California Gov. Newsom signs legislation calling special election on redrawn congressional map

SACRAMENTO, Calif (AP) — California voters will decide in November whether to approve a redrawn congressional map designed to help Democrats win five more U.S. House seats next year, after Texas Republicans advanced their own redrawn map to pad their House majority by the same number of seats at President Donald Trump’s urging.

California lawmakers voted mostly along party lines Thursday to approve legislation calling for the special election. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has led the campaign in favor of the map, then quickly signed it — the latest step in a tit-for-tat gerrymandering battle.

“This is not something six weeks ago that I ever imagined that I’d be doing,” Newsom said at a press conference, pledging a campaign for the measure that would reach out to Democrats, Republicans and independent voters. “This is a reaction to an assault on our democracy in Texas.”

Republicans, who have filed a lawsuit and called for a federal investigation into the plan, promised to fight the measure at the ballot box as well.

California Assemblyman James Gallagher, the Republican minority leader, said Trump was “wrong” to push for new Republican seats elsewhere, contending the president was just responding to Democratic gerrymandering in other states. But he warned that Newsom’s approach, which the governor has dubbed “fight fire with fire,” was dangerous.

“You move forward fighting fire with fire and what happens?” Gallagher asked. “You burn it all down.”

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Texas’ redrawn maps still need a final vote in the Republican-controlled state Senate, which advanced the plan out of a committee Thursday but did not bring the measure to the floor. The Senate was scheduled to meet again Friday.

After that, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s signature will be all that is needed to make the map official. It’s part of Trump’s effort to stave off an expected loss of the GOP’s majority in the U.S. House in the 2026 midterm elections.

A battle for the US House control waged via redistricting

On a national level, the partisan makeup of existing districts puts Democrats within three seats of a majority. The incumbent president’s party usually loses congressional seats in the midterms.

The president has pushed other Republican-controlled states including Indiana and Missouri to also revise their maps to add more winnable GOP seats. Ohio Republicans were also already scheduled to revise their maps to make them more partisan.

Redistricting typically occurs once a decade, immediately after a census. While some states have their own limitations, there is no national impediment to a state trying to redraw districts in the middle of the decade.

The U.S. Supreme Court has also said the Constitution does not outlaw partisan gerrymandering, only using race to redraw district lines. Texas Republicans embraced that when their House of Representatives passed its revision Wednesday.

“The underlying goal of this plan is straight forward: improve Republican political performance,” state Rep. Todd Hunter, the Republican who wrote the bill revising Texas’ maps, said.

On Thursday, California Democrats noted Hunter’s comments and said they had to take extreme steps to counter the Republican move. “What do we do, just sit back and do nothing? Or do we fight back?” Democratic state Sen. Lena Gonzalez said. “This is how we fight back and protect our democracy.”

Democrats have sought a national commission for redistricting

Republicans and some Democrats championed the 2008 ballot measure that established California’s nonpartisan redistricting commission, along with the 2010 one that extended its role to drawing congressional maps.

Democrats have sought a national commission that would draw lines for all states but have been unable to pass legislation creating that system.

Trump’s midterm redistricting ploy has shifted Democrats.

That was clear in California, where Newsom was one of the members of his party who backed the initial redistricting commission ballot measures, and where Assemblyman Joshua Lowenthal, whose father, Rep. Alan Lowenthal, was another Democratic champion of a nonpartisan commission, presided over the state Assembly’s passage of the redistricting package.

Newsom on Thursday contended his state was still setting a model.

“We’ll be the first state in U.S. history, in the most democratic way, to submit to the people of our state the ability to determine their own maps,” Newsom said before signing the legislation.

Former President Barack Obama, who’s also backed a nationwide nonpartisan approach, has also backed Newsom’s bid to redraw the California map, saying it was a necessary step to stave off the GOP’s Texas move.

“I think that approach is a smart, measured approach,” Obama said Tuesday during a fundraiser for the Democratic Party’s main redistricting arm, noting that California voters will still have the final say on the map.

California’s plan is temporary

The measure would have the California map last only through 2030, after which the state’s commission would draw the next decade’s map. Democrats are also mulling reopening Maryland’s and New York’s maps for mid-decade redraws.

However, more Democratic-run states have commission systems like California’s or other redistricting limits than Republican ones do, leaving the GOP with a freer hand to swiftly redraw maps. New York, for example, can’t draw new maps until 2028, and even then, only with voter approval.

In Texas, outnumbered Democrats turned to unusual steps to try to delay passage, leaving the state to delay a vote by 15 days. Upon their return, they were assigned round-the-clock police monitoring.

California Republicans didn’t take such dramatic steps but complained bitterly about Democrats muscling the package through the Statehouse and harming what GOP State Sen. Tony Strickland called the state’s “gold-standard” nonpartisan approach.

“What you’re striving for is predetermined elections,” Strickland said. “You’re taking the voice away from Californians.”

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The story has been updated to correct that the partisan makeup of existing districts puts Democrats within three seats of a majority, instead of that Republicans control the U.S. House by three votes. The first name of the Republican minority leader in the California Assembly has been corrected to James, instead of Mike.

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Riccardi reported from Denver. Associated Press reporter Jim Vertuno in Austin, Texas, also contributed.