California legislature approves first of three redistricting bills in response to Texas gerrymandering | California

The California assembly on Thursday approved the first in a series of three bills designed to redraw congressional boundaries and create five potential new Democratic US House seats.

The effort in California is an answer to the Republican redistricting push in Texas, sought by Donald Trump and aimed at tilting the map in his party’s favor before next year’s midterm elections.

The nation’s two most populous – and ideologically opposed – states were racing on parallel tracks toward consequential redistricting votes, potentially within hours of each other. As Democrats in Sacramento worked to advance a legislative package that would put their “election rigging response act” before voters in a special election this fall, Republicans in Austin were nearing a final vote on their own gerrymandering pursuit.

Democratic state lawmakers erupted in applause, when the assembly passed the measure in a 57-20 vote, sending it next to the state senate. It was the first of three related bills that Democrats hope to pass by early afternoon. The state’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, who has led the redistricting push, intends to sign the bill as soon as it arrives on his desk.

“We will not let our political system be hijacked by authoritarianism. And today, we give every Californian the power to say no,” said the Democratic assembly speaker Robert Rivas, in floor remarks before the vote. “To say no to Donald Trump’s power grab and yes to our people, to our state and to our democracy.”

Approval by the Texas senate, which is expected as early as Thursday, would conclude a dramatic showdown with the state’s outnumbered Democratic lawmakers whose two-week boycott captured national attention and set in motion a coast-to-coast redistricting battle.

The California plan is designed to flip as many as five Republican-held seats in California – the exact number of additional GOP seats Trump has said he is “entitled to” in Texas.

“This is a new Democratic party, this is a new day, this is new energy out there all across this country,” Newsom said on a call with reporters on Wednesday. “And we’re going to fight fire with fire.”

The redistricting tit-for-tat is an extraordinary deviation from the norm. Traditionally, states redraw congressional maps once a decade based on census data, with both the Texas and California maps originally intended to last through 2030.

The California state legislature, where Democrats have a supermajority, is expected to easily approve new congressional maps despite sharp Republican objections. Newsom’s signature would send the measure to the ballot in a special election this November.

Prior to Thursday’s vote, California Republicans pleaded with their Democratic colleagues to oppose what they derisively called a “Gavinmander”.

“The problem when you fight fire with fire is you burn it all down,” James Gallagher, the state assembly Republican leader, said at a news conference.

Initially, Democratic lawmakers said the changes would only take effect in response to a gerrymander by a Republican state – a condition that would be met when the Texas legislatures sends the maps to the state’s governor, Greg Abbott, for his promised signature. But they amended the language on Thursday to remove any reference to a trigger, arguing it was no longer necessary now Texas has moved ahead.

A Texas senate committee approved the GOP plan on Thursday morning, setting up a vote on final passage in the chamber, which was scheduled to reconvene that evening.

California was acting after a dramatic showdown in Austin, where Democratic lawmakers left the state earlier this month to delay a GOP redistricting plan pushed by the president. They returned only after California moved forward with its counterproposal. When they returned, some were assigned police minders and forced to sign permission slips before leaving the capitol. Several spent the night in the chamber in protest before Wednesday’s session, where Republicans pushed through a map designed explicitly to boost their party’s chances in 2026.

California Democrats are moving ahead after days of contentious debate over the cost – and consequences – of a referendum to temporarily toss out the maps drawn by the state’s voter-approved independent redistricting commission. Republicans estimated that a special election could cost more than $230m – money they said would be better spent on other issues like healthcare.

On Wednesday night, the state supreme court declined an emergency request by Republican lawmakers seeking to block the Democratic plan from moving forward.

The redistricting push has also caused angst among some Democrats and independents who have fought for years to combat gerrymandering.

Testifying in favor of the changes during a hearing earlier this week, Sara Sadhwani, a political science professor who served as a Democratic member of the state’s independent redistricting commission in 2020, said the map-drawing tit-for-tat presented California voters with a “moral conflict”. But she argued that Democrats had to push back on the president’s power grab.

“It brings me no joy to see the maps that we passed fairly by the commission to be tossed aside,” she said. “I do believe this is a necessary step in a much bigger battle to shore up free and fair elections in our nation.”

The plan also drew the backing of former president Barack Obama and other champions of fair redistricting, such as his former attorney general, Eric Holder.

But Newsom’s redistricting plan – a high-stakes gambit for the term-limited governor who has made no secret of his 2028 presidential ambitions – is not assured to succeed. It faces mounting opposition from high-profile Republicans, including the state’s former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has vowed to “terminate gerrymandering”.

Early polling has been mixed. But a new survey conducted by Newsom’s longtime pollster David Binder found strong support for the measure in the heavily Democratic state, with 57% of voters backing it while 35% opposed it.

In a memo, Binder noted that support for the redistricting measure varies depending on how it is presented to voters. When framed as eliminating the state’s independent redistricting commission designed to prevent partisan gerrymandering, support drops. However, when voters hear that the initiative would allow temporary map changes only in response to partisan actions in other states, like Texas, while retaining the commission, the measure enjoys a double-digit margin of support.