SACRAMENTO — California grew to become middle stage for the nationwide political struggle over Home seats Friday when Gov. Gavin Newsom welcomed Democratic lawmakers from Texas who fled their house state to foil President Trump’s plans to redraw congressional districts.
California lawmakers plan to reply with their very own plan to gerrymander districts to favor Democrats and neutralize any Republican seats gained in Texas in 2026, with a proposed map anticipated to change into public subsequent week, Newsom stated at a information convention after assembly with the lawmakers.
“Make no mistake, California is transferring ahead,” the governor stated. “We’re speaking about emergency measures to answer what’s occurring in Texas, and we are going to nullify what occurs in Texas.”
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He famous that whereas Democrats nonetheless assist the state’s unbiased redistricting fee, they have to counter Trump’s plan in GOP-led states to provide their occasion a greater probability in subsequent yr’s midterm election.
“They drew first blood,” he later added of Republicans.
Requested in regards to the gathering, a Trump administration spokesperson stated Newsom was searching for the limelight to additional his political ambitions.
“Gavin Newsom is a loser of the best order and he won’t ever be president, irrespective of how onerous he prostitutes himself to the press,” stated the spokesperson, Steven Cheung.
Friday marked the second time in two weeks that Texas Democrats have stood subsequent to Newsom on the California governor’s mansion and warned that Republican efforts to attract a brand new map of their state would dilute the ability of Black and brown voters.
The Texas Democrats hoped that their departure would depart the state Legislature with too few members current to vary the map in a particular session. They face $500 fines for every day of absence, in addition to threats of arrest and removing from workplace by Gov. Greg Abbott and different Texas GOP officers. Among the Democratic lawmakers have been evacuated from a Chicago lodge the place they have been staying after a bomb menace Wednesday.
“We are actually dealing with threats — the menace that we’re going to lose our jobs, the specter of monetary wreck, the menace that we’ll be hunted down as our colleagues sit on their fingers and stay silent, as all of us get private threats to our lives,” stated Texas state Rep. Ann Johnson, one among six Texas Democrats on the information convention, who was amongst these evacuated from the Chicago lodge. “We as Democrats are standing up to make sure that the voices of each voter is lifted up on this subsequent election, and that the following election isn’t stolen from them.”
Former Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco); Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San José), chair of the California Democratic congressional delegation; California Senate President Professional Tem Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg); state Meeting Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Hollister) and different elected officers joined the assembly in a present of unity as California Democrats try to persuade their very own state’s voters to struggle again.
Pelosi famous that the state’s congressional delegation is united in backing the redistricting proposal to counter Trump.
“The president has paved over the Rose Backyard. He’s paved over freedom of speech. He’s paved over freedom of training, [an] unbiased judiciary, the rule of legislation,” Pelosi stated. “He’s gone too far. We won’t let him pave over free and honest elections in our nation, beginning with what he’s attempting to do in Texas.”
She countered an argument some have made — that two wrongs don’t make a proper.
“That is self-defense for our democracy,” she stated.
The California plan requires the state Legislature to approve a constitutional modification establishing new congressional voting districts crafted to make GOP members weak.
Passage of the invoice would lead to a particular election on Nov. 4, with California voters deciding whether or not the state ought to quickly pause the congressional boundaries created by an unbiased redistricting fee in 2021 and undertake new maps for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections.
If authorized by voters, the measure would come with a “set off” specifying that it could take impact provided that Texas or different Republican-led states comply with by with redrawing their maps to spice up GOP seats earlier than the midterm election. California would revert to its present redistricting legislation after the following census and earlier than the 2032 election.
A minimum of up to now, California voters seem unsure about whether or not they need to swap Newsom’s plan for the unbiased redistricting system they beforehand adopted on the poll field.
An Emerson School ballot discovered assist for redrawing California’s congressional map at 33% and opposition at 25%. The survey of 1,000 registered voters, performed Aug. 4 and 5, discovered that 42% have been undecided.
Newsom has expressed confidence that California voters will again his plan, which he’s casting as a rebuttal to Trump’s efforts to “rig” the midterm elections.
“I’m assured we’ll get it when individuals know what it’s and what it’s not, and I feel, on the finish of the day, they perceive what’s at stake,” Newsom stated Thursday.
Newsom argues that California’s course of is extra clear than Trump’s as a result of voters right here will see the map and determine whether or not the state ought to go ahead with it.
To meet Trump’s request for 5 further seats, Abbott is making an attempt to redraw Home districts in Texas by a state legislative course of that doesn’t require voter approval. It’s unclear what’s going to occur in Austin, with Democrats decided to dam the trouble and the governor and different Texas Republicans insisting they’ll hold urgent it.
The present particular session ends Aug. 19. However in an interview with NBC Information on Thursday night, Abbott vowed “to name particular session after particular session after particular session with the identical agenda gadgets on there.”
Along with arrest on civil warrants, the Democrats are dealing with threats of being faraway from workplace. Direct-deposit funds to the legislators have been curtailed, forcing them to choose up their checks in particular person on the state capitol in Austin or go with out the cash.
The redistricting struggle has strengthened Newsom’s nationwide platform as a possible 2028 presidential contender and bolstered his popularity as a Democrat prepared to take the struggle to Trump and his allies.
Since Trump took workplace in January, Newsom had been strolling a tremendous line between calling out the president and dealing with him in hopes of having the ability to be a part of collectively to rebuild from the California wildfires.
However Newsom took a tough line after Trump deployed the Nationwide Guard throughout federal immigration raids in Los Angeles in June, prompting the governor and his administration to way more aggressively resist the president’s agenda.
