping him introduce himself to voters outside the Golden State who may not be familiar with him. Being at the forefront of the campaign might help him with a future presidential run, but it could hamper the campaign's chances within California, said Rob Stutzman, a Republican strategist who previously worked for Arnold Schwarzenegger. Democrats describe the measure as a fight against Trump and a direct response to efforts in Texas to redraw maps in favor of Republicans. Newsom has said he'd abandon the effort if Texas dropped its plans. But it's also something that would hand California Democrats more power, as Republican opponents are already pointing out. 'Every issue that matters to Californians has been put to the side so that (Newsom) and other politicians can seize back power,' Assembly Member Carl DeMaio, R-San Diego, said during a news conference opposing the redistricting measure on Monday. 'The reason why we're here today is Gov. Gavin Newsom's failing presidential campaign needs a little boost.' Democratic lawmakers plan to vote on Thursday to place the measure on the ballot in a Nov. 4 special election. They'll have a remarkably short span of time to convince voters to support the proposition, which would redraw California's congressional maps to give an advantage to Democrats. That would temporarily roll back a reform passed by voters in 2010, when they removed power to draw congressional districts from the Legislature and gave it to an independent commission with equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats. That reform was good in theory, Democrats say, but in practice dilutes Californians' power in Congress because other states continue to draw their districts in a partisan way. The proposed redistricting measure would replace the independent commission's maps with maps favoring Democrats for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections. After the 2030 census, the independent commission would draw new maps free of partisan interference. It's not clear yet whether Newsom will continue to be the face of the campaign. The fight was his idea, and he has led the charge so far — hosting regular press conferences and doing a blitz of interviews to promote the plan. He narrates the campaign's first ad, which features a speech he gave in Sacramento criticizing Texas Republicans' redistricting moves. Voters tend to be skeptical of efforts by politicians to increase their own power. The more Newsom is seen as the face of the measure, the more likely voters are to see it as a self-serving ploy and reject it, Stutzman said. 'Whether this passes is a more difficult question, but the opportunity it provides for Newsom I think is very valuable,' Stutzman said. 'He certainly seems intent on making the most of it.' Julia Azari, a politics professor at Marquette University in Wisconsin, said Newsom's antagonism of Trump somewhat mirrors what Kamala Harris did in 2017. While serving as California's junior senator, Harris staked out a reputation for taking Trump administration officials to task during oversight hearings, an image that helped propel her candidacy for president in 2020. In the end, Harris wasn't able to out-compete the frontrunners in that race — Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders — who both had many more years in the national spotlight. Getting out in front of voters so early has a potential downside, Azari noted, which is that it will give voters more time to learn unflattering things about Newsom's record as governor of California. But Biden faced the same challenge in 2020, which he overcame to win the presidency. The redistricting fight is particularly well-suited for these purposes. It centers Newsom in a major national political story. And it allows him to position himself at the front of the pack of Democrats vying for a nomination in 2028 while uniting, not attacking them, Noel said. Ludovic Blain, who runs the progressive donor group the California Donor Table, said he's not always aligned politically with the governor, but on this issue, they're on the same page. He said progressives are looking for politicians who will stand up to Trump, and Newsom is rising to the occasion. He said he doesn't necessarily see a major downside for Newsom if the ballot measure fails. 'Voters want to see fighters,' he said. 'The question of whether they're successful — that's secondary because you can't be successful if you don't fight.'
Fast Company
6 minutes ago
- Fast Company
Newsom and Cuomo are using social media to try and replicate Mamdani's appeal. They're missing the point
According to Sun Tzu, in order to know your enemy, you must become your enemy. Some politicians might be taking that advice a little too literally, though. Zohran Mamdani's notably deft use of social media helped lead his well-run mayoral primary campaign to victory in June—and it may have inspired some recent pivots from other politicos. Former New York governor Andrew Cuomo is now taking a kitchen-sink approach to replicating his mayoral opponent's social media magic, while California Governor Gavin Newsom has taken to mimicking Donald Trump in an ongoing performance art piece on one of his X accounts. Neither seems to have a broader strategy beyond capturing attention. Memes and mimicking online Fresh off of copying Mamdani's distinct video style upon reentering the mayoral race as an Independent, Cuomo is now trying to flex his own social media fluency, with memes and a reply-heavy X account. In between the rash of posts attacking his opponent, Cuomo has been interacting with many of his followers and posting the occasional clunky meme from The Office. Apparently, this is just the beginning. Jason Levin, whose bio claims he builds 'software for meme marketing and memetic warfare,' took credit for Cuomo's memefication on Monday. In a thread posted to X, he recounted how his first meme for Cuomo hit 5.1 million views on the platform, with a triumphant tone more befitting someone who has just received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. 'We are entering a golden age of meme'fied politics,' he wrote in one entry in the thread, urging his followers to take up arms (read: memes), and help 'save NYC.' Meanwhile, Governor Newsom also seems to believe we have 'entered a golden age of meme'fied politics.' Since the beginning of August, he has been taking a punchier approach on X, with the occasional clunky meme from The Office. The effort peaked last week, though, when Newsom began an elaborate trolling campaign against Trump, in which his tweets favor the president's all-caps, nickname-forward, syntactically challenged, self-worshipful style. In an effort to show he's willing to stand up to Trump—or, let's be real, more likely in an effort to lay further groundwork for his inevitable 2028 presidential bid—Newsom is acting on social media as though he were a Good Terminator sent back in time to stop the Bad one. Whether these efforts have had any meaningful impact on Trump is debatable, but what is beyond dispute is that this social media strategy has earned Newsom loads of attention. Cuomo trolls desperately for votes The attention a politician generates with memes or trolling, however, is not necessarily relevant if they don't match it with something more interesting to say. Social media fluency, after all, is not political fairy dust. In 2025, we're well past the point where a politician using memes, in and of itself, suggests youthful savviness. Michael Bloomberg went all in on the best memes money can buy in the 2020 election, and failed to move the needle one iota. A decade into Trump's political era, everyone has already been to this circus and seen these clowns. What they want instead are leaders. Throughout his campaign, Mamdani used social media to highlight key issues around the central theme of affordability, reveal his personality, and showcase transparency. His various accounts built off the organizing prowess of his ground game to make his progressive ideas more widely palatable and to give them moral heft. His posts were generally earnest and informative, and slyly packaged in smart experiments like his daylong walk across the entirety of Manhattan. Now that he has won the primary, his social media has an earned sense of triumphalism—as in a recent video filmed backstage at a Wu-Tang concert at Madison Square Garden —along with a whole lot of smoke for his opponent, Cuomo. If Mamdani has gotten a major boost from his social media usage—and he undoubtedly has—it's because it seems like a natural extension of the candidate himself. All that Cuomo is doing with his flailing efforts at being epic on social media (something Elon Musk has proved is no pathway to popularity) is reveal his desperation for capturing attention. That thirstiness leaves room in his tent for Trump supporters, like his new meme contributor, along with Trump himself, whose support Cuomo is actively, openly courting (despite him being less popular among conservative voters than both Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa and Mamdani). Posting—shockingly—is not politics As for Newsom, the best that can be said of his new social media trolling persona is that it's drawing attention to the hypocrisy of Trump's supporters in the media. Those anchors on Fox News who find Newsom's schtick 'childish' and 'unbecoming of a leader,' for instance, should indeed have to answer for why they don't attribute those traits to the guy Newsom is imitating. But the problem is that all this trolling is just empty calories. Newsom's Bizarro Trump act is an attention-getting spectacle. It's a one-note comedy routine, not a form of leadership. He could keep this up every day for the next three years and it would never make more of a material impact than his recent pledge to redraw the district maps in California, in order to match a gerrymandering effort underway in Texas. (It's worth noting that this issue is what initially kicked off Newsom's ongoing Trump impersonation.)
E&E News
6 minutes ago
- E&E News
Electric school buses hit pothole after major supplier goes bankrupt
Even Republicans have tolerated one Biden-era climate program: a $5 billion effort to buy electric school buses and give kids' lungs a break from diesel pollution. But now a major bus supplier has collapsed — leaving school districts with technology that's hard to fix. Lion, an electric truck- and bus-maker based in Quebec, is in bankruptcy after selling roughly 3,400 buses in the United States. Last month, its new investors notified alarmed school districts that they would not honor warranties. Advertisement 'They ran properly for approximately two weeks, then we started getting error messages,' said Andrew Dolloff, the superintendent of schools in Yarmouth, Maine, about the district's two Lion buses.
