Will Newsom Rig His Redistricting Referendum? | The American Spectator

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has cast himself as a defender of democracy in the gerrymandering war that erupted after Texas Democrats fled the Lone Star State in a futile attempt to kill a GOP redistricting plan. This is obviously part of an ongoing effort to bolster his national profile ahead of a probable presidential run, but it has forced him to adopt an Orwellian position on redistricting. Newsom is telling Golden State voters that, to save democracy from evil Republicans, they must allow him to usurp the power of a redistricting commission they voted to create in a 2010 ballot initiative.

Unfortunately for Newsom, a poll of registered California voters released late last week found that his constituents want the California Citizens Redistricting Commission (CCRC) left unmolested. As Politico reports, “By nearly a two-to-one margin, voters prefer keeping an independent line-drawing panel to determine the state’s House seats, the latest POLITICO-Citrin Center-Possibility Lab survey found. Just 36 percent of respondents back returning congressional redistricting authority to state lawmakers.” Nonetheless, Newsom and California’s legislature — where the Democrats enjoy a supermajority — plan to plow forward. Last Thursday, during a typically self-aggrandizing public rally in Los Angeles, Newsom called for a November ballot measure that would allow the state’s congressional map to be redrawn without the pesky CCRC. Miraculously, the Governor’s allies in the state legislature produced a redrawn map by Friday afternoon. If approved by the voters in November, the California delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives would consist of 48 Democrats and 4 Republicans. California is a “blue” state, of course, but there are still a lot of Republicans voters there. As Hoover Institution fellow Lanhee J. Chen explains in the Los Angeles Times:

If Newsom gets his way, California’s districts for the 2026 midterm will ensure the election of as few Republicans as possible. Recent reports suggest that his gerrymander will mean Republicans win only four out of 52 House seats (9%), compared with the current California delegation, which includes nine Republicans (17%). Republicans make up about 25% of California’s registered voters and statewide Republican candidates have won roughly 40% of the vote over the last few election cycles.

Indeed, about 38 percent of the Golden State’s voters cast ballots for Trump in 2024. So, despite his sanctimonious rhetoric, Newsom’s redistricting scheme is anything but democratic. Consequently, in addition to the majority of his constituents, one of his best known predecessors is opposed to his plan to seize control of the state’s redistricting process. Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was instrumental in creating the CCRC, signaled that he plans to fight Newsom on this by posting a photo of himself on X wearing a none-too-subtle T-shirt that reads, “F*** the Politicians … Terminate Gerrymandering.”

Schwarzenegger, who was governor of California from 2003 to 2011, began pushing to get legislators out of redistricting as early as 2005 and finally succeeded in 2010. Unfortunately, as the state’s lopsided Democrat congressional map already demonstrated even before Newsom launched his gerrymandering scheme, the CCRC hasn’t exactly produced “nonpartisan” congressional maps. It has 14 members: 5 Democrats, 5 Republicans and 4 allegedly nonaligned members who always seem to lean leftward. Still, as Schwarzenegger told the New York Times, he wants to protect this part of his legacy from Gov. Newsom:

I’m thinking now about California, and about the people of California. I promised them that we are going to create a commission that would be independent of the politicians, and there will be an independent citizens commission drawing the lines. So I’m not going to go back on my promise. I’m going to fight for my promise … It’s very clearly an attack on the people’s choice. It is gaining more power for the politicians.

Yet defeating Newsom on this issue won’t be as easy as winning hearts and minds. Even if Newsom and his accomplices in the legislature produce a coherent ballot initiative that will allow Californians to cast informed votes, there is no way to know if eligible voters will have the final say in the matter. California is a universal mail-in ballot state in which basic Voter ID rules simply don’t exist in any meaningful way. Moreover, the vote counters quite literally accept ballots and continue tabulating votes for weeks after Election Day. In 2024, this corrupt process produced implausible Democrat victories in at least three congressional races.

This kind of skulduggery will inevitably occur in November when California voters attempt to render a verdict on Newsom’s gerrymandering scheme. When Newsom faced a recall vote in September of 2021, despite immediate claims from “news outlets” like AP and CNN that the recall had failed, vote counting continued for nearly a month before the state could provide a vote total. So, if the voters have an epiphany concerning gerrymandering by Nov. 4, remember that all Golden State elections occur on the Road to Damascus. Does that mean we should distrust Gov. Newsom? Rest assured that he is as honest as he ever was.

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