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Fresh off their failed attempt to kill Gov. Gavin Newsom’s redistricting plan in the Democratic-controlled Legislature, California Republicans and anti-gerrymandering groups this week launched an all-out resistance to defeat what they regard as an unconstitutional ballot question.
Republican legislators in particular, many of whom lambasted Democrats in fiery floor speeches last week, have stressed that independent redistricting should be a nonpartisan affair. A few even ventured to lightly scold President Donald Trump for urging their counterparts in red states to redraw maps for political gain. And several filed a new lawsuit against the Newsom administration on Monday, their second in a week.
But despite their best efforts, California Republicans can’t completely separate Trump from the battle over redistricting, a fight that the president initiated earlier this summer by calling for gerrymandering in Texas to benefit the GOP. On Monday, the president offhandedly threatened to sue California to halt Newsom’s plan.
“Well, I think I’m going to be filing a lawsuit pretty soon and I think we’re going to be very successful in it,” Trump said in the Oval Office. “We’re going to be filing it through the Department of Justice. That’s going to happen.”
The opposition campaign has already landed in many Californians’ mailboxes and social feeds. Printed pamphlets paid for by Republican operatives and good governance advocates alike started arriving last Thursday, the same day that Newsom declared the Nov. 4 special election on his proposal to temporarily suspend the state’s independent redistricting panel and instead use gerrymandered maps drawn in to favor Democrats.
“We cannot save democracy by burning it down in California,” declared a four-page mailer funded primarily by Charles T. Munger Jr., the main financial backer of the 2010 initiative that created the redistricting commission.
A different one-page pamphlet, paid for by an organization headed by former state Republican Party chair Jessica Millan Patterson, warned readers of a “political power grab” and told voters to “SAY NO” to “unconstitutional gerrymandering.”
But even as they slam Newsom and Democrats for a “political power grab,” California Republicans are laboring to keep their criticism narrowly focused on the circumventing of California’s independent redistricting commission, rather than openly criticize Trump’s demand for red states to leverage redistricting in the GOP’s favor.
“It should not be Gavin Newsom vs. Trump. It should not be California vs. Texas,” said Corrin Rankin, chair of the California Republican Party, at a news conference announcing the latest lawuit filed with the California Supreme Court. “It should be what’s in the best interest of Californians, and what’s in the best interest of Californians is for us to determine who represents us.”
GOP lost once in court
Four Republican legislators, with help from Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon’s private law firm, sued the state to remove the newly minted Proposition 50 from the ballot. They contend that Prop. 50 violates a state rule that all ballot questions adhere to a single subject – a common tactic for opponents of ballot measures. And once again, they insist that Democratic lawmakers violated numerous procedural steps in their rush to put gerrymandered maps in front of voters for approval.
The California Supreme Court denied the group’s first legal challenge last week. The group’s lead attorney argues that conditions are different now that the election is officially scheduled and the proposition is slated for the ballot.
Newsom’s campaign scoffed at Republicans’ latest challenge and declared it would fail.
“Trump’s toadies already got destroyed once in court. Now, they are trying once again — to protect Trump’s power grab and prevent voters from having their say on Prop 50,” Hannah Milgrom, a spokesperson for the campaign, said in a statement. “They will lose.”
Is Trump serious about suing?
It’s unclear how seriously to take Trump’s remarks that he’d sue California. They were prompted by a question from a reporter — who Trump corrected to refer to the governor by his frequent “Gavin Newscum” nickname — and the president offered no further details.
The White House did not respond to emailed questions about the legal basis or timeline for a lawsuit. Natalie Baldassarre, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Justice, declined to comment.
The potential lawsuit has also not been coordinated with the California Republican Party, according to Rankin, who would not say whether she welcomed Trump’s intervention.
“I'm not going to get ahead of the president,” she said. “That's a question for the future.”
But even the possibility of Trump’s involvement could juice the campaign for Prop. 50, which has seen middling support in polls so far. A survey published last week by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies and the Los Angeles Times found the measure leading 48% to 32% among likely voters.
The anti-Trump resistance has been a potent political message in California for a decade. In 2021, Newsom beat back an effort to recall him from office in part by making the election about Californians' distaste for Trump.
Whether or not the president follows through on his threat of a lawsuit, Newsom now has a tangible opportunity to frame Proposition 50 as California vs. Trump and run back his successful playbook from defeating the recall. He was quick to respond to the president’s comment about a legal challenge with an all-caps post on social media: "BRING IT."
This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.
