Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA) announced that he is re-registering as “No Party Preference,” making him the first House member not formally affiliated with any party, while still pledging to caucus with Republicans.
Kiley represents California’s 3rd Congressional District but is running this November in the newly drawn 6th District. He says he’s responding directly to Proposition 50, a California ballot measure passed last year that authorized mid-decade redistricting and created five new Democratic-leaning seats in the state.
“Gerrymandering is a plague on democracy, one that Gavin Newsom has brought back to California,” Kiley wrote Friday. “But there’s a way we can fight back and protect our democracy from his partisan games: by removing partisanship from the equation. Today, I filed for reelection as ‘No Party Preference.'”
“This means I will not have a party affiliation on the ballot or as an officeholder. That’s how it already is with most offices in our state: mayors, city councilors, school board members, county supervisors, sheriffs, and DAs are all nonpartisan,” he continued, going on to add that the “epidemic of gerrymandering has spread from Texas to California to states all across the country. Both parties are complicit.”
Republicans currently hold 217 seats in the House, a razor-thin majority that gives Speaker Mike Johnson virtually no room for defection. Kiley is not leaving the caucus, he said. He plans to continue voting with the GOP.
Spectrum News DC reports that Kiley did not inform Republican leadership of his decision prior to the announcement.
In August, Kiley declared that he planned to introduce legislation targeting mid-decade redistricting efforts. He noted that Congress has the “ability to protect California voters using its authority under the Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution,” which he explained will “also stop a damaging redistricting war from breaking out across the country.”
