Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA) has pledged to introduce legislation targeting mid-decade redistricting efforts, targeting Governor Gavin Newsom’s vow to redraw state maps.
“I am introducing legislation in Congress to stop Newsom’s corrupt scheme to overthrow our Citizens Redistricting Commission and make California a permanent one-party state,” Kiley said in a statement. “My bill prohibits congressional districts from being redrawn in the middle of the decade. This is already the law in California under our State Constitution, which provides that redistricting is done once a decade by an Independent Commission. But Newsom is planning to blow all of this up so he can impose his own partisan map on voters before the next election.”
Kiley 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.”
Newsom said last week that the redistricting effort would “go to the people of this state in a transparent way and ask them to consider the new circumstances, to consider these new realities.”
“This is not going to be done in a back room. This is not going to be done by members of some private group or body,” he added. “It’s going to be given to the voters for their consideration in a very transparent way so they know exactly what they’re doing and they can go back in 2030 to original form with our independent redistricting intact.”
