Saunders: Is Newsom ‘gerry-meandering’ for 2028 attention?

By Debra J. Saunders / Las Vegas Review-Journal

California Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to change California’s rules for drawing lines for House seats. Texas Republicans, he says, want to rig elections to help President Donald Trump in the 2026 election, so California Democrats have to rig back.

Forget that the Golden State’s rules already work handily for the Democrats: 45 percent of voters are registered as Democrats, 25 percent as Republicans, and 30 percent list no party preference or another party. Yet there are 43 Democrats representing California in the House, and a modest nine Republicans.

In 2024, 58 percent of Golden State voters supported former Vice President Kamala Harris, while 38 percent supported President Donald Trump. Yet only 17 percent of House members are Republicans.

For his part, Gov. Handsome is threatening to tilt the machine even further leftward; in the name of fairness.

Meet his proposed Election Rigging Response Act, “a bold move to counter Texas’s Republican-led redistricting efforts,” which Democrats fear could help the GOP hold onto the House of Representatives during precarious midterm elections.

The Los Angeles Times reports that the Newsom map could turn five of California’s nine GOP seats blue; and cut the stake of the state’s GOP delegation to less than 10 percent.

Newsom’s proposed Election Rigging Response Act would require a two-thirds majority of the deep blue state Assembly and Senate, then passage by voters in a special election to override the independent redistricting commission embedded in the state constitution by popular vote in 2010.

“From everything I know, he has an incredibly high mountain to climb,” California Democratic political strategist Darry Sragow told me.

Sean Walsh, a consultant who served as deputy chief of staff to former GOP California Gov. Pete Wilson, told me Newsom has a bad habit: “The guy simply ignores the law when it’s convenient for him.”

In 2004, when he was mayor of San Francisco, Newsom flouted state law and directed City Hall to allow same-sex marriages. It was such a stunt that applications included a warning: “NO REFUNDS.”

The late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., was furious at a scheme that she thought would hurt Democrats at the ballot box. And sure enough, then-President George W. Bush won reelection that year.

But Newsom found a sweet spot in the national spotlight.

History repeats itself, as Newsom presents a scheme that steamrolls the voters’ will.

And that’s no slam dunk.

“As (former Gov.) Arnold Schwarzenegger was reminded in 2005, California voters are very discerning about ballot measures that don’t directly impact them one way or another,” said Sragow.

That’s the year California voters rejected all four ballot measures Schwarzenegger had backed in what was widely seen as a rejection of the governor’s overuse of the initiative system.

Sragow, a former Navy officer, is of two minds on the matter. On the one hand, if you have power, you use it. Period. On the other hand, even if Newsom wins at the ballot box, he will have done nothing to fix the party’s big problem: bad messaging.

I would add that the whole exercise reminds swing voters just how cravenly opportunistic Newsom and company can be.

“This guy is doing everything he can to appeal to national Democrats” to win the presidential nomination in 2028, Walsh noted, but he’s not stepping up on issues that matter to Californians. Think: crime, the state budget shortfall, homelessness.

But what do you see? Political self-protection.