California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) announced that the state will launch a legislative package that will allow it to undertake a redistricting effort.
“Here we are, in open and plain sight before one vote is cast in the 2026 midterm election, and here he is, once again, trying to rig the system,” Newsom said of President Donald Trump. “He doesn’t play by a different set of rules. He doesn’t believe in the rules. And as a consequence, we need to disabuse ourselves of the way things have been done. It’s not good enough to just hold hands, have a candlelight vigil and talk about the way the world should be. We have got to recognize the cards that have been dealt, and we have got to meet fire with fire, and we’ve got to be held to a higher level of accountability. So that’s what this is about. It’s not complicated.”
Newsom announced the outline of a proposed constitutional amendment called The Election Rigging Response Act, which will go before Californians in November. The amendment “retains California’s Citizens Redistricting Commission and declares state policy supporting the use of fair, nonpartisan redistricting commissions nationwide” and “temporarily adopts new California congressional districts for use in congressional elections through 2030,” Newsom’s office said.
The legislative package further includes a bill calling for a special election on November 4, a bill establishing a new congressional map that “could be triggered to take effect under the proposed constitutional amendment if other states engage in redistricting,” the office described, and a bill authorizing “reimbursement of costs to administer the election.”
