JENNY BETH MARTIN: Is Gavin Newsom A Reformer Or A Greedy Hypocrite?

California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s latest political gambit, Proposition 50 – the “Election Rigging Response Act” – is a master class in hypocrisy. He dressed it up in the language of democracy and reform while gutting both. What his proposed exercise in redistricting reveals, more than anything else, is that Newsom, rather than being the progressive reformer he so desperately poses as, is as cold, calculating, grubby, and greedy as any Boss Tweed who ever skulked through the alleys of power.

Let’s be clear: By proposing to seize control of congressional redistricting from the state’s independent citizens redistricting commission and handing it back to the politicians, Newsom is demanding nothing less than a return to what he says he believes is the bad old days of backroom wheeling and dealing – and the bad old system he says he fought against when he styled himself a young reformist mayor of progressive San Francisco. (RELATED: Strong Majority Of Californians Now Back Gavin Newsom’s Gerrymandering Gambit, Poll Says)

For years, California progressives boasted that their state had insulated itself from partisan manipulation. In 2008, voters approved Proposition 11 to take legislative line-drawing out of the hands of politicians and entrust it instead to an independent redistricting commission. Two years later, with Proposition 20, California’s voters extended that reform to include congressional districts.

The idea was simple: Let ordinary citizens – not incumbents or party bosses – decide where the lines go, at least increasing the chances of maps that ensure competitive elections, fair representation, and accountability.

I, for one, oppose the ceding of the legislature’s powers to draw district lines to such citizens’ commissions. Moving the mapping power to an unelected body removes the element of electoral accountability from the equation. For purposes of this commentary, however, my thinking on who draws district lines is irrelevant – what matters is Newsom’s thinking on the matter, and the standard he set for himself.

The Citizens Redistricting Commission (CRC) created by the ballot initiatives was required to do its work in public and designed to be free of partisan bias. The commission’s first two rounds of maps, in 2011 and 2021,  were described by leading progressive organizations like Common Cause as a “national model for redistricting reform” that would, in the words of the Brennan Center for Justice, “significantly reduce many of the worst abuses.”

The CRC became a national gold standard for progressive reformers, inspiring similar efforts elsewhere. Michigan, Colorado, and Ohio, among others, followed California’s lead in stripping their state’s legislatures of responsibility for redistricting, placing it instead in the hands of a citizens’ commission.

Now, Newsom wants to undo it all, and for the basest of reasons – partisan political advantage, the very problem the CRC was meant to address. Proposition 50 would amend the state’s constitution to restore control of congressional redistricting to the legislature – meaning to himself and his cronies in Sacramento.

His office insists this is about aligning California’s redistricting process with the realities of national politics. In truth, it’s about aligning congressional seats with the ambitions of Gavin Newsom, no matter the damage it does to his image as a progressive reformer.

With his eye on higher office, he wants to show every progressive voter in the entire nation that he has produced a congressional map that delivers maximum Democrat seats to help his party regain the majority in the U.S. House, in the hope it will burnish his credentials as a national leader.

Here’s the truly remarkable element: In pushing for his new gerrymander, Newsom is betraying the reformist principles that led to the creation of the citizens’ redistricting commission in the first place – while still claiming to hold on to those principles. That is, he doesn’t claim to have changed his mind on the matter, he claims to still be the same reformer he was “back in the day,” even as he guts the reforms.

Newsom’s chutzpah is staggering. He actually brags that in 2008, when he was the youngish mayor of San Francisco, he supported the passage of Proposition 11, the original ballot measure that created the CRC. Said Newsom in a July episode of his podcast: “I actually was one of the few Democrats back in the day (to support it) when we created the independent redistricting commission, which I think personally I think should be the case in every state. This is ridiculous. This gerrymandering is outrageous. I don’t like it on either side, and so I supported that. I remember doing that, I was mayor of San Francisco at the time, when that initiative went forward, I think under [then California Gov. Arnold] Schwarzenegger, who was promoting it at the time, was the governor, and I got a lot of grief from my own party for supporting it, which was interesting. But I think it’s the right thing to do.”

Newsom likes to style himself a progressive reformer. But Proposition 50 reveals his true instincts – adherence to no principle other than whatever advances his interest at the moment. The independent redistricting commission was a product of bipartisan consensus and public demand for fairness. Proposition 50 is a product of political arrogance and ambition for higher office.

California voters have a choice this November. They can vote to ratify the governor’s power play and send a message that betraying one’s own principles even as one claims to hold firm to them can work, or they can vote to send a message that sticking to principles other than one’s own advantage will be rewarded politically. If they value the latter more than the former, they should vote NO on Proposition 50.

Jenny Beth Martin is Honorary Chairman of Tea Party Patriots Action (TPPA), the nation’s largest  Tea Party Group.

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