CA redistricting 101: how we got here and what’s next for a possible Nov. 4 vote
In June, with an eye on the 2026 midterms, President Donald Trump’s administration began pressing Republicans in Texas to redraw congressional lines to shore up the GOP’s razor thin majority and elect five more Republicans to the House.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican but no staunch ally of the president, initially demurred at redrawing district lines at the request of a sitting president for political gain. Then the Department of Justice, led by former San Francisco attorney Harmeet Dhillon, weighed in, charging four Houston and Fort Worth districts currently held by Black and Latino Democrats with being unfairly drawn along racial lines. The Supreme Court is also set to hear a Louisiana redistricting case in October that could weaken parts of the Voting Rights Act, a major accomplishment of the Civil Rights era.
Abbott’s push to redraw boundaries to boost the GOP’s prospects has now sparked a proxy war with Democrats, led by California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who until recently was still viewed with suspicion even within his own party. Democrats, joined by organized labor, threw their weight behind his campaign, which launched Thursday.
“We need to disabuse ourselves of the way things have been done,” Newsom said, likening Trump’s takeover of law enforcement in Washington, D.C. to an authoritarian takeover. “It’s not good enough to just hold hands, have a candlelight vigil and talk about the way the world should be.”
The governor is pushing for the Legislature, poised to return from summer break next Monday, to approve a Nov. 4 special election to present voters with a map that would redistribute liberal voters into five districts currently held by Republican Reps. David Valadao, Darrell Issa, Ken Calvert, Doug LaMalfa, and Kevin Kiley. Democrats in California’s 52-member congressional delegation have already tentatively approved the map, which would be in effect for the 2026, 2028, and 2030 elections.
The Citizen Redistricting Commission, an independent entity first formed in 2008, would retain power over state legislative redistricting, and that body would regain power of congressional redistricting after the 2030 Census, Newsom said.
After Trump ignored his request to block Texas from redistricting, Newsom launched his own campaign with a polished ad and backing from top House Democrats. A chart obtained by The Sacramento Bee later that day showed how Democrats intend to flip Calvert, Issa, Kiley and LaMalfa’s districts to lean “safely Democrat.”
What would the process look like?
The California Legislature is currently poised to jump into action when they return from summer recess Monday, August 18.
According to the governor’s office, legislators will consider a package that includes a bill calling for a special election, a bill that approves proposed maps, and one that approves reimbursement for county election costs. (On Thursday, a coalition of counties called on the state’s leadership to provide funding in advance of the election to limit the strain on local budgets).
Any legislation they want to pass must be in print for 72 hours, so if lawmakers want to vote on the bills during their floor session on Thursday (which they will have to do to meet a deadline of Friday August 22 set by the Secretary of State’s office), the package will likely be put into print Monday. The Senate elections committee has set a hearing for Tuesday morning.
Elections officials across the state are already preparing for a possible Nov. 4 vote.
Neither the governor nor legislative leaders have spoken much about who is involved in the map-making process, other than that the end result would be put before voters. A spokesperson for Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, Nick Miller, said their office is “aiming” to release the maps on Friday, Aug. 15.
If voters choose to approve the measure, the real work begins for elections officials, who will need to update voter databases to meet the deadlines of a June primary election.
How would it affect me and my district?
We’ll know more when the maps are released, but the districts that Democrats are committed to redrawing are those currently held by Republican Reps. David Valadao, Doug LaMalfa, Kevin Kiley, Darrell Issa and Ken Calvert, and the districts abutting those.
All of those districts could be changed to include a broader Democratic voter base to make them more likely to elect a Democrat in the next election. That could mean taking a big city from a reliably blue district.
How much will it cost?
The Secretary of State’s office estimates a special election would cost a little bit more than the last statewide election with nothing else on the ballot — about $200 million, with most of the costs coming from printing and mailing ballots.
Newsom has said the cost would be reduced because of a number of pre-existing municipal elections, but aside from a county-wide election in Santa Clara county, most are small and wouldn’t make a difference, according to elections officials.
The state’s Republican party is pegging the cost to be higher, at $235.5 million. In a news release, the Assembly Republican Caucus said the estimate was prepared by their Office of Policy and Budget, and accounts for inflation, increased postage costs and a larger number of registered voters since the last statewide special election.
What precedent is there for a move like this?
A deliberate Congressional gerrymander in response to another state’s action is unprecedented in California.
The last large mid-decade redistricting of congressional districts in California was in 1965, according to California State Librarian spokesperson Alex Vassar, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled legislative districts should have roughly equal population sizes.
Before that, mid-decade redistricting would happen if there were significant population changes, most often in the early days of the state’s establishment.
In general, Vassar said, redistricting follows the reapportionment of Congressional seats that happens in accordance with Census data. That’s why legislatures around the country do redistricting after the 10-year census, a process that’s been administered in California by the Citizens Redistricting Commission since 2010.
In the background looms a pending Louisiana redistricting court case, which the U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments for on Oct. 15, that could rewrite parts of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits racial discrimination in voting. The plaintiffs, a group of “self-described non-African-Americans,” are challenging their districts, saying they’re biased in favor of Black candidates.
What’s the argument against this idea?
Republicans, a handful of Democrats and some nonpartisan good government groups have opposed the idea. Assemblymember Alex Lee, D-San Jose, chair of the Legislative Progressive Caucus, described the whole thing as a “race to the bottom of gerrymandering.”
“We understand the threat authoritarianism poses, but the way to fight it is not by breaking our own democratic safeguards,” said League of Women Voters Deputy Director Dora Rose in a statement. “You don’t save democracy by imitating those who seek to destroy it — you save it by inspiring voters with bold ideas and principled leadership.”
National good governance group Common Cause initially opposed redistricting, but this week walked some of that back. In a statement, they said sticking to calls to respect independent redistricting would “amount to a call for unilateral political disarmament in the face of authoritarian efforts to undermine fair representation and people-powered democracy.”
In a media briefing with reporters on Wednesday, Common Cause board chair Martha Tierney blamed both parties for failing to fully embrace independent redistricting: “We are here in this moment because the courts, Congress, political leaders have failed to act, and our country is sliding toward authoritarianism.”
Critics argue that tit-for-tat political gerrymandering will further erode trust in government and hurt democracy. The mere thought of suspending maps drawn by California’s nonpartisan redistricting commission, often hailed as “the gold standard,” stoked fears about voter disenfranchisement.
“Independent redistricting commissions work because they put people first, not special interests or political parties,” said Patricia Sinay, a Democratic redistricting commissioner. “Handing the power to incumbent legislators, lobbyists and special interests will bring back the political gamesmanship that brought us to independent redistricting in the first place.”
Opponents argue that Newsom’s push flies in the face of the principle the redistricting commission was founded on: voters should choose their elected officials, not the other way around.
Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-Roseville, who could lose his House seat if it’s redrawn to become more competitive, introduced federal legislation last week that would ban all mid-decade redistricting and called Newsom’s plan “a dangerous attack on democracy.”
“California voters have already settled this matter, voting that politicians should not draw district lines because it is an inherent conflict of interest,” Kiley said. “While Newsom’s scheme is especially undemocratic, redrawing district lines in the middle of the decade is unhealthy for representative government in general.”
Would we go back?
Newsom has said the responsibility of drawing the maps would go back to the Independent Redistricting Commission after the 2030 Census, and any ballot language would reflect that plan.
Grant Reeher, a political science professor at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, said that outcome doesn’t seem likely. He described the situation as a “redistricting arms race” that will continue as long as there are states willing to out-gerrymander each other.
If Democratic states redistrict to pick up more Democratic representatives, “it’s going to lead to Texas coming back and saying, ‘Well, we’re going to redraw next time too,’” he said. “Where does it end?”
This story was originally published August 15, 2025 at 10:46 AM with the headline "CA redistricting 101: how we got here and what’s next for a possible Nov. 4 vote."