In less than two weeks, California voters will decide in a special election whether to pass Proposition 50.
The ballot measure that would temporarily bypass the state’s independent redistricting mission to redraw Congressional maps in favor of Democrats.
The special election was spearheaded by Governor Gavin Newsom and state Democrats in response to Texas Republicans redrawing their state’s maps — at the request of President Donald Trump to gain five more GOP seats ahead of the 2026 midterm election.
With early voting already underway millions of dollars have poured into both the “Yes” and “No” campaigns for Prop 50. Supporters hold more than a 2-to-1 fundraising advantage over the opposition, according to reporting from the nonprofit newsroom CalMatters.
But one megadonor in particular has made up the overwhelming majority of funding opposing the ballot measure — physicist Charles Munger Jr., who also supported efforts to create the independent redistricting commission more than a decade ago.
Munger spoke with Insight Host Vicki Gonzalez about why he opposes Prop 50, and his views on gerrymandering and mid-decade redistricting happening across the country.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Interview highlights
You're a physicist by profession. How did you first get involved in politics and campaigns?
The ordinary way. I saw a candidate running for Assembly who I thought was a great candidate. I walked in one day unannounced and said, "Hi, what do you need?" They said we need someone to put labels on these envelopes. Then we need somebody to grab this basket of door hangers and march a precinct and ring doorbells.
I did that for several days and I learned in that campaign that it didn’t matter if you did that because that district had been gerrymandered to be sure that only certain candidates could contest it. That election was over before that candidate chose to run, and before I chose to show up. So I learned how helpless people are when their government gerrymanders the districts.
You were an original supporter of California’s independent redistricting commission. You personally and financially supported ballot measures in 2008 and 2010 under then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger that gave birth to it. What led you to hone in on this type of election reform, when you could have devoted your money to a lot of other political causes?
Well, I did devote my money to a lot of other causes politically. But this particular issue I cared about because of the helplessness it causes. You're an ordinary person, you just want a chance of getting someone to listen to you and what your concerns are, your community, and send them off to Congress in the hope that they'll speak for you. And gerrymanders are designed to make certain that does not happen, because somebody's going to draw the lines to favor one particular candidate. They're going to draw a district that once they win it, the other party can never win it, so they never have to come back to the district to talk to people. People keep voting, and things don't change.
Most people are unaware that you redraw the districts every 10 years. I, as a physicist and a nerd and frankly somebody who inherited wealth — no merit of mine — I set myself to try to fix it.
We’ve had the independent redistricting commission in California for about 15 years now. What is the big difference that you would like voters to understand between when this push got started in 2008-2010, and today?
We had very contentious national politics. We had the younger Bush's presidency. We had Obama take over subsequently. We had a war going on. Do you know how many congressional districts in California switched parties during that tumultuous decade? Almost zero. There were eight elections where nobody changed, at the end one seat flipped.
You say, "why is that?" Because the districts have been drawn to be fortresses for each party, so you couldn't pick up a Republican seat or a Democratic seat anywhere in the state. As a consequence, no one campaigned nationally for Congress in California, with the exception of the one seat that flipped at the end of the decade. That’s what gerrymanders are designed to do. No matter how angry the people get about something or how much they believe in a cause, nothing shall change because it's for the politician's safety, not for them to be accountable.
Whereas under the present commission… in Trump's first midterm, he was not very popular then, and because we did not gerrymander in California… seven Republican seats flipped and were lost in one election. That's a big difference from a state where you gerrymander. We have a quarter of the seats that either party can win in the whole country right now. We are only a ninth of the population. Why? Because we don't gerrymander, so one party can sweep. All of that will end if you vote “yes” on Prop 50. You have to vote “no” if you want elections where your opinions actually matter.
You’ve devoted roughly $30 million dollars to the “No” campaign and this special election. Is it as straightforward for you to say, since you are a major backer of this independent redistricting commission, that you are a “no” on Prop 50… is there any nuance there?
The only nuance here is the advertising on the other side. What Trump did, what Governor Abbott of Texas did and the Texas Legislature did was reprehensible. Politicians trying to insulate themselves from their own voters, trying to disenfranchise Democratic voters who are just as much Texans as the Texas Legislature is.
The proper response to that is not to be like them. Not to go and say, "well if they're going to disenfranchise Democratic voters, we should disenfranchise Republican Californians or Democrats.” It's like watching someone burn down a building or town in another country, and say the only proper thing is to burn down a building or a town in your own state. It's not proportional.
We're gerrymandering the whole state so they can win four seats, and have them so that voters can't hold the politicians accountable who own them. It's a war over nothing.
What do you say to voters who believe this mid-decade redistricting by Texas Republicans, and pushed by President Trump, which you do not support is unprecedented or a threat to democracy?
Well, of course it is. Mid-decade gerrymanders are, and California’s about to embark on one.
Why should California play by different roles, a “moral high ground” as you wrote in your op-ed in the New York Times, if other states might be willing to gerrymander regardless?
Right now, there are about 40 seats in the country that either Republicans or Democrats can win. Because of the gerrymanders in the last decade or two that’s down from 60. And by the time these gerrymanders in Texas and California burn their course we'll be down to 30, maybe a little less. We're destroying the accountability of the United States Congress, and we're effectively disenfranchising people all over the country. It has to stop somewhere.
The way it should stop is to pass a national anti-gerrymander reform, but California's system is the only model of a system which has demonstrated its fairness and its equity over two different election cycles. It's the only thing you could institute that anybody could say has been tested. And killing it in California is not the way to end the national problem.
Prop 50 would be temporary. The independent redistricting commission would come back the next decade.
Well, temporary in the eyes of the beholder. If this were all about Donald Trump, these maps in California would end in one election cycle. You'd vote in these new districts in 2026 only. Why? Because people elected in 2028 won't face Donald Trump as president, he’ll be gone anyway. So why are we being asked to approve maps which will last for an additional two election cycles into the next president's term? And the answer is people having seized power don't want to give it up.
Speaking of Trump, you’re a registered Republican. What are your views on his second term so far?
When people ask me how I was going to vote in the national election, I said, "I expect to be very disappointed in my national government whoever wins." I still see no reason to change that particular opinion. What Trump has done by instigating what happened in Texas, what the Texans have done, is utterly reprehensible and is only equaled by what has been done in Republican and Democratic states across the entire nation. The problem with the gerrymandering power, it’s like the freedom to suppress the press. We learned you can't let legislatures have that power, they must abuse it. It will corrupt them.
The Democrats who are pushing this in California are not evil people, but they're people who have been tempted beyond their strength… as have been the politicians in every other state where one party controls the government. It's a power the nation needs to wall up, away from their legislators, for the legislators’ own sakes. In California, we did this and now they want to let it loose.
In your view, how should California Democrats combat the mid-decade gerrymandering taking place in Texas and elsewhere?
Simple. You vote down Prop 50 because you don't want to throw gasoline on this fire. You march in all of the districts that you can win for Democrats and you say, “it's now time for you Republicans and Independents to vote out the Republicans so that we can control Congress, and we are going to fix the national redistricting problem… if only you give us a majority.” And you take that majority, and under this president or under a future president, you say “this is the major thing if you elect us, it’s our national cause.” And then you will fix the problem.
There’s an overwhelming amount of support from voters to keep the independent redistricting commission as it stands, but some former commission members have come out either in support or opposition of Prop 50, given the circumstances. How do you respond to that?
The commission is designed to have Democrats, Republicans and very tellingly, four people who don't belong to either of those parties who get a veto on the maps. Of course they disagree about politics in their private capacity as citizens. What they did as commissioners tasked with drawing districts which were not partisan… they did an exemplary job.
Everyone thinks that if you want districts that aren't drawn to partisan advantage, that represent the communities that make up the diverse landscape of California, you couldn't do a better job with any other group of people under any other system. Then if you ask them, "well yes, but now we have this horrible national crisis,” of course people will have disagreements. I have disagreements in my own family over this issue. That's the nature of politics.
You've contributed millions of dollars to oppose this ballot measure. If Prop 50 passes do you see that as a failure, or a waste?
Just when [this] started I penned an editorial and op-ed in the New York Times and I said whatever else happens from this, the people of California are going to be far better informed about what the nature of their choice is because I chose to engage in this battle… and that's true whether I win or lose. And for that, I feel a sense of pride.
I don't feel any shame for taking a major reform that I had the honor of bringing to the people of California and having them approve it, and having them see how well it worked for 15 years. There’s no shame in fighting for it, even if I lose. I don't want the future of my state or my nation if it does lose, I think people will regret it and therefore they should vote “no” on Prop 50.
I would however be delighted to be proven wrong about that, but I'm doing my best to keep the evils I see coming from afflicting the people of California if I can only persuade them not to take a bad path.
