Gavin Newsom May Take Away His Voters’ Decision on Redistricting

T he redistricting of U.S. House seats is supposed to be a once-a-decade event. But growing Voting Rights Act litigation, voter polarization, and the tight partisan margins in the House have broken that mold. Right now, Republicans have a 219-to-212 majority, with four vacancies.

That means states where one party dominates are now tempted to redraw their congressional maps years before the next census. This week, a special session of the Texas legislature called by Governor Greg Abbott will debate passing a new map that should create more GOP seats from the Lone Star State. Republicans now hold 25 of the 38 congressional districts.

While Abbott was clearly pressured by the Trump White House to call the special session in order to gain political advantage, he can belatedly claim some legal backup. The Justice Department has just complained to Texas officials that four of the state’s current congressional districts are “coalition districts”: seats where blacks, Latinos, and Asians are cobbled together to form a majority of voters in the hope that they will elect a non-white candidate. The Justice Department says such seats aren’t protected by the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and that makes them vulnerable to claims of racial gerrymandering.

But Democrats reject that interpretation and are crying foul.

California, the most populous state, is the only state with more congressional seats than Texas. Democrats hold all but nine of California’s 52 seats.

California Governor Gavin Newsom responds to the Texas move by saying that “two can play at this game.” He claims that if Texas goes forward, he might counter it by calling a special session to pass an “urgency measure” on redistricting. The goal would be to squeeze out two to six of the state’s last few GOP House incumbents.

It’s currently much easier for Republicans who control the Texas legislature to redraw their districts to favor their party than a similar move would be for Newsom. That’s because California voters have given the power to draw congressional districts to an independent redistricting commission. Though Democrats dominate California government, they do not control the redistricting commission. By law, the commission is made up of five Democrats, five Republicans, and four commissioners not affiliated with either party.

Changing the state law creating the independent redistricting commission would require voter approval by a simple majority. Newsom says he has talked to state lawmakers about putting a measure on the ballot and calling a special election asking voters to approve having the legislature create new districts. But more than 60 percent of voters approved the creation of the commission in 2010, and they might not agree to have that decision trash-canned. And a campaign to deep-six the commission could cost Democrats a hefty $200 million.

That’s why Newsom has another scheme, which would involve interpreting state law to allow the legislature to create its own maps in between the once-a-decade independent commission’s plans. It’s completely up in the air if such a bold move would be approved by the courts.

Gavin Newsom is clearly playing to his party’s base as he prepares to run for president. So he is willing to ignore all the pious lectures that he and every other leading Democrat have made against gerrymandering in order to play to that woke base.

Let’s be clear. I’m not a fan of partisan gerrymandering and have written against it for over 40 years. It allows incumbents to pick their voters rather than voters picking their representatives.

But in the long, sordid history of gerrymandering abuses by both parties, Governor Newsom has invented a new one. He is threatening to ignore the one message that over 60 percent of California’s voters clearly sent on the issue. Namely, that they don’t trust politicians anywhere near a redistricting map.