Californians are already knee-deep in the battle over Proposition 50, California’s effort to re-arrange its congressional map. The goal is to counter the Texas plan that likely just handed Republicans five additional U.S. House seats.
Although California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) only signed the legislation authorizing the November special election to do this two weeks ago, I have already received two mailers — both against — and seen multiple digital ads about the move.
Elections in California are often sleepy affairs that don’t attract much national attention, just because it’s not a swing state. But this time, it’s different.
The modern era of aggressive partisan redistricting — known as gerrymandering — kicked off with the launch of Project REDMAP, a Republican effort to take control of state legislatures in the 2010 election and use that control to redistrict their way into a GOP majority.
How effective was Project REDMAP? In Republicans’ own words, “[A]ggregated numbers show voters pulled the lever for Republicans only 49 percent of the time in [2012] congressional races, suggesting that 2012 could have been a repeat of 2008, when voters gave control of the White House and both chambers of Congress to Democrats. … Instead, Republicans enjoy a 33-seat margin in the U.S. House.”
So although the Texas decision to engage in mid-cycle redistricting to help President Trump hold onto the House in 2026 is particularly shameless, it is also nothing new, having been in the Republican playbook for well over a decade.
All gerrymandering is bad. Intentionally creating congressional districts to ensure that one party has an unfair advantage is anti-democratic. We can no longer pretend that politicians can be trusted to do this fairly, so we will eventually need a constitutional amendment that mandates independent redistricting commissions like those already in use in eight states.
But that’s for later. At the moment, we have a more immediate problem to deal with.
It’s true that two wrongs don’t make a right. But sometimes they cancel each other out. And what Texas Republicans have done is wrong. The Constitution requires a census and new congressional districts every 10 years, to adjust for population growth and ensure that all Americans are fairly represented in Congress. Texas is doing the opposite of that. Legislators have redrafted their congressional map to make it as unfair as possible, because that will help Trump and his Republicans hold on to power.
Trump said it himself: “We are entitled to five more seats.” But in a proper democracy, no one is entitled to anything. You have to earn power and constantly demonstrate your right to keep it. If you can’t do that, you lose the next election — and you should.
This is neither a complicated issue nor a partisan one. There is no “both-sidesing” here, no moral equivalence. With all due respect to Arnold Schwarzenegger, anyone opposing Proposition 50 is either a hypocrite or a fool.
It isn’t possible — at least in good faith — to wink and nod at what Texas has done while sanctimoniously condemning California. The idea that Prop 50 is undemocratic or unconstitutional is absurd. Texas redrew its congressional map by threatening to arrest Democratic lawmakers and then holding them in custody until Republicans had pushed their plan through. California is holding a special election to ask its citizens to suspend independent redistricting until 2030 as an emergency measure. It’s hard to imagine a more democratic process than that.
By the same token, taking the “principled” stand that all gerrymandering is bad and that California shouldn’t do it just because Texas did is, at best, incredibly naive. Some people forswear all violence, even in self-defense. While on one level I admire these people, self defense, when it is necessary and proportional, is always morally justified.
And that’s exactly what Prop 50 is: an act of democratic self-defense. California is fighting to hold the line and ensure that Republicans don’t benefit from what they have done in Texas. Nothing more. Nothing less.
We need to remember what is at stake. Yes, having the House controlled by Democrats would be embarrassing for Trump and would thwart future Republican legislation. But what we are really fighting about is who’s going to be recognized as the next president on Jan. 6, 2029. Trump is amassing unprecedented power and it’s hard to imagine Republicans just handing that over without a fight. The best guarantee of a peaceful transition of power is for Democrats to control the House and make it impossible for Republicans — JD Vance will be presiding over the counting process — to manipulate the electoral vote count.
Whereas Prop 50 is a rear-guard action, it is also a tremendous opportunity, if only Democrats will seize it. California’s November election should become an off-year referendum on democracy and a warm-up for 2026. This isn’t just about California, it’s about America, and Democrats should do everything they can to lean into that. Newsom should challenge Trump to a debate on Prop 50. Trump will refuse, but that’s fine. Perhaps we can instead get Liz Cheney to debate Kevin McCarthy, one of the leaders of the No on 50 campaign. It is hard to see how McCarthy could refuse.
But there is another, more fundamental, reason to elevate the fight over Prop 50 and make it a national movement. There are people of goodwill, conservative and liberal, in red states and blue, who are opposed to Trump’s power grabs, but they are rudderless and frustrated. They are spoiling for a fight they can win. This is that fight.
Enough protests. Enough hand-wringing. It is time to act. On Nov. 4, the tide will turn.
Chris Truax is an appellate attorney who served as Southern California chair for John McCain’s primary campaign in 2008.
