California Gov. Gavin Newsom says he was reluctant to change his state’s redistricting rules but eager to give President Trump a black eye.
The desire for partisan pugilism won over principle, as Mr. Newsom signed legislation allowing voters to decide on a new state map in a November referendum.
He is far from alone. Several left-wing good-government groups that decried Texas’ mid-decade redistricting that benefited Republicans have cheered on California, saying the goose-gander analogy is clear.
Major holdouts remain, even on the left.
The League of Women Voters has said that redrawing congressional maps in the middle of a 10-year census cycle for cheap political advantage is bad, whether by Republicans aiding Mr. Trump or Democrats seeking to undercut him.
“Gerrymandering is a threat to democracy, regardless of who does it,” the league said.
Many of those groups used to hail California for using a commission to redraw its lines, taking the task out of the hands of the State Legislature.
The legislation Mr. Newsom signed last week overturns the commission’s current map and asks voters to approve a deeply partisan map that could reduce Republican seats in the state’s 52-member U.S. House delegation from nine to just four.
Mr. Newsom said he felt compelled to counter Texas, where the Republican-led Legislature wrote new maps over the weekend that could erase five Democratic-held seats, boosting the Republican share to 30 of the state’s 38 House seats.
That works out to 21% of the seats in a state where Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris won 42% of the vote last year.
In California, Republicans could be left with just 8% of seats in a state where Mr. Trump won 38%.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said his state was engaged in the unusual mid-decade redistricting because the Department of Justice under Mr. Trump flagged several seats as potentially illegal racial gerrymanders.
Democrats say that was a pretext to give Mr. Abbott, a Republican, an excuse to try to bolster the Republicans’ thin House majority in next year’s midterm elections.
Vice President J.D. Vance said Sunday that Republicans are redistricting only to level the playing field with Democrats, who have heavily gerrymandered congressional maps.
Mr. Vance said the new maps in Texas and the efforts underway in other states are ways to make sure Republican voices are heard.
“All we’re doing, frankly, is trying to make the situation a little bit more fair on a national scale,” Mr. Vance said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “The Democrats have gerrymandered their states really aggressively.”
“We think there are opportunities to push back against that,” he said. “That’s really all we’re doing.”
National Democrats spoke vaguely Sunday about retaliation, though they maintained it would come.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore signaled that he is open to redrawing his state’s congressional lines, though his state has only one Republican member in the U.S. House: Rep. Andy Harris.
“When I say all options are on the table, all options are on the table,” Mr. Moore said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
Mr. Moore accused Mr. Trump of triggering the redistricting arms race by calling on Republicans to find him more congressional seats.
“We also need to make sure that if the president of the United States is putting his finger on the scale … it behooves each and every one of us to be able to keep all options on the table,” he said.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Democratic-controlled states will respond “appropriately” but refused to spell out what that means for his home state of New York, where Gov. Kathy Hochul has vowed to lead efforts to have Democrats redraw the maps.
“Democrats are going to respond from coast to coast and at all points in between, as has been done in California, forcefully, immediately, and appropriately, to make sure that Donald Trump cannot steal the midterm elections,” Mr. Jeffries said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Of course, in the who-started-it game, Democrats could shoulder the blame after New York conducted a mid-decade redistricting last year, netting three extra U.S. House seats in November.
The League of Women Voters opposed New York’s effort as well, showing consistency across the board.
Other left-wing voting groups, however, have embraced Mr. Newsom’s power grab as an ends-justify-the-means situation.
The National Democratic Redistricting Committee, run by former Obama-era Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., cheered New York, derided Texas and congratulated California.
Mr. Holder said California is asking the voters to overturn its maps and adopt what he called a “responsive, responsible and temporary” map.
“What California is doing to meet and balance Texas’ outrageous power grab achieves that purpose, and it has my absolute and total support,” he said.
Common Cause explicitly said it was changing its “playbook” to back Mr. Newsom and, by extension, stick it to Mr. Trump.
“We will not pre-emptively oppose California or other states drawing new districts in response to gerrymandering in Texas,” Common Cause said in a fundraising appeal. “A blanket condemnation at this moment would be sitting on the sidelines in the face of authoritarianism.”
Michael Waldman, head of the Brennan Center for Justice, slammed Texas for its redistricting and gently chided California for its retaliation. It was “no surprise that Democrats are responding as they have,” he said.
“But ultimately, a partisan redistricting arms race cannot be the only answer,” Mr. Waldman said.
He called for Congress to act on one of several Democratic-led proposals that would ban “partisan” gerrymandering.
Rep. Kevin Kiley, California Republican, has called for a ceasefire and written a bill to enforce disarmament. His legislation would nullify any maps adopted after the 2024 election.
That would allow New York’s partisan redistricting last year but would cancel new Texas and California maps and preempt any other states.
Mr. Kiley called gerrymandering “a plague on democracy wherever it occurs.”
Among those who count the most, California voters, battling Mr. Trump draws a plurality of support.
A University of California, Berkeley, Institute of Governmental Studies poll conducted for the Los Angeles Times found 46% of registered voters surveyed thought Mr. Newsom’s new map referendum was a good idea, and 36% said it was a bad idea.
Forty-eight percent said they would vote for the new map, compared with nearly one-third who were opposed and 20% who were undecided.
• Seth McLaughlin contributed to this report.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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