Gavin Newsom spent hundreds of millions of dollars that California doesn’t have when he passed Proposition 50 to gerrymander the state’s congressional districts, drawing Republicans out of office.
Then he backed an effort in Virginia to do the same — even though “moderate” Democrat Abigail Spanberger had made a specific campaign promise last year not to gerrymander the districts.
On Friday, Virginia’s Supreme Court struck down the state’s new map, which would have taken an evenly divided congressional delegation (six Democrats, five Republicans) and skewed it 10-to-1 for Democrats.
Gavin Newsom spent hundreds of millions of dollars that California doesn’t have when he passed Proposition 50 to gerrymander the state’s congressional districts, drawing Republicans out of office. Getty Images Newsom cast Proposition 50 as a response to an effort to redraw the congressional map in Texas to favor Republicans by eliminating several Democrat-held seats.
Never mind that the Department of Justice had advised that those Texas seats, drawn specifically to represent racial minorities, were likely unconstitutional.
Newsom used the opportunity to do what Democrats have long wanted to do in California, and threw out the independent redistricting commission (temporarily, he says) in favor of a partisan process controlled entirely by the dominant party.
He didn’t even wait for the Texas legislature to vote on its map before moving Proposition 50 forward.
After California voters passed Proposition 50, the sides were even. Texas had likely eliminated four Democrat seats; California had likely eliminated the same number. That should have led to a truce.
But Democrats couldn’t help themselves, and went to the extreme in Virginia, determined to seize control of the U.S. House of Representatives in November, likely with the intent of impeaching President Donald Trump (again).
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So Republican-run states that had stayed on the sidelines jumped in. Florida, for example, swiftly passed a new congressional map that will likely see Democrats lose four seats.
Now the Democrats’ map in Virginia has been thrown out. And it is likely to stay that way, since the Supreme Court is generally reluctant to intervene in redistricting battles within state legislatures.
But the Republican districts that were created after the Virginia debacle aren’t being undone.
So for all the gloating that Gavin Newsom did, here and in other states, after Proposition 50 passed, he and Democrats now face the prospect of possibly losing seats in the midterms.
Instead of leading his party in a responsible direction, he disenfranchised California voters and led Democrats into a cul-de-sac.
When Democrats want to know whom to blame, look up a Sacramento address.
