As the United States barrels toward another contentious election cycle, the battle over redistricting has once again taken center stage, with California and Texas emerging as the principal battlegrounds in an escalating war over political representation. Governor Gavin Newsom’s recent push to redraw California’s congressional district lines ahead of the 2026 midterm elections—sidestepping the state’s independent redistricting commission—has ignited a firestorm of debate, raising fundamental questions about democracy, partisanship, and the future of fair elections.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Newsom’s plan involves calling a special statewide election to secure voter approval for a mid-decade redistricting—a move that would transfer the power to draw district lines from the California Citizens Redistricting Commission to the Democratic-controlled state Legislature. This maneuver, critics argue, is a direct affront to the will of California voters, who passed ballot initiatives in 2008 and 2010 establishing the independent commission precisely to prevent partisan gerrymandering.
The commission, composed of five Democrats, five Republicans, and four independents, is bound by strict rules: its members cannot engage in political activism, and they must draw district lines in public, guided by legal and demographic factors rather than partisan interests. Since its inception, the commission’s maps have survived legal and political challenges, and the current districts—drawn in 2021 following the decennial census—are scheduled to remain in place until 2031.
Yet Newsom and his allies argue that extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. Their justification? Texas Republicans’ own partisan redistricting efforts. In 2021, Texas Governor Greg Abbott approved a new congressional map that, despite the state’s explosive population growth—95% of which was attributable to people of color—increased the number of majority-white districts. As reported by the Los Angeles Times, white residents make up less than 40% of Texas’s population, but 60% of new state Senate districts are majority white. The result: Republicans now hold nearly 70% of Texas’s House seats, even though Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris won over 40% of the vote in the state in 2024.
California Democrats, including Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, have framed their proposed redistricting as a necessary countermeasure. Rivas called the Texas action a “Trumpian power grab,” while Newsom denounced it as “the rigging of the system by the president of the United States.” Recent polling by Newsom’s team suggests that California voters are more likely to support the redistricting maneuver when it is positioned as a response to Trump, rather than Texas, as the central villain.
But critics on both sides of the aisle see things differently. Lanhee J. Chen, a Hoover Institution fellow and former Republican candidate for California controller, lambasted Newsom’s plan as “cynical politics, not democracy, at work.” He points out that the proposed redistricting would slash Republican-held House seats in California from nine (17%) to just four (9%) out of 52 total seats, despite Republicans making up about 25% of registered voters and winning roughly 40% of the statewide vote in recent elections. “If Newsom gets his way, California’s districts for the 2026 midterm will ensure the election of as few Republicans as possible,” Chen wrote in the Los Angeles Times.
The financial cost of this political gambit is also staggering. The special election to ratify the redistricting plan is estimated to cost about $60 million in Los Angeles County alone, with statewide expenses likely exceeding $200 million. Critics argue that such a price tag, especially for a process designed to benefit one party, is a slap in the face to taxpayers and the democratic process.
Vice President JD Vance has entered the fray as well, highlighting the representation imbalance in California. “Republicans average 40% of the vote in California but under one redistricting scenario would be represented by only 9% of the state’s House seats. How can this possibly be allowed?” Vance asked on social media, as cited by the Los Angeles Times. While Vance’s criticism resonates with many who see partisan gamesmanship on both sides, commentators are quick to note the irony: gerrymandering, after all, is a practice with deep roots in American political history, dating back to the early 19th century and the infamous “salamander-shaped” district approved by Elbridge Gerry in Massachusetts.
The controversy has also revived debate over the merits and pitfalls of independent redistricting commissions. Political analysts note that California’s current representation disparity may result more from natural geographic and demographic factors than from intentional gerrymandering, since the state’s map was drawn by a bipartisan commission. “In California, it’s hard to fault partisan redistricting for the current mix of representation … because the state does not have partisan redistricting. Voters established an independent commission 14 years ago,” one commentator observed in the Los Angeles Times.
Elsewhere, the dangers of partisan-driven redistricting are on full display. In Illinois, Democrats redrew the congressional map in 2021, eliminating the district of Republican Adam Kinzinger—a moderate who would later play a pivotal role on the January 6 committee and speak at the 2024 Democratic National Convention. The author of a recent Los Angeles Times op-ed argued that gerrymandering’s true danger lies not just in immediate political consequences, but in preventing unforeseen future alliances. “Had the Democrats kept his district intact, perhaps they would have had an ally in the House fighting President Trump’s overreach,” the piece argued, noting that Kinzinger, though once a Trump supporter, ultimately became a crucial defender of democracy.
Supporters of California’s proposed redistricting counter that the process would remain transparent, as new maps would be put before voters in a special election—ensuring that the ultimate determination is made by California residents rather than through backroom deals. But opponents, including Republican lawmakers like Representative Kevin Kiley, have introduced legislation to block mid-decade redistricting efforts, arguing that such moves violate the tradition of redrawing districts only after the decennial census and undermine public trust in the system.
Texas officials, for their part, have defended their redistricting plans by pointing to what they characterize as Democratic-led gerrymandering in other states. Trump himself has justified the Texas push by saying, “they did it to us,” while legal arguments from Justice Department officials have cited the need to correct “vestiges of an unconstitutional racially based gerrymandering past.”
At the heart of this debate lies a fundamental question: Can democracy survive if both sides continually bend the rules to their own advantage? As the Los Angeles Times editorial put it, “By bending electoral rules in service of their own political interests, Newsom and California Democrats become no better than Abbott and Texas Republicans.” And as the nation looks ahead to the next round of elections, voters in California—and across the country—will have to decide whether to double down on independent commissions or return to the old, deeply partisan ways of the past.
With democracy itself on the line, the stakes could hardly be higher—or the choices more consequential.
