Proposition

With the fate of President’s Trump’s right-wing agenda at stake, the California ballot measure crafted to tilt Congress to Democratic control has turned into a fight among millionaires and billionaires, a former president, a past movie-star governor and the nation’s top partisans.

Californians have been inundated with political ads popping up on every screen — no cellphone, computer or living-room television is spared — trying to sway them about Proposition 50, which will reconfigure the districts of the largest state congressional delegation in the union.

Besides opposing pleas from former President Obama and former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the state’s powerful, left-leaning labor unions are another factor that may influence the outcome of the Nov. 4 special election.

Unions representing California school teachers, carpenters, state workers and nurses have plowed more than $23 million into efforts to pass Proposition 50, according to an analysis of campaign finance disclosure reports about donations exceeding $100,000. That’s nearly one-third of the six-figure donations reported through Thursday.

Not only do these groups have major interests in the state capitol, including charter school reform, minimum wage hikes and preserving government healthcare programs, they also are deeply aligned with efforts by Gov. Gavin Newsom and his fellow Democrats to put their party in control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2026 election.
“There are real issues here that are at stake,” said veteran Democratic strategist Gale Kaufman, who has represented several unions that have contributed to Newsom’s committee supporting Proposition 50.

“There’s always a risk when making sizable donations, that you’re putting yourself out there,” Kaufman said. “But the truth is on Proposition 50, I think it’s much less calculated than normal contributions. It really is about the issue, not about currying favor with members of the Legislature, or the congressional delegation, or the governor. Even though, of course, it benefits them if we win.”

High stakes brings in big money from across the nation

Newsom’s pro-Proposition 50 committee has raised more than $116 million, according to campaign disclosure filings through Thursday afternoon, though that number is sure to increase once additional donations are disclosed in the latest fundraising reports that are due by midnight Thursday.

The multimillion-dollar donations provide the best evidence of what’s at stake, and how Proposition 50 could determine control of the House during the final two years of Trump’s presidency. If the Democrats take control of the House, not only could that derail major parts of Trumps agenda, it probably would lead to a slew of congressional hearings on Trump’s immigration crackdown, use of the military in American cities, accepting a $400-million luxury airliner from Qatari’s royal family, the cutting of research funding to universities and the president’s ties to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, among many others.

The House Majority PAC — the Democrats’ congressional fundraising arm — has donated at least $15 million to the pro-Proposition 50 campaign, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) was in Los Angeles to campaign for the ballot measure last weekend. Obama joined Newsom on a livestream promoting the proposition Wednesday, and Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin hosted a bilingual phone bank in Los Angeles on Thursday.

“Make no mistake about what they’re trying to do and why it’s so important that we fight back,” Martin said. “We’re not going to be the only party with one hand tied behind our back. If they want a showdown, we’re going to give them a showdown and in just a little under two weeks it starts right here with Prop. 50 in California.”

Billionaire financier George Soros — a generous donor to liberal causes and a bogeyman to Republicans — has contributed $10 million. Others have chosen to fund separate entities campaigning in favor of Proposition 50, notably billionaire hedge-fund founder Tom Steyer, who chipped in $12 million.

On the opposition side, the largest donor is Charles Munger Jr., the son of the longtime investment partner of billionaire Warren Buffett, who has contributed $32.8 million to one of the two main committees opposing Proposition 50. The Congressional Leadership Fund — the GOP’s political arm in the House — has donated $5 million to the other main anti-Proposition 50 committee and $8 million to the California Republican Party.

Although Republicans may control the White House and Congress, the California GOP wields no real power in Sacramento, so it’s not surprising that Republican efforts opposing Proposition 50 have not received major donations from entities with business before the state.

The California Chamber of Commerce opted to remain neutral on Proposition 50. Chevron and the California Resources Corp., petroleum companies that have given to California Republicans in the past, also remain on the sidelines.

In contrast, Democrats control every statewide office and hold supermajorities in both houses of the California Legislature. The pro-Proposition 50 campaign has been showered with donations from groups aligned with Sacramento’s legislative leaders — with labor organizations chief among them.

Among the labor donors, the powerful carpenters unions have donated at least $4 million. Newsom hailed them in July when he signed legislation altering a landmark environmental law for urban apartment developments to boost the supply of housing. The California Conference of Carpenters union has become one of the most pro-housing voices in the state.

“This is the third of the last four years we’ve been together signing landmark housing reforms, and it simply would not have happened without the Carpenters,” Newsom said at the time.

Daniel M. Curtin, director of the California Conference of Carpenters, pointed to a letter he wrote to legislators in August urging them to put redistricting on the ballot because of the effect of Trump’s policies on the state’s workers.

“These are not normal times, and this isn’t politics as usual. Not only has the Trump administration denied disaster assistance to victims of California’s devastating forest fires, he’s damaging our CA economy with mass arrests of law-abiding workers without warrants,” wrote Curtin, whose union has 70,000 members in the state. “The Trump administration is now unilaterally withdrawing from legally binding union collective bargaining agreements with federal workforce unions. The President has made it clear that this is just the beginning.”

Proposition 50 was prompted by Trump urging Republican leaders in Texas to redraw their congressional districts to boost the number of GOP members in the House and keep the party in control after the 2026 election. Newsom sought to counter the move by altering California’s congressional boundaries in a rare mid-decade redistricting.

With 52 members in the House, the state has the largest congressional delegation in the nation. But unlike many states, California’s districts are drawn by an independent commission created by voters in 2010 in an effort to end partisan gerrymandering and incumbent protection.

The state’s districts would not have been redrawn until after the 2030 U.S. census, but the Legislature and Newsom agreed in August to put Proposition 50, which would give Democrats the potential to pick up five seats, on the November ballot.

Money from California unions pours in

Although much of the money supporting the efforts comes from wealth Democratic donors and partisan groups aimed at helping Democrats take control of Congress, a significant portion comes from labor unions.

The Service Employees International Union, which represents more than 700,000 healthcare workers, social workers, in-home caregivers and school employees and other state and local government workers, has contributed more than $5.5 million to the committee.

On Oct. 12, the union celebrated Newsom signing bills ensuring that workers, regardless of immigration status, are informed about their civil and labor rights under state and federal law as well as updating legal guidance to state and local agencies about protecting private information, such as court records and medical data, from being misused by federal authorities.

“Thank you to Governor Newsom for … standing up to federal overreach and indiscriminate, violent attacks on our communities,” David Huerta, president of SEIU California, said in a statement.

Huerta was arrested during the first day of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in Los Angeles in June and charged with a felony. But federal prosecutors are instead pursuing a misdemeanor case against him, according to a Friday court filing.

An SEIU representative did not respond to requests for comment.

The California Teachers Assn., another potent force in state politics, has contributed more than $3.3 million, along with millions more from other education unions such as the National Education Assn., the California Federation of Teachers and the American Federation of Teachers.

CTA had a mixed record in this year’s legislative session.

Newsom vetoed a bill to crack down on charter school fraud, Senate Bill 414. The CTA opposed the bill, arguing that it didn’t go far enough to target fraud in some of the schools, and had urged the governor to reject it.

Newsom signed CTA-backed bills that placed strict limits on ICE agents’ access to school grounds. But he also vetoed union-backed bill that would have required the state Board of Education to adopt health education instructional materials by July 1, 2028.

CTA President David Goldberg said their donations are driven not only by issues important to the union’s members, but also the students they serve who are dependent on federally funded assistance programs and impacted by policies such as immigration.

“It’s about our livelihood but it really is about fundamental issues … for people who serve students who are just incredibly under attack right now,” Goldberg said.

“The governor’s support for labor would be exactly the same with or without Proposition 50 on the ballot. But he would acknowledge this year is more urgent than ever for labor and working people,” said Newsom spokesperson Bob Salladay. “Trump is taking a wrecking ball to collective bargaining, to fair wages and safe working conditions. He would be backing them up under any circumstances, but especially now.”

Critics of Proposition 50 argue that these contributions are among the reasons voters should oppose the ballot measure.

“The independent redistricting commission exists to prevent conflicts of interest and money from influencing line drawing,” said Amy Thoma, a spokesperson for the Voters First Coalition, the committee backed by Munger Jr., who bankrolled the 2010 ballot measure to create the independent commission. “That’s why we want to preserve its independence.”

Other labor leaders argued that although they are not always in lockstep with Newsom, they need to support Proposition 50 because of the importance of Democrats winning the congressional majority next year.

Lorena Gonzalez, the head of the powerful California Labor Federation, said the timing of the member unions’ donations of millions of dollars to Newsom’s ballot measure committee for an election taking place shortly after the bill-signing period was “unfortunate” and “weird.”

“Because we have so many bills in front of him, we were gun-shy,” she said, noting that the federation has sparred with the governor over issues such as the effect of artificial intelligence in the workplace. “Never be too close to your elected officials. Because we see the good, the bad, the ugly.”

Times staff writers Andrea Flores and Brittny Mejia contributed to this report.

Brian O’Connor thinks part of his success is due to California voter approval of Proposition 13, the landmark property tax reduction proposal that catalyzed the taxpayer revolt more than a decade ago.

He is the general manager of the Bel-Air Patrol, which operates Los Angeles’ oldest private residential security patrol service. Since Proposition 13, the company has greatly expanded its territory and number of clients, he said.

Business is good and getting better for a growing number of such companies that deploy armed and unarmed guards to watch over Southern California neighborhoods. In fact, such businesses are growing all over the nation.

Residential guard services are a fast-growing segment of the security guard business, says Robert McCrie, editor of Security Letter, a trade publication. He estimated that residential guard services account for 10% to 15% of the nation’s $6.5-billion annual security guard bill. “The growth has been quite unmistakable since World War II. One reason is that people simply feel afraid,” said McCrie, who is also a professor of security management at New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

More Seek Permits

The public’s perception that government services have declined in California since the passage of Proposition 13 adds to the fear, O’Connor said. People feel that their local police departments are stretched too thin, he said. “The police obviously have to prioritize where they concentrate their effort,” he said.

People also want more control of their personal safety, he said. The average homeowner can’t control the police, but he can hire and fire private security firms at will, he said.

Within the city of Los Angeles, about 50 firms have Los Angeles Police Department permits to offer residential patrol service. Many more operate in the county, and “there may be some operating illegally (in Los Angeles),” said Det. Richard Rudell, chief of the permit section of the Los Angeles Police Commission.

Rudell said he has noted a steady increase in the number of firms applying for permits in recent years, although “some have subsequently gone out of business.” Every year, a number don’t renew their permits, he says.

Security guards do not have police powers. For example, guards patrolling a neighborhood may not detain someone believed to be acting suspiciously, said Lt. Fred Nixon, a Los Angeles Police Department spokesman.

Like anyone, they may make a citizen’s arrest of a person caught committing a crime. Guard companies claim that their presence deters crime, but independent statistical studies aren’t available to verify that claim.

“The police department believes that a highly visible patrol tends to deter crime,” Nixon said. “That is not a vote for or against private patrols. (The patrol) is only part of the equation.”

Private companies offer different levels of services. The larger security alarm companies provide armed guards to respond to an alarm. Other services simply drive through a neighborhood, or by an individual residence, or stop and inspect the exterior of properties. Still others provide mail and newspaper pickups for clients who are out of town and an escort service for clients fearful of entering an empty house after being away for a period.

Added Problems

Although the concept of security patrols seem simple, it’s not that easy for small operators–who are the vast majority of patrol businesses–to make a patrol service a success, said Robert Rockwell, a Walnut Creek, Calif., security management consultant.

Patrol services have all the challenges of hiring and supervising personnel as other guard companies, he said, with the additional burden of purchasing and maintaining vehicles that are driven constantly, he said. They also have the complication of getting a sufficient client base and calculating patrol routes under a price structure that will produce a profit, he said.

Because of the complications, many of the nation’s largest providers of security guards have shied away from that segment, he said, although many will provide a stationary guard for an apartment building, or gated community. (The largest segment of the security guard business is providing on-site guards for businesses and factories.)

Many larger companies that offer residential patrols are essentially in the business of selling security alarms.

Rockwell is also vice president of California Contract Security Guard Service, a trade group of 125 companies. “Very few of our members are involved,” he said.

Most residential patrols are small, perhaps operating with two or three people, he said. “One guy starts a patrol business where he does the patrols himself. Then he hires somebody else to take (another) shift,” Rockwell said.

Thomas Walthen acquired residential patrols in 30 cities across the country, including one in Los Angeles, when his Van Nuys-based California Plant Protection bought the venerable Pinkerton Security Service in 1987, creating a tie between CPP/Pinkerton and Borg-Warner’s security business as the nation’s largest provider of security guards.

High Accident Rate

(Borg-Warner includes Burns International Security Services, Wells Fargo Guard Services and Baker Industries, the parent of the Bel-Air Patrol). The acquisition put Walthen in a business segment that he abandoned 20 years ago. Unlike many services in the old days, Pinkerton has developed a “substantially sophisticated patrol service,” Walthen said.

Nevertheless, he added, “We’re still in the process of evaluating the operation. It looks like a profitable arm,” he said. But there are some problems. “The ratio of accidents to miles driven seem to be terribly out of line,” he said, and nobody seems to know why.

Although relatively big companies are in the minority among those offering residential patrols, they are among the best known in Southern California. A familiar sight throughout affluent neighborhoods are lawns and gardens sprouting signs for Bel-Air, MacGuard Security Services and Westec Security, a unit of Japan’s SECOM Co. All three sell alarm systems and offer armed response to alarms as well as neighborhood patrols.

“We’re not a security guard company. We sell a concept of security,” said Westec President Michael Kaye, explaining how the company’s alarm systems interact with a staff of almost 800 people. About 200 are guards on patrol. The company views itself as playing an “observe and report” role for the police. However, he said, the company plays a crucial prevention role.

“We’ve found time and time again that if a patrol is in a neighborhood, there is less crime. Burglars are basically lazy and will take the path of least resistance,” he said. Westec cites the experience of three Westside communities where it has tracked crime statistics before and after patrols.

Incidents Drop

One area with 400 homes had several burglaries a month before Westec began patrols seven years ago. Since patrols started, there have been no more than three burglaries a year and only one in 1988. Another neighborhood with 500 homes reported seven to 10 robberies a month before the patrols, the company said, but in the nine years of patrols, there have been less than six a year. Thus far in 1988, there have been three incidents.

A community of 250 homes reported several burglaries a month before the Westec patrols began seven years ago, the company said, but has had no more than two per year since. There haven’t been any incidents reported in 1988, the company said.

“We’re in the public relations and protection business,” said O’Connor, the retired British policeman who runs Bel-Air Patrol. “We’re never in conflict with law enforcement because we aren’t in that business,” he added.

STOCKTON — Four of California’s gubernatorial candidates tangled over climate change and wildfire preparedness at an economic forum Thursday in Stockton, though they all acknowledged the stark problems facing the state.

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, a Republican, stood apart from the three other candidates — all Democrats — at the California Economic Summit by challenging whether the spate of devastating wildfires in California is linked to climate change, and labeling some environmental activists “terrorists.”

After a few audience members shouted at Bianco over his “terrorists” comment, the Democratic candidates seized on the moment to reaffirm their own beliefs about the warming planet.

“The impacts of climate change are proven and undeniable,” said Tony Thurmond, a Democrat and California superintendent of public instruction. “You can call them what you want. That’s our new normal.”

The fires “do have a relationship with climate change,” said former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Besides environmental issues, the hour-and-a-half forum at the business-centric California Forward’s Economic Summit focused primarily on “checkbook” topics as the candidates, which also included former state Controller Betty Yee, offered gloomy statistics about poverty and homelessness in California.

Given the forum’s location in the Central Valley, the agricultural industry and rural issues were front and center.

Bianco harped on the state and the Democratic leaders for California’s handling of water management and gasoline prices. At one point, he told the audience that he felt like he was in the “Twilight Zone” after the Democrats on stage pitched ways to raise revenue.

Other candidates in California‘s 2026 governor’s race, including former Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra and former Rep. Katie Porter, were not present at Thursday’s debate. Former Assembly Majority Leader Ian Calderon planned to come, but his flight from Los Angeles was delayed, audience members were told.

All are vying to lead a state facing ongoing budget deficits caused by overspending. A state Legislative Analyst’s Office report released this month cited projected annual operating deficits ranging from roughly $15 billion to $25 billion through 2029. At the same time, federal cutbacks by the Trump administration to programs for needy Californians, including the state’s Medi-Cal healthcare program, will put more pressure on the state’s resources.

All of the candidates had different pitches during the afternoon event. Asked by moderator Jeanne Kuang, a CalMatters reporter, about ways to help rural communities, Thurmond cited his plan to build housing on surplus property owned by the state. He also repeatedly talked about extending tax credits or other subsidies to groups, including day-care providers.

Yee, discussing the wildfires, spoke on hardening homes and creating an industry around fire-proofing the state. Yee received applause when she questioned why there wasn’t more discussion about education in the governor’s race.

Villaraigosa cited his work finding federal funds to build rail and subway lines across Los Angeles and suggested that he would focus on growing the state’s power grid and transportation infrastructure.

Both the former mayor and Yee at points sided with Bianco when they complained about the “over-regulation” by the state, including restrictions on developers, builders and small businesses.

Few voters are probably paying much attention to the contest, with the battle over Proposition 50 dominating headlines and campaign spending.

Voters on Nov. 4 will decide whether to support the proposition, which is a Democratic-led effort to gerrymander California’s congressional districts to try and blunt President Trump’s attempt to rig districts in GOP-led states to retain control of the House of Representatives.

“Frankly, nobody’s focused on the governor’s race right now,” Yee said at an event last week.

Early voter turnout is exceeding expectations in California’s Nov. 4 special election over redrawing the state’s congressional districts, a Democratic-led effort to counter Republican attempts to keep Congress under GOP control.

“We’re seeing some pretty extraordinary numbers of early votes that have already been cast, people sending back in their ballots,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a livestream with former President Obama on Wednesday.

More than 3.4 million mail ballots have been returned as of Wednesday, with votes from Democrats outpacing ballots from Republicans and Californians registered as not having a party preference, according to a ballot tracker run by Democratic strategist Paul Mitchell. Mitchell is deeply involved in the Democratic effort, and drafted the proposed congressional districts on the Nov. 4 special election ballot.

That’s roughly the same number of ballots returned by this time in the White House contest between then-Vice President Kamala Harris and then-former President Trump in 2024, notable because turnout during presidential elections is higher than in other years.

About a million more ballots had been turned in by this point in the unsuccessful 2021 attempt to recall Newsom, but that was during the COVID pandemic.

This year’s turnout is also especially significant because Proposition 50 is about the esoteric topic of redistricting. Redrawing congressional districts is usually a once-a-decade process that takes place after the U.S. census to account for population shifts.

California’s 52 congressional districts currently are crafted by a voter-approved independent commission, but Newsom and other California Democrats decided to ask voters to allow a rare mid-decade partisan gerrymandering to blunt Trump’s efforts in GOP-led states to boost his party’s numbers in the House.

Obama, who has endorsed Proposition 50 and stars in a television ad supporting the effort, on Wednesday said the ballot measure will affect the entire country.

“There’s a broader principle at stake that has to do with whether or not our democracy can be manipulated by those who are already in power to entrench themselves further,” Obama said. “Or, whether we’re going to have a system that allows the people to decide who’s going to represent them.”

About 51% of the ballots that have been returned to date are from registered Democrats, while 28% are from registered Republicans and 21% are from voters who do not express a party preference.

It’s unknown how these voters cast their ballots, but the Democratic advantage appears to give an edge to supporters of Proposition 50, which needs to be passed by a simple majority to be enacted. About 19.6 million ballots — roughly 85% of those mailed to California voters — are outstanding, though not all are expected to be returned.

The current trend of returned ballots at this point shows Democrats having a small edge over Republicans compared with their share of the California electorate. According to the latest state voter registration report, Democrats account for 45% of California’s registered voters, while Republicans total 25% and “no party preference” voters make up 23%. Californians belonging to other parties make up the remainder.

Mitchell added that another interesting data point is that the mail ballots continue to flow in.

“Usually you see a lull after the first wave — if you don’t mail in your ballot in the first week, it’s going to be sitting on the counter for a while,” Mitchell said. But ballots continue to arrive, possibly encouraged by the “No Kings” protests on Saturday, he said.

A spokesperson for the pro-Proposition 50 campaign said they are taking nothing for granted.

“With millions of ballots still to be cast, we will keep pushing to make sure every Californian understands what’s at stake and turns out to vote yes on Nov. 4th to stop Trump’s power grab,” said spokesperson Hannah Milgrom.

Some Republican leaders have expressed concerns that the GOP early vote may be suppressed by Trump’s past criticism about mail balloting, inaccuracies in the voter guide sent to the state’s 23 million voters and conspiracy theories about the ballot envelope design.

“While ballot initiatives are nonpartisan, many Republicans tend to hold on to their ballots until in-person voting begins,” said Ellie Hockenbury, an advisor to the “No on Prop 50 — Stop Sacramento’s Power Grab” campaign committee. “As this next phase starts — and with nearly two weeks until Election Day — we expect already high turnout to continue rising to defeat Proposition 50 and stop Gavin Newsom’s partisan power grab.”

Amy Thoma, a spokesperson for the other major group opposing the proposition, said the data show that the voters who have returned ballots so far are not representative of the California electorate.

“Special elections tend to be more partisan, older and whiter than general elections, which is one of the reasons we’ve been concerned about the speed with which the politicians pushed this through,” she said.

U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) visited three Black churches in Los Angeles on Sunday morning to campaign for California’s redistricting effort, which could add five or six Democratic representatives to his ranks.

Amid a congressional deadlock over healthcare subsidies that has left the government shut down for more than two weeks, the minority leader returned to the Golden State to campaign for Proposition 50. The ballot measure would give his party more power against Republicans, who Jeffries said have refused to negotiate in the shutdown and otherwise.

“This is trouble all around us,” Jeffries told the congregation at First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles in West Adams — after poking fun at President Trump’s 2016 gaffe misspronouncing a book of the Bible. “Folks in the government who would rather shut the government down than give healthcare to everyday Americans. Wickedness in high places. And now they want to gerrymander the congressional maps all across the country to try to rig the midterm elections.”

The packed congregation — most wearing pink to support Breast Cancer Awareness Month — were receptive to his message.

“This is a way of trying to keep things equal,” said Kim Balogun, who was in Sunday’s crowd. “A level playing field.”

For many of its members, First AME is more than just a church. As the city’s oldest African American congregation, it has been at the forefront of the fight for civil rights since its founding in 1872.

“This is family,” said Toni Scott, a retired special-education teacher who has been with First AME for 52 years. “As one of the church’s previous ministers used to say, ‘This is a hospital. People are sick; we come to be healed,’” she said.

When news reached L.A. that Nelson Mandela would be released from prison, South African immigrants and anti-apartheid activists flocked to the church, anxiously awaiting the first sights of Mandela walking free. During the 1992 riots, First AME was a bastion of hope amid a sea of chaos.

“We thank you, God, for bringing us through dark times and chaotic times,” the Rev. Charolyn Jones said to the congregation on Sunday, “knowing that our church, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, was born out of protest.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, left, greets parishioners at First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles. “It’s an honor and a privilege to spend time worshiping at Black churches here with Congresswoman Sydney Kamlager-Dove to reinforce the message of the importance of voting yes on Proposition 50,” Jeffries said.

(Ethan Swope / For The Times)

For Jeffries, the first Black person to lead a major political party in Congress, the West Coast trip amid a congressional impasse was important.

“The African American churchgoing community has always been the foundation of the Black experience in the United States of America,” Jeffries said, who also visited the congregations of Mt. Sinai Missionary Baptist Church in South L.A. and Resurrection Church of Los Angeles in Carson. “It’s an honor and a privilege to spend time worshiping at Black churches here with Congresswoman Sydney Kamlager-Dove to reinforce the message of the importance of voting yes on Proposition 50.”

The state’s redistricting effort, Proposition 50, is part of a national fight over control of the U.S. House of Representatives, instigated by President Trump. Republicans hold a slim majority in the House, but in June, Trump began pushing Texas Republicans to redraw the state’s congressional maps to yield five more likely GOP seats.

In response, Newsom proposed California temporarily depose of its independent redistricting commission, led by 14 citizens, to redraw the state’s maps and add five Democratic seats, effectively canceling out Texas’s move.

The Democratic-controlled state Legislature quickly produced redrawn maps and scheduled a Nov. 4 special election to put them up for a vote. Mail-in ballots are already in the hands of voters.

California Republicans, including former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, have slammed the initiative as a “big scam.” Schwarzenegger called Democrats hypocritical, arguing that while they call Trump a “threat to democracy,” they want to “tear up the Constitution of California” and “take the power away from the people and give it back to the politicians.”

Jeffries noted that California was letting its citizens ultimately decide — unlike some Republican-led states.

“We said from the very beginning that we want to find bipartisan common ground whenever possible, but unfortunately, Republicans, from the beginning of this presidency, have adopted a take-it-or-leave-it, go-at-it-alone strategy,” he said, which is part of why, he added, Proposition 50 is so important.

In the current shutdown, Democrats said they will not vote for a funding bill unless it extends tax credits in the Affordable Care Act that are set to expire for many Americans at the end of the year and reverses cuts to Medicaid that Republicans passed in July’s so-called Big Beautiful Bill.

If the ACA credits expire, premiums would on average more than double for Americans on the enhanced tax credit, one health policy research firm found. But Republicans point out they come with a price: The Congressional Budget Office estimates they would cost the government $350 billion over the next decade.

The bill, which is now law, will cut Medicaid spending by $793 billion, the CBO estimated, and lead to 7.8 million Americans losing their insurance.

On the government shutdown, Richard Balogun, a member of Sunday’s First AME congregation, thinks fighting for healthcare is a worthwhile cause.

“Isn’t it amazing that in England, Australia … you can have national healthcare? Maybe you don’t get treated within the first hour, but you get treated,” he said. In America, “you have to ask yourself sometimes, if I’m going to the emergency room, can I afford that thousands of dollars I’m going to have to pay? That should not be the case in this country.”

A government shutdown has consequences: 2.3 million civilian federal employees are going without pay — roughly 750,000 of whom are furloughed. When the employees are back-paid after the government reopens, that’ll correspond to roughly $400 million of taxpayer money spent every day of the shutdown to pay employees who were not working, the CBO estimates.

Beyond National Park closures and air travel delays, food programs for low-income families could run dry without a funding bill. The Women, Infants and Children Program (WIC) can see effects as soon as one week after a shutdown, the CEO of the National WIC Assn. said. Meanwhile, SNAP (formerly known as food stamps) could also run out of funding further down the line.

Republicans blame Democrats for shutting down the government over their healthcare concerns, but Jeffries pinned it on Republicans, who’ve refused to negotiate.

To Scott, the pink her congregation was wearing to support breast cancer survivors only emphasized the importance of access to healthcare. (Jeffries sported a pink tie.)

“More people need to know what’s going on, so just having him go from church to church, mostly in the Black neighborhoods — that’s where we have the most people: in our churches,” Scott said. “Some may hear the word, see something on fake news, but we know in the church you’re going to hear truth.”

As Californians start voting on Democrats’ effort to boost their ranks in Congress, former President Barack Obama warned that democracy is in peril as he urged voters to support Proposition 50 in a television ad that started airing Tuesday.

“California, the whole nation is counting on you,” Obama says in the 30-second ad, which the main pro-Proposition 50 campaign began broadcasting Tuesday across the state. The spot is part of a multimillion-dollar ad buy promoting the congressional redistricting ballot measure through the Nov. 4 election.

Proposition 50 was spearheaded by Gov. Gavin Newsom and other California Democratic leaders this summer after President Trump urged GOP-led states, notably Texas, to redraw their congressional districts to boost the number of Republicans elected to the House in next year’s midterm election, in an effort to continue enacting his agenda during his final years in office.

“Republicans want to steal enough seats in Congress to rig the next election and wield unchecked power for two more years,” Obama says in the ad, which includes footage of ICE raids. “With Prop. 50, you can stop Republicans in their tracks. Prop. 50 puts our elections back on a level playing field, preserves independent redistricting over the long term, and lets the people decide. Return your ballot today.”

Congressional districts were long drawn in smoke-filled chambers by partisans focused on protecting their parties’ power and incumbents. But good-government groups and elected officials, notably former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, have fought to take the drawing of congressional boundaries out of the hands of politicians to end gerrymandering and create more competitive districts.

Obama, long a supporter of ending gerrymandering, had already endorsed the ballot measure.

In California, these districts have been drawn by an independent commission created by voters in 2010, which is why state Democrats have to go to the ballot box to seek a mid-decade partisan redistricting that could improve their party’s chances in five of the state’s 52 congressional districts.

The ad featuring Obama, who spoke Monday on comedian Marc Maron’s final podcast about Trump’s policies testing the nation’s values, appears on Californians’ televisions after mail ballots were sent to the state’s 23 million registered voters last week.

The proposition’s prospects are uncertain — it’s about an obscure topic that few Californians know about, and off-year elections traditionally have low voter turnout. Still, more than $150 million has been contributed to the three main committees supporting and opposing the proposition, in addition to millions more funding other efforts.

Obama is not the only famous person to appear in ads about Proposition 50.

In September, former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who championed the creation of the independent redistricting commission while in office and has campaigned for similar reforms across the nation since then, was featured in ads opposing the November ballot measure.

He described Proposition 50 as favoring entrenched politicians instead of voters.

“That’s what they want to do, is take us backwards. This is why it is important for you to vote no on Proposition 50,” the Hollywood celebrity and former governor says in the ad, which was filmed last month when he spoke to USC students. “The Constitution does not start with ‘We, the politicians.’ It starts with ‘We, the people.’ … Democracy — we’ve got to protect it, and we’ve got to go and fight for it.”

California Secretary of State Shirley Weber on Monday pushed back against a torrent of misinformation on social media sites claiming that mail-in ballots for the state’s Nov. 4 special election are purposefully designed to disclose how people voted.

Weber, the state’s top elections official, refuted claims by some Republicans and far-right partisans that holes on ballot envelopes allow election officials to see how Californians voted on Proposition 50, the ballot measure about redistricting that will be decided in a special election in a little over three weeks.

“The small holes on ballot envelopes are an accessibility feature to allow sight-impaired voters to orient themselves to where they are required to sign the envelope,” Weber said in a statement released Monday.

Weber said voters can insert ballots in return envelopes in a manner that doesn’t reveal how they voted, or could cast ballots at early voting stations that will open soon or in person on Nov. 4.

Weber’s decision to “set the record straight” was prompted by conspiracy theories exploding online alleging that mail ballots received by 23 million Californians in recent days are purposefully designed to reveal the votes of people who opposed the measure.

“If California voters vote ‘NO’ on Gavin Newscum’s redistricting plan, it will show their answer through a hole in the envelope,” Libs of TikTok posted on the social media platform X on Sunday, in a post that has 4.8 million views. “All Democrats do is cheat.”

GOP Texas Sen. Ted Cruz earlier retweeted a similar post that has been viewed more than 840,000 times, and Republican California gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton, a conservative commentator, called for the November special election to be suspended because of the alleged ballot irregularities.

The allegation about the ballots, which has been raised by Republicans during prior California elections, stems from the holes in mail ballot envelopes that were created to help visually impaired voters and allow election workers to make sure ballots have been removed from envelopes.

The special election was called for by Gov. Gavin Newsom and other Democrats in an effort to counter President Trump urging GOP-led states, notably Texas, to redraw their congressional districts before next year’s midterm election to boost GOP ranks in the House and buttress his ability to enact his agenda during his final two years in office.

California Democrats responded by proposing a rare mid-decade redrawing of California’s 52 congressional boundaries to increase Democratic representation in Congress. Congressional districts are typically drawn once a decade by an independent state commission created by voters in 2010.

Nearly 600,000 Californians have already returned mail ballots as of Monday evening, according to a ballot tracker created by Political Data, a voter data firm that is led by Democratic strategist Paul Mitchell, who drew the proposed congressional boundaries on the November ballot.

Republican leaders in California who oppose the ballot measure have expressed concern about the ballot conspiracy theories, fearing the claims may suppress Republicans and others from voting against Proposition 50.

“Please don’t panic people about something that is easily addressed by turning their ballot around,” Roxanne Hoge, the chair of the Los Angeles County Republican Party, posted on X. “We need every no vote and we need them now.”

Jessica Millan Patterson, the former chair of the state GOP who is leading one of the two main committees opposing Proposition 50, compared not voting early to sitting on the sidelines of a football game until the third quarter.

“I understand why voters would be concerned when they see holes in their envelopes … because your vote is your business. It’s the bedrock of our system, being able to [vote by] secret ballot,” she said in an interview. “That being said, the worst thing that you could do if you are unhappy with the way things are here in California is not vote, and so I will continue to promote early voting and voting by mail. It’s always been a core principle for me.”

As California voters receive mail ballots for the November special election, which could upend the state’s congressional boundaries and determine control of the House, billionaire hedge-fund founder Tom Steyer said Thursday he will spend $12 million to back Democrats’ efforts to redraw districts to boost their party’s ranks in the legislative body.

The ballot measure was proposed by Gov. Gavin Newsom and other California Democrats after President Trump urged Texas leaders to redraw their congressional districts before next year’s midterm election. Buttressing GOP numbers in Congress could help Trump continue enacting his agenda during his final two years in office.

“We must stop Trump’s election-rigging power grab,” Steyer said in a statement. “The defining fight through Nov. 4 is passing Proposition 50. In order to compete and win, Democrats can’t keep playing by the same old rules. This is how we fight back, and stick it to Trump.”

Steyer’s announcement makes him the biggest funder of pro-Proposition 50 efforts, surpassing billionaire financier George Soros, who has contributed $10 million to the effort.

Steyer founded a hedge fund whose investments included massive fossil fuel projects, but after he learned of the environmental consequences of these financial decisions, he divested and has worked to fight climate change. Steyer has spent hundreds of millions of dollars supporting Democratic candidates and causes and more than $300 million on his unsuccessful 2020 presidential campaign.

Steyer plans to launch a scathing ad Thursday night that imagines Trump watching election returns on Nov. 4 and furiously throwing fast food at a television when he sees Proposition 50 succeeding.

“Why did you do this to Trump?” the president asks. The ad then shows a fictional TV anchor saying that the ballot measure’s success makes it more likely that Trump will be investigated for corruption and that the records of convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein will be released. “I hate California,” Trump responds.

The advertisement is scheduled to start airing Thursday night during “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” The late-night show was in the spotlight after it was briefly suspended by Walt Disney Co.-owned ABC last month under pressure from the Trump administration because of a comment Kimmel made about the slaying of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

The esoteric process of redistricting typically occurs once every decade after the U.S. Census to account for population shifts. The maps, historically drawn in smoke-filled backrooms, protected incumbents and created bizarrely shaped districts, such as the “ribbon of shame” along the California coast.

In recent decades, good-government advocates have fought to create districts that are logical and geographically compact and do not disenfranchise minority voters. At the forefront of the effort, California voters passed a 2010 ballot measure to create an independent commission to draw the state’s congressional boundaries.

But this year, Trump and his allies urged leaders of GOP-led states to redraw their congressional districts to boost Republicans’ prospects in next year’s midterm election. The House is closely divided, and retaining Republican control is crucial to Trump’s ability to enact his agenda.

California Democrats, led by Newson, responded in kind. The state Legislature voted in August to call a special election in November to decide on redrawn districts that could give their party five more seats in the state’s 52-member congressional delegation, the largest in the nation.

Supporters of Proposition 50 have vastly outraised the committees opposing the measure. Steyer’s announcement came one day after Charles Munger Jr., the largest donor to the opposition, spoke out publicly for the first time about why he had contributed $32 million to the effort.

“I’m fighting for the ordinary voter to have an effective say in their own government,” Munger told reporters. “I don’t want Californians ignored by the national government because all the districts are fortresses for one party or the other.”

A longtime opponent of gerrymandering, the bow-tie-wearing Palo Alto physicist bankrolled the 2010 ballot measure that created the independent commission to draw California’s congressional districts.

Munger, the son of a billionaire who was the right-hand man of investor Warren Buffett, declined to comment about whether he planned to give additional funds.

“I neither confirm nor deny rumors that involve the tactics of the campaign,” Munger told reporters. “Talk to me after the election is over.”

Proposition 50 would shift the state’s congressional district lines to favor Democrats. It is Gov, Gavin Newsom’s response to a similar effort in Texas designed to put more Republicans in Congress. The new district lines would override those created by the state’s nonpartisan, independent redistricting commission.

Supporters include Democratic politicians and party organizations and labor unions. Newsom has said that this is a needed step to counter President Trump and to protect Californians. Republicans oppose the measure, arguing that partisan maps would take the state backward.

Overall fundraising

The Times is tracking contributions to one committee supporting Proposition 50 and two committees opposing the measure. Many committees have contributed to these main committees.

How money has flowed in over time

Since the proposal was announced in August, donations supporting the measure have poured in.

Biggest supporters

The Times is tracking contributions to the main fundraising committee supporting Proposition 50, which is controlled by Newsom. George Soros’ Fund for Policy Reform is the top donor with $10 million. House Majority PAC, the second-largest donor, aims to elect Democrats to the U.S. House of Representatives. Labor unions are also major supporters.

The measure has received support from several business executive and philanthropist donors, including Michael Moritz, Gwendolyn Sontheim and Reed Hastings.

Almost 150,000 individuals gave $100 or more. More than $11 million, about 14% of the total raised, came from small-dollar contributors, or those who gave less than $100.

Biggest opposition

The Times is also tracking contributions to two main opposition committees. Most of the money to these groups has come from extremely large contributions from a handful of donors.

Charles Munger, Jr., son of the former Berkshire Hathaway vice chairman, contributed more than $32 million to the Hold Politicians Accountable PAC.

Small-dollar contributions have made up $7,500 of the total raised.

The Congressional Leadership Fund has given $5 million to the Stop Sacramento’s Power Grab committee.

Voting in California’s special election continues through election day, Nov. 4.

Proposition 50, a measure that would draw new congressional districts for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections and the only measure on California’s statewide ballot this election, is the latest volley in a national political brawl that could alter the outcome of the 2026 midterm elections and the balance of power in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Here is information Times reporters gathered about the redistricting measure:

What’s on the ballot

How and where to vote

More election news

In a darkened airport hotel ballroom room, a bevy of California Democrats sought to distinguish themselves from the crowded field running for governor in 2026.

It was not an easy task, given that the lineup of current and former elected officials sharing the stage at the Sunday morning forum agreed on almost all the issues, with any differences largely playing out in the margins.

They pledged to take on President Trump, make the state more affordable, safeguard immigrants and provide them with Medi-Cal healthcare benefits, and keep the state’s over-budget bullet train project intact.

There is not yet any clear front-runner in the race to run the nation’s most populous state, though former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter has had a small edge in recent polling.

Aside from a opaque dig from former state Controller Betty Yee, Porter was not attacked during the debate.

They were joined onstage by former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra, California Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. State Sen. Toni Atkins, who was supposed to participate, dropped out due to illness. Wealthy first-time political candidate Stephen J. Cloobeck withdrew due to a scheduling conflict.

The forum was sponsored by the National Union of Healthcare Workers, in partnership with the Los Angeles Times and Spectrum News. It was held in Los Angeles and moderated by Associated Press national planning editor Lisa Matthews, with L.A. Times California politics editor Phil Willon, Spectrum News 1 news anchor Amrit Singh and Politico senior political reporter Melanie Mason asking the questions.

Sen. Alex Padilla and businessman Rick Caruso have also both publicly flirted with a bid for the state’s top office, but have yet to make a decision.

Two major GOP candidates, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and conservative commentator Steve Hilton, are also running for California governor, but neither were invited to the debate because they did not complete an endorsement questionnaire from the union.

With Prop. 50 in the forefront, a lack of attention on the race

California’s June 2 gubernatorial primary is just eight months away, but the horde hoping to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom has been competing for attention against an extraordinarily crowded landscape, with an unexpected special election this November pulling both dollars and attention away from the race for governor. To say nothing of the fact that the race had been somewhat frozen in place for months until the end of July, when former Vice President Kamala Harris finally announced she would not be running.

The candidates reiterated their support for Proposition 50, the Newsom-led November ballot measure to help Democrats win control of the U.S. House of Representatives next year by redrawing California congressional districts. Newsom pushed for the measure to counter efforts by Republican-led states to reconfigure their congressional districts to ensure the GOP keeps control of Congress.

“This is not a fight we actually wanted to have,” Yee said. “This is in response to a clear attempt to mute our representation in Washington. And so we have to fight back.”

A focus on immigrant backgrounds, and appeals to Latino voters

The candidates repeatedly focused on their families’ origins as well as their efforts to protect immigrants while serving in elected office.

Thurmond raised his upbringing in his opening remarks.

“I know what it is to struggle. You know that my grandparents were immigrants who came here from Colombia, from Jamaica? You know that I am the descendant of slaves who settled in Detroit, Mich.?” he said.

Becerra highlighted his support for undocumented people to have access to state healthcare coverage as well as his successful lawsuit protecting undocumented immigrants brought to this nation as young children that reached the Supreme Court.

“As the son of immigrants, I know what happens when you feel like you’re excluded,” he said.

Becerra and Thurmond addressed the diverse audience in Spanish.

Yee, who spoke about sharing a room with her immigrant parents and siblings. also raised her background during a lightning-round question about what the candidates planned to dress up as on Halloween.

“My authentic self as a daughter of immigrants,” she said.

Differing opinions on criminal justice approaches and healthcare

The debate was overwhelmingly cordial. But there was some dissent when the topic turned to Proposition 36, a 2024 anti-crime ballot measure that imposed stricter penalties for repeat theft and crimes involving fentanyl.

The ballot measure — which undid key parts of the 2014 criminal justice reform ballot measure Proposition 47 — sowed division among California Democrats, with Newsom and groups including the ACLU strongly opposing it. Its passage marked a turning of the tide in Californians’ attitudes about criminal justice reform and response to crime, following years of support for progressive policies that leaned away from punitive prison sentences for lower-level crimes.

First, Villaraigosa contended that he was the only candidate on stage who had supported Proposition 36, though Porter and Becerra quickly jumped in to say that they too had supported it.

But Porter also contended that, despite her support, there were “very real problems with it and very real shortcomings.” The measure should have also focused on prevention and incarcerating people for drug offenses doesn’t make anyone safer, she said.

Thurmond strayed sharply from the pack on the issue, saying he voted “no” on Proposition 36 and citing his career as a social worker.

“Prop. 36, by design, was set up to say that if you have a substance abuse issue, that you will get treatment in jail,” Thurmond contended, suggesting that the amount of drugs present in the prison system would make that outcome difficult.

As governor, he would more money into treatment for substance abuse programs and diversion programs for those who commit minor crimes, he said.

When the candidates were asked to raise their hands if they supported a single-payer healthcare system, Porter and Villaraigosa did not, while Becerra, Yee and Thurmond did.

The need to build more housing

Issues of affordability are top of mind for most Californians, particularly when it comes to housing.

Thurmond said he would build two million housing units on surplus land on school sites around the state and provide a tax break for working and middle class Californians.

Villaraigosa also focused on the need to build more housing, criticizing bureaucratic red tape and slow permitting processes.

Villaraigosa also twice critiqued CEQA — notable because the landmark California Environmental Quality Act was once held seemingly above reproach by California Democrats. But the law’s flaws have become increasingly accepted in recent years as the state’s housing crisis worsened, with Newsom signing two bills to overhaul the the law and ease new construction earlier this year.

Porter said that if she were governor, she would sign SB 79, a landmark housing bill that overrides local zoning laws to expand high-density housing near transit hubs. The controversial bill — which would potentially remake single-family neighborhoods within a half-mile of transit stops — is awaiting Newsom’s signature or veto.

Supporters of the November ballot measure to reconfigure California’s congressional districts — an effort led by Gov. Gavin Newsom to help Democrats win control of the U.S. House of Representatives next year — have far out-raised the opposition campaigns, according to fundraising disclosures filed with the state.

The primary group backing Proposition 50 raked in $77.5 million and spent $28.1 million through Sept. 20, according to a campaign finance report that was filed with the secretary of state’s office on Thursday.

The committee has $54.4 million in the bank for the final weeks of the campaign, so Californian should expect a blizzard of television ads, mailers, phone calls and other efforts to sway voters before the Nov. 4 special election.

The two main groups opposing the ballot measure have raised $35.3 million, spent $27.4 million and have roughly $8.8 million in the bank combined, campaign finance reports show.

Despite having an overwhelming financial advantage, the campaign supporting Proposition 50 has tried to portray itself as the underdog in a fight to raise money against opposition campaigns with ties to President Trump and his supporters.

“MAGA donors keep pouring millions into the campaign to stop Prop. 50 in the hopes of pleasing their ‘Dear Leader,’” said Hannah Milgrom, a spokesperson for the Yes on 50, the Election Rigging Response Act campaign. “We will not take our foot off the gas — Prop. 50 is America’s best chance to stop this reckless and dangerous president, and we will keep doing everything we can to ensure every Californian knows the stakes and is ready to vote yes on 50 this Nov. 4th.”

A spokesperson for one of the anti-Proposition 50 campaigns, which was sending mailers to voters even before the Democratic-led California Legislature placed Proposition 50 on the November ballot, said their priority was to help Californians understand the inappropriateness of redrawing congressional boundaries that had been created by a voter-approved, state independent commission.

“We started communicating with voters early about the consequences of having politicians draw their own lines,” said Amy Thoma, a spokesperson for a coalition that opposes the ballot measure. “We are confident we’ll have the resources necessary to continue through election day.”

A spokesperson for the other main anti-Proposition 50 group agreed.

“When you’re selling a lemon, no amount of cash can change the taste. We’re confident in raising more than sufficient resources to expose Prop. 50 for the blatant political power grab that it is,” said Ellie Hockenbury, an advisor to the No on 50 – Stop Sacramento’s Power Grab campaign. Newsom “can’t change the fact that Prop. 50 is nothing more than a ploy for politicians to take the power of redistricting away from the voters and charge them for the privilege at a massive cost to taxpayers.”

The special election is expected to cost the state and the counties $282 million, according to the secretary of state’s office and the state department of finance.

If approved, Proposition 50 would have a major impact on California’s 2026 congressional elections, which will play a major role in determining whether Trump is able to continue enacting his agenda in the final two years of his tenure. The party that wins the White House frequently loses congressional seats two years later, and Republicans hold a razor-thin majority in the House.

After Trump urged GOP-led states, notably Texas, to redraw their congressional districts to increase the number of Republicans elected to Congress in next year’s midterm election, Newsom and other California Democrats responded by proposing a counter-effort to boost the ranks of their party in the legislative body.

California’s congressional districts are drawn once every decade after the U.S. Census by a voter-approved independent redistricting commission. So Democrats’ proposal to replace the districts with new boundaries proposed by state lawmakers must be approved by voters. The state Legislature voted in August to put the measure before voters in a special election on Nov. 4.

Polling about the proposition is not definitive. It’s an off-year election, which means turnout is likely to be low and the electorate is unpredictable. And relatively few Californians pay attention to redistricting, the esoteric process of redrawing congressional districts.

There are more than 30 campaign committees associated with Proposition 50 registered with the secretary of state’s office, but only three have raised large amounts of money.

Newsom’s pro-Proposition 50 effort has received several large donations since its launch, including $10 million from billionaire financier George Soros, $7.6 million from House Majority PAC (the Democrats’ congressional political arm) and $4.5 million from various Service Employees International Union groups. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and his wife have contributed $1 million to a separate committee supporting the proposition.

The opposition groups had few small-dollar donors and were largely funded by two sources — $30 million in loans from Charles Munger Jr., who for years has been a major Republican donor in California, and a $5-million donation from the Congressional Leadership Fund, the GOP political arm of House Republicans.

Two prominent Latino Democratic elected leaders are battling to become a new member of Congress. The race to represent a swath of Southern California that sweeps from southeastern Los Angeles cities to Long Beach will be among the state’s most contested intraparty battles, with the winner earning a perch that could become a springboard to higher office.

Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia and state Assemblymember Cristina Garcia are running to represent the new 42nd Congressional District, a Latino majority district that was created in December by the state’s redistricting commission as California loses a congressional seat for the first time in its history.

“It’s fair to say this is one of the more prominent Democrat-on-Democrat races” on the ballot, said Robb Korinke, a Democratic strategist who lives in Long Beach and is not aligned with either candidate. (Korinke was appointed by Robert Garcia to the city’s Technology and Innovation Commission in 2015.)

The new district combined pieces of the areas currently represented by Reps. Alan Lowenthal and Lucille Roybal-Allard to account for population loss in Los Angeles County without eliminating a district where Latinos could elect a candidate of their choice.

Roybal-Allard’s district, which included much of South Los Angeles, the Eastside and southeast L.A. County, was the most Latino in the nation. Lowenthal’s straddled Los Angeles and Orange counties. Both announced their retirements in December, creating a rare open seat to represent California in the U.S. House of Representatives. Robert Garcia and Cristina Garcia revealed their intentions to seek the seat soon after.

Cristina Garcia and Robert Garcia are both 44, the children of immigrants and the focus of national attention for their work. They are vying to be the most progressive in the heavily liberal district and will face off in a June 7 primary where the top two vote-getters, regardless of party, will advance to compete in the November general election. No prominent Republican is running in the race; the filing deadline is in March.

Robert Garcia’s home is in Long Beach’s Belmont Heights neighborhood, a collection of Craftsmans and beach cottages in walking distance of Colorado Lagoon and the restaurants and boutiques of the city’s 2nd Street entertainment district.

About 14 miles north, Cristina Garcia lives in Bell Gardens — not far from where she grew up — on a working-class block of modest houses with security bars on the windows and a backyard rooster that rousts the neighborhood.

The communities they live in reflect the district’s disparate constituents: Along the coast, affluent residents are focused on issues such as climate change and solar tax credits, while inland, lower-income workers worry that their children suffer higher asthma rates because of their proximity to pollution-spewing industries. Other parts of the district include Downey and Bellflower, the post-World War II tract homes of Lakewood, and Long Beach’s Art Deco airport, Cal State campus and port.

More than half of the new district’s residents are Latino citizens of voting age, but redistricting experts warn that turnout, particularly during nonpresidential elections, might disadvantage that electorate. Though Latinos live throughout the district, they are more concentrated in the southeastern Los Angeles cities.

“The core of the voting base is not in the area that is most heavily Latino and where Voting Act protections lie,” said Democratic strategist Paul Mitchell, referring to the landmark federal legislation that prohibits the disenfranchisement of minority communities.

Voters most likely to turn out are those who live in Long Beach, Lakewood and Signal Hill in the southern part of the district, which Mitchell and other strategists who are not aligned with any candidate in the race say benefits Robert Garcia.

The Peruvian-born, gay Latino mayor of Long Beach is widely considered the front-runner.

He has been endorsed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, Lowenthal and several unions. In the two weeks after he announced his campaign on Dec. 17, Garcia raised more than $323,000.

Additionally, at least two independent expenditure committees that can accept unlimited donations are supporting his bid — one funded by business and development interests and the other by LGBTQ activists and labor.

Garcia received national attention for his handling of the pandemic while grieving the loss of his parents to COVID-19. The New York Times called Long Beach “a Model for the Vaccine Rollout”; schools there reopened earlier than in much of California because the city, which has its own health department, prioritized vaccinating teachers early.

“I have proven that as mayor that I can lead a large complex organization and that it can be done in a way that has both common sense and is progressive,” said Garcia, who was among a handful of local officials given a prime-time speaking slot at the 2020 Democratic National Convention.

He has been accused of being too beholden to powerful donors and criticized for registering as a Republican in 2002 — less than a decade after Proposition 187, the GOP-backed ballot measure that sought to deny taxpayer-funded services to those in the country illegally.

He was a California youth coordinator for George W. Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign and founded the Long Beach Young Republicans in 2005. Garcia downplays his involvement in both, although media clips from the time quote him proudly playing a prominent role in the club. He also notes he was in high school during Proposition 187 and wasn’t involved in politics then.

Garcia said he followed his family’s lead in supporting the GOP because of their fondness for President Reagan, whose immigration policy provided the pathway for their citizenship.

He registered as a decline-to-state voter in 2007, two years before he won a City Council seat; and as a Democrat in 2010, four years before he successfully ran for mayor, according to the Los Angeles County voter registration database.

“People are allowed to grow and change,” and former Republicans shouldn’t be treated as “second-class Democrats,” Garcia said, pointing to his refusal to take corporate PAC money and support for single-payer healthcare. “What matters is your record.”

His rival, Cristina Garcia, says that his history concerns her.

“Everyone needs to run as a progressive these days. But is that what our record has shown?” she said. “How committed are you to all of this corridor, not just Long Beach?”

Garcia organized opposition to Proposition 187 while in high school. After college, she became a math teacher and moved away. Then her mother had a heart attack, prompting Garcia to return home.

She became involved in local politics, lost a City Council race in her hometown and became a vocal activist in the corruption scandal in neighboring Bell. That helped propel her to a 2012 victory in an Assembly race over a prominent fellow Democrat who vastly outspent her.

During her time in Sacramento, Garcia focused on environmental justice, notably the cleanup of the toxic lead-tainted soil near the shuttered Exide Technologies battery recycling plant in Vernon.

She was also dubbed the “tampon queen” or “period princess” — titles she embraced — because of her efforts such as making sure menstrual products are available for free at public schools in California.

The motivations that led her to run for the Legislature also made her decide to run for Congress, Garcia said.

“This region has been ignored for all my life. This is a front-line community,” she said, adding that elected officials give a lot of lip service to the concept of equity. “But how do we make sure we’re putting actions behind that?”

As the leader of the Assembly’s women’s caucus, Garcia was an outspoken advocate for victims when the #MeToo movement rocked the statehouse in 2017 and 2018. She was featured in a Time magazine photo collage of female leaders as part of its “Person of the Year” issue because of her work to hold lawmakers accountable for inappropriate sexual behavior.

Then she was accused of similar behavior. Two Assembly investigations found that, although she had violated the Assembly’s sexual harassment policy and was “overly familiar” with a staff member while intoxicated, her behavior was not sexual.

Garcia, while accepting blame for some allegations, noted that the more serious claims of groping were not substantiated.

In other controversies, she admitted to calling former Assembly Speaker John A. Perez a “homo,” though she said she didn’t mean it as a slur. (Perez has endorsed Robert Garcia.)

She was also accused by other Democrats of making a derogatory statement about Asian Americans during a debate about affirmative action. Cristina Garcia said her remark — reportedly, “This makes me feel like I want to punch the next Asian person I see in the face” — was taken out of context. She said she was trying to explain how the debate was creating unnecessary, “unhealthy” divisions among ethnic groups.

Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, whose Lakewood home is in the district, rebuked Garcia during her controversies. But he has endorsed her congressional run, as have Secretary of State Shirley Weber, Treasurer Fiona Ma, several state legislators and elected officials from southeast Los Angeles communities.

She did not begin fundraising until after the first of the year, so her campaign finances will not be known until spring.

“It’s not the first time I’ve been out-fundraised, and we have been successful,” she said, pointing to her 2012 Assembly race, in which she ran out of money two weeks before the election. Volunteers hand-delivered tens of thousands of fliers.

“We don’t need dollar for dollar,” she said. “We need enough dollars.”

Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who championed the creation of an independent commission to draw California’s congressional districts, returns to state voters’ TV sets on Tuesday in a new ad opposing a November ballot measure by state Democrats to boost their party’s ranks in Congress.

A committee opposing Proposition 50, which would replace districts drawn by an independent commission with ones crafted by partisans, plans to spend $1 million per day airing the ad statewide. Schwarzenegger describes the ballot measure as one that does not favor voters but is in the interest of entrenched politicians.

“That’s what they want to do is take us backwards. This is why it is important for you to vote no on Proposition 50,” the Hollywood celebrity and former governor says in the ad, which was filmed last week when he spoke to USC students. “The Constitution does not start with ‘We, the politicians.’ It starts with ‘We, the people.’ … Democracy — we’ve got to protect it, and we’ve got to go and fight for it.”

Redistricting is the redrawing of congressional boundaries that typically occurs once a decade following the U.S. census to account for population shifts. The process rarely attracts the attention it has this year because of a heated battle to determine control of a closely divided Congress in the final two years of President Trump’s tenure.

After Trump urged Texas and other GOP-led states to redraw their congressional districts earlier this year to boost the number of Republicans in the House, California Democrats, led by Gov. Gavin Newsom, countered by putting a rare mid-decade redistricting on a special-election November ballot that would likely boost the number of Democrats in the body.

Schwarzenegger, long a champion of political reform, is not part of any official Proposition 50 campaign. Since leaving office, he has prioritized good governance at his institute at USC and campaigned for independent redistricting across the nation.

His remarks were filmed, and the ad is being aired by the most well-funded effort opposing Proposition 50, which is bankrolled by Charles Munger Jr., a major GOP donor who underwrote the ballot measures that created California’s independent commission.

Munger has already donated $30 million to a campaign opposing the November ballot measure, according to fundraising disclosures filed with the secretary of state’s office. The other large opposition effort has raised more than $5 million. The main group supporting Proposition 50, led by Newsom, has raised more than $54 million.

These fundraising figures are based on required disclosures of large contributions. More complete fundraising numbers must be filed with the state on Thursday.

The multimillion-dollar jousting over redrawing California’s congressional districts to boost Democrats and counter President Trump was on full display in recent days, as both sides courted voters less than a month before ballots begin arriving in mailboxes.

Gov. Gavin Newsom, national Democratic leaders including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and a slew of political influencers held an hours-long virtual rally Tuesday afternoon, urging Californians to support Proposition 50 in the Nov. 4 special election. Speakers framed the stakes of the ballot measure as nothing short of existential — not just for Democratic interests, but also for democracy.

“It’s all at stake. This is a profound and consequential moment in American history. We can lose this republic if we do not assert ourselves and stand tall at this moment and stand guard to this republic and our democracy. I feel that in my bones,” Newsom said Tuesday afternoon.

If passed, Proposition 50 would gerrymander the state’s congressional districts to favor Democrats, bolstering the fates of several Democrats in vulnerable swing districts and potentially cost Republicans up to five House seats.

California’s congressional districts are drawn by a voter-approved independent commission once a decade after the U.S. census. But Newsom and other state Democrats proposed a rare mid-decade redrawing of the districts to increase the number of Democrats in Congress in response to similar efforts in GOP-led states, notably Texas.

Tuesday’s virtual rally, which was emceed by progressive influencer Brian Tyler Cohen, was a cross between an old-school money-raising telethon and new media streaming session. Popular podcasters and YouTubers such as Crooked Media’s Jon Favreau and Tommy Vietor (alumni of former President Obama’s administration), Ben Meiselas of MeidasTouch and David Pakman shared the screen with political leaders, with an on-screen fundraising thermometer inching higher throughout.

Cohen argued that people like him had been “begging” Democrats to fight Trump. And now elected officials had done their part by getting Proposition 50 on the ballot, he said, urging viewers to donate to support the effort.

Warren argued that Trump was a “would-be king” — but if Democrats could retake control of either house of Congress, that would be stopped, she posited.

“And if we have both houses under Democratic control,” Warren continued, “now we are truly back in the game in terms of making our Constitution work again.”

The exhaustive list of speakers represented the spectrum of the modern left, with standard-bearers such as Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, alongside rising stars including Reps. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) and Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.). A number of California delegates, including Sen. Alex Padilla and Reps. Ted. Lieu, Robert Garcia, Pete Aguilar, Jimmy Gomez and Sydney Kamlager-Dove, also spoke.

The event had been scheduled to take place Sept. 10 but was postponed after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk earlier that day.

Jessica Millan Patterson, the former leader of the California Republican Party and chair of an anti-Proposition 50 committee, accused Newsom of “scrambling for out-of-touch messengers to sell his scheme.”

“For Gavin Newsom, it’s all distraction and deflection. Instead of addressing the $283 million price tag taxpayers are stuck with for his partisan power grab, he’s hosting a cringeworthy webinar packed with DC politicians, out-of-state influencers, and irrelevant podcasters, all lining up to applaud his gerrymandered maps,” Millan Patterson said in a statement Tuesday.

Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who championed the creation of the independent redistricting commission while in office and has campaigned to stop gerrymandering across the nation after his term ended, forcefully denounced Proposition 50 on Monday.

“They are trying to fight for democracy by getting rid of the democratic principles of California,” Schwarzenegger told hundreds of students at an event celebrating democracy at the University of Southern California. “It is insane to let that happen.”

The former governor, a Trump foe who has prioritized good governance at his institute at USC, said the effort to dismantle the independent commission’s congressional districts to counter Trump are anti-democratic.

“They want to get rid of it under the auspices of we have to fight Trump,” Schwarzenegger said. “It doesn’t make any sense to me because we have to fight Trump, [yet] we become Trump.”

And on the morning of Sept. 10, opponents of the ballot measure rallied in Orange County, speaking about how redrawing congressional districts would dilute the voice of communities around the state.

“We’re here because Prop. 50 poses a serious threat to Orange County’s voice, to our communities and to our taxpayers. This measure is not about fairness. It’s about power grab,” said Orange County Supervisor Janet Nguyen during a rally at the Asian Garden Mall in Little Saigon, a Vietnamese hub in Westminster. “And it comes at the expense of our taxpayers, our small businesses and our minority communities.”

She noted that Little Saigon would be grouped with Norwalk in Los Angeles County if the ballot measure passes.

“Ask anybody in this area if they even know where Norwalk is,” Nguyen said.

We now have an estimated price tag for California’s special election and Gov. Gavin Newsom’s presidential rollout: $282.6 million.

The Nov. 4 vote involves Proposition 50, which would gerrymander the state to boost Democratic chances of winning as many as five added House seats in the 2026 midterm election. The intent is to partially compensate for Republican gerrymanders in Texas and other states.

The ballot measure has already done wonders to boost Newsom’s early standing in the 2028 presidential contest — emphasis on the word early. After alienating many in his party by playing footsie with the likes of Steve Bannon and the late Charlie Kirk, Newsom has set hearts aflutter among those yearning for Democrats to “fight back against Trump,” to cite what has become the party’s chief animating principle and cri de cœur.

One could ask whether the not-insignificant cost of the special election is the best use of taxpayer dollars, or if the sum would be better spent, as veteran GOP strategist Ken Khachigian suggested in a recent Wall Street Journal opinion piece, “on firefighters, police officers, schoolteachers and road repairs.”

Newsom, in full barricade-manning mode, has said protecting our precious democracy is “priceless.”

The chairman of California’s Democratic Party, Rusty Hicks, placed a more concrete price tag on the virtues of Proposition 50, suggesting to the Bay Area News Group that money spent on the special election would be offset — and then some — by the billions California would otherwise lose under President Trump’s hostile regime.

There is, however, an added, if intangible, cost to Proposition 50: Effectively disenfranchising millions of conservative and Republican-leaning Californians, who already feel as though they’re ignored and politically impotent.

Under the Democratic gerrymander, the already-meager Republican House contingent — nine of 52 California House members — could be cut practically in half. Starting in January 2027, the state’s entire Republican delegation could fit in a Jeep Wagoneer, with plenty of room to spare.

This in a state where Trump received over 6 million votes in 2024.

The cost of California’s special election is estimated at $282.6 million. The campaign is effectively a roll out for a Newsom presidential bid.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

The would-be autocrat issuing diktats from the Oval Office may be odious to many. But making people feel as though their vote is irrelevant, their voice is muzzled and they have no stake in our political system because elections are essentially meaningless — at least as far as which party prevails — is not a recipe for a contented and engaged citizenry, or a healthy democracy.

We already have a chief executive who has repeatedly demonstrated that he sees himself as the president of red America, of those who support him unequivocally, with everyone else regarded as evil or subversive. We’ve seen how well that’s worked out.

Is the solution electing a governor for blue California, who — if not openly scorning the state’s millions of Republicans — is willing to render them politically powerless?

Proponents of Proposition 50 say the measure is needed to offset Republican gerrymanders in Texas and other states.

(Hon Wing Chiu/For The Times)

All seven of the major Democrats running to succeed Newsom support Proposition 50. (The two leading Republican — and underdog — candidates, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and conservative commentator Steve Hilton, are opposed, which is no surprise.)

Your friendly columnist put the question to those seven Democrats. What do they say to Republican voters who already feel disregarded and politically unrepresented? As governor, is there a place for them in your vision of California?

Most, as you’d expect, vowed to be a governor for all: Red, blue, independent, libertarian, vegetarian.

Former Rep. Katie Porter noted she served a purple Orange County district and won support from voters of all stripes “because they knew I wouldn’t hesitate to stand up for anyone — no matter to what party they belong — who makes life harder for California families.” She said in a text message she’d bring “that same tenacity, grit and courage” to Sacramento.

Toni Atkins, a former Assembly speaker and state Senate leader, texted that she’s “made it a priority to listen to every Californian — Democrat, Republican, and Independent.” Assailing Republicans in Congress, she described Proposition 50 as “a way to fight back now” while eventually reverting to the independent redistricting commission that drew up the current congressional lines.

Xavier Becerra, the state’s former attorney general and a member of Joe Biden’s cabinet, said he would work to see that all Californians, regardless of party, benefit from his leadership on healthcare, housing and making the state more affordable. Doing that, he texted, requires fighting Trump and “Republican extremists” seeking to rig the midterm elections.

Betty Yee, the former state controller, just finished a campaign swing through rural California, where, she said, voters asked similar questions along the lines of what about us? Those vast reaches beyond the state’s blue coastal enclaves have long been a hotbed of resentment toward California’s ruling Democratic establishment.

Yee said she urged voters there to “look at your representation now.” The Republican-run Congress, she noted, has approved budget cuts that threaten to shut down rural hospitals and gut badly needed social safety-net programs. “How is that representing your interest?” she asked.

Tony Thurmond, the state schools superintendent, said much the same.

“One of the reasons that I support this measure is because California Republicans in Congress who voted for the ‘big, beautiful bill’ voted for a bill that they knew was going to throw millions of people off of health insurance,” Thurmond said. “And that’s troubling, and I actually think that this is a way to counter that action and to make changes in Congress.”

Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and businessman Stephen Cloobeck ignored the question about Republican sentiments and assailed Trump.

Villaraigosa called Proposition 50 “a temporary … direct response to MAGA’s election rigging efforts in Texas.” Cloobeck texted, “This is not the way it should be, but democracy and California are under attack, and there is no way in hell I’m not going to FIGHT.”

There’s a certain presumption and paternalism to the notion that California Democrats know what’s best for California Republicans.

But as Thurmond noted, “They have a right to vote it down. We’re putting it in front of the voters and giving them a chance to exercise their viewpoints, democratically.”

Every Californian who casts a ballot can decide what best suits them.

As they should.

Generally speaking, it’s a grand time to be a Republican in the nation’s capital.

President Trump is redecorating the White House in his gold-plated image. The GOP controls both houses of Congress. Two-thirds of the Supreme Court was appointed by Republican presidents.

In California, the outlook for the GOP is far bleaker. The party hasn’t elected a statewide candidate in almost two decades; Democrats hold a nearly 2-to-1 voter registration edge and have supermajorities in both houses of the Legislature.

That’s long been the story for a state party stuck in the shadows in a deep-blue coastal state.

Will O’Neill, chairman, Republican Party of Orange County, Mark Mueser, Dhillon Law Group, Shawn Steel, RNC National Committeeman, Garrett Fahy, chair, Republican National Lawyers Association, and California State Assembly member David Tangipa during the Redistricting Lawfare in 2025 session at the California GOP Convention in Garden Grove, CA on Saturday, September 6, 2025.

(Eric Thayer / For The Times)

However, amid a sea of “Trump 2028” T-shirts, red MAGA hats and sequined Americana-themed accessories, California Republicans had a brief reprieve from minority status this weekend at their fall convention in Orange County.

Members of the California GOP — often a fractious horde — were energized and united by their opposition to Proposition 50, the ballot measure crafted by Gov. Gavin Newsom and other Democratic leaders to redraw the state’s congressional districts to counter gerrymandering efforts in GOP-led states. Newsom accused Republicans of trying to “rig” the 2026 election at Trump’s behest to keep control of Congress.

Voters will decide its fate in a Nov. 4 special election and receive mail ballots roughly four weeks prior.

“Only one thing really matters. We’ve gotten people in the same room on this issue that hated each other for 20 years, probably for good reasons, based on ego,” said Shawn Steel, one of California’s three members of the Republican National Committee and the chairman of the party’s anti-Proposition 50 campaign, on Saturday. “But those days are over, at least for the next 58 days. … This is more than just unity. It’s survival.”

If approved, Proposition 50 could cost Republicans five seats in the closely divided U.S. House of Representatives and determine control of Congress during Trump’s final two years in office.

More than $40 million has already poured into campaigns supporting and opposing the effort, according to reports of large donations filed with the secretary of state’s office through Saturday.

Spending has been evident as glossy pamphlets opposing the effort landed in voters’ mailboxes even before lawmakers voted to put Proposition 50 on the ballot. This weekend, ads supporting the measure aired during the football game between the University of Michigan and the University of Oklahoma.

At the state GOP convention, which drew 1,143 registered delegates, alternates and guests to the Hyatt Regency in Garden Grove, this priority was evident.

Republican candidates running for governor next year would normally be focused on building support among donors and activists less than a year before the primary. But they foregrounded their opposition to Proposition 50 during the convention.

“I’m supposed to say every time I start talking, the No. 1 most important thing that we can talk about right now is ‘No on 50,’” Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, a GOP gubernatorial candidate, said Saturday as he addressed the Log Cabin Republicans meeting. “So every conversation that you have with people has to begin with ‘No on 50.’ So you say, ‘No on 50. Oh, how are you doing?’”

Bianco and conservative commentator Steve Hilton are the two most prominent Republican candidates in the crowded race to succeed Newsom, who will be termed out in 2026.

The walls of the convention hotel were lined with posters opposing the redistricting ballot measure, alongside typical campaign fliers, rhinestone MAGA broaches and pro-Trump merchandise such as T-shirts bearing his visage that read “Daddy’s Back!” and calling for his election to an unconstitutional third term in 2028.

Though California Republicans last elected statewide candidates in 2006, they have had greater success on ballot measures. Since 2010, the party has been victorious in more than 60% of the propositions it took a position on, according to data compiled by the state GOP.

“We need you to be involved. This is a dire situation,” state Assemblyman David Tangipa (R-Fresno) told a packed ballroom of party activists.

The California GOP Convention in Garden Grove, CA on Saturday, September 6, 2025. (Eric Thayer / For The Times)

Attendees of the Redistricting Lawfare in 2025 session at the California GOP Convention in Garden Grove. (Eric Thayer / For The Times)

Tangipa urged the crowd to reach out to their friends and neighbors with a simple message that is not centered on redistricting, the esoteric process of redrawing congressional districts that typically occurs once every decade following the U.S. census to account for population shifts.

“It’s too hard to talk about redistricting. You know, most people want to get a beer, hang out with their family, go to work, spend time,” he said. “You need to talk to the Republicans [and ask] one question: Does Gov. Newsom and the legislative body in Sacramento deserve more power?”

“No!” the crowd roared.

Should the measure pass, lawyers would challenge the new lines in federal court the next day, attorney and former GOP candidate Mark Meuser said during a separate redistricting panel.

But rather than rely on the courts, panelists hoped to defeat the measure at the ballot box, outlining various messaging strategies for attendees to adopt. Voter outreach trainings took place during the convention, and similar virtual classes were scheduled to begin Monday.

Even with the heavy focus on the redistricting ballot measure, gubernatorial candidates were also skittering around the convention, speaking to various caucuses, greeting delegates in the hallways and holding private meetings.

More than 80 people have signaled their intent to run for governor next year, according to the secretary of state’s office, though some have since dropped out.

Despite being rivals who both hope to win one of the top two spots in the June primary and move on to the November 2026 general election, Bianco and Hilton amicably chatted, a two-man show throughout some of the convention.

Hilton, after posing alongside Bianco at the California MAGA gathering on Friday, argued that the number of Californians who supported Trump in the 2024 election shows that there is a pathway for a Republican to be elected governor next year.

Pointing to glittery gold block letters that spelled MAGA, he said he wanted to swap the first A for a U, so that the acronym stood for “the most useless governor in America, Gavin Newsom.”

“The worst record of any state, the highest unemployment, the highest poverty, the highest taxes, the highest gas prices,” Hilton said. “If we can’t rip these people apart, then we don’t deserve to be here. They’re going to be asking for another four years. They don’t deserve another four minutes.”

California gubernatorial candidate Riverside Sheriff Chad Bianco speaks at the California GOP Convention in Garden Grove.

(Eric Thayer / For The Times)

At a Saturday gathering of roughly 60 delegates from the conservative northern swath of California, Bianco said he would never say a bad word about his Republican opponents. But, he argued, he was the only candidate who could win the election because of his ability to siphon off Democratic votes because of his law enforcement bona fides.

“Democrats want their kids safe. They want their businesses safe. They want their neighborhoods safe. And they can say, ‘I’ll vote for public safety.’ They’re not even going to say I’m voting for a Republican,” Bianco promised.

As he raised his hands to the crowd with a grin, Bianco’s closely cropped high-and-tight haircut and handlebar mustache instantly telegraphed his law enforcement background, even though his badge and holstered pistol were hidden beneath a gray blazer.

Later, after Bianco addressed a crowd of Central Coast delegates sporting more cowboy hats and fewer button-down shirts, Hilton walked to the front of the room and spoke in his clipped British accent about how another attendee had promised to take him pig hunting.

California gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton speaks at the California GOP Convention in Garden Grove.

(Eric Thayer / For The Times)

“We weren’t talking about police officers, I want to make that clear!” a man yelled from the crowd.

“Exactly,” Hilton continued, explaining how his family had a salami business in Hungary and he had gotten his hands plenty dirty in the past, “doing every aspect of making sausage, including killing the pigs.”

It’s been more than 60 years since Utah backed a Democrat for president. The state’s last Democratic U.S. senator left office nearly half a century ago and the last Utah Democrat to serve in the House lost his seat in 2020.

But, improbably enough, Utah has suddenly emerged as a rare Democratic bright spot in the red-vs.-blue redistricting wars.

Late last month, a judge tossed out the state’s slanted congressional lines and ordered Utah’s GOP-run Legislature to draw a new political map, ruling that lawmakers improperly thumbed their noses and overrode voters who created an independent redistricting commission to end gerrymandering.

It’s a welcome pushback against the growing pattern of lawmakers arrogantly ignoring voters and pursuing their preferred agenda. You don’t have to be a partisan to think that elections should matter and when voters express their will it should be honored.

Otherwise, what’s the point of holding elections?

Anyhow, redistricting. Did you ever dream you’d spend this much time thinking about the subject? Typically, it’s an arcane and extremely nerdy process that occurs once a decade, after the census, and mainly draws attention from a small priesthood of line-drawing experts and political obsessives.

Suddenly, everyone is fixated on congressional boundaries, for which we can thank our voraciously self-absorbed president.

Trump started the whole sorry gerrymandering business — voters and democracy be damned — by browbeating Texas into redrawing its congressional map to try to nab Republicans as many as five additional House seats in 2026. The paranoid president is looking to bolster his party ahead of a tough midterm election, when Democrats need to gain just three seats to win a House majority and attain some measure of control over Trump’s rogue regime.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom responded to Texas with a proposed Democratic gerrymander and perhaps you’re thinking, well, what about his attempted power grab? While your friendly columnist has deplored efforts to end-run the state’s voter-established redistricting commission, at least the matter is going on the ballot in a Nov. 4 special election, allowing the people to decide.

Meantime, the political race to the bottom continues.

Lawmakers in Republican-run Florida, Indiana, Missouri and Ohio may tear up their congressional maps in favor of partisan gerrymanders, and Democrats in Illinois and New York are being urged to do the same.

When all is said and done, 10 or so additional seats could be locked up by one party or the other, even before a single ballot is cast; this when the competitive congressional map nationwide has already shrunk to a postage stamp-sized historic low.

If you think that sort of pre-baked election and voter obsolescence is a good thing, you might consider switching your registration to Russia or China.

Utah, at least, offers a small ray of positivity.

In 2018, voters there narrowly approved Proposition 4, taking the map-drawing process away from self-interested lawmakers and creating an independent commission to handle redistricting. In 2021, the Republican-run Legislature chose to ignore voters, gutting the commission and passing a congressional map that allowed the GOP to easily win all four of Utah’s House seats.

The trick was slicing and dicing Democratic-leaning Salt Lake County, the state’s most populous and densely packed, and scattering its voters among four predominantly Republican districts.

“There’s always going to be someone who disagrees,” Carson Jorgensen, the chairman of the Utah Republican Party, said airily as lawmakers prepared to give voters their middle finger.

In July 2024, Utah’s five Supreme Court justices — all Republican appointees — found that the Legislature’s repeal and replacement of Proposition 4 was unconstitutional. The ruling kicked the case over to Salt Lake County District Judge Dianna Gibson, who on Aug. 25 rejected the partisan maps drawn by GOP lawmakers.

Cue the predictable outrage.

“Monday’s Court Order in Utah is absolutely Unconstitutional,” Trump bleated on social media. “How did such a wonderful Republican State like Utah, which I won in every Election, end up with so many Radical Left Judges?”

In Gibson’s case, the answer is her appointment by Gov. Gary R. Herbert, a Republican who would be considered a radical leftist in the same way a hot fudge sundae could be described as diet food.

Others offered the usual condemnation of “judicial activism,” which is political-speak for whenever a court decision doesn’t go your way.

“It’s a terrible day … for the rule of law,” lamented Utah’s Republican Sen. Mike Lee, who is apparently concerned with legal proprieties only insofar as they serve his party’s president and the GOP, having schemed with Trump allies in their failed attempt to overturn the 2020 election.

In a ruling last week rejecting lawmakers’ request to pause her decision, Gibson wrote that “Utah has an opportunity to be different.”

“While other states are currently redrawing their congressional maps to intentionally render some citizen votes meaningless, Utah could redesign its congressional plan with the intention to protect its citizens’ right to vote and to ensure that each citizen’s vote is meaningful.”

That’s true. Utah can not only be different from other states, as Gibson suggested.

It can be better.

For Patricia Sinay, one of the highlights of her life was serving on the California Citizens Redistricting Commission, which spent well over a year painstakingly plotting out the state’s political boundaries.

“I got to witness democracy at its core,” said Sinay, 58, who lives in Encinitas and works as a consultant in the world of nonprofits.

“There were 14 very diverse people who came at this work from different backgrounds,” she said. “Some may have known more than others about redistricting. But by the end we were all experts and focused on the same thing, which was creating fair maps for the people of California.”

Now, a good deal of that work may come undone, as voters are being asked to scrap the even-handed congressional lines drawn by Sinay and her fellow commissioners in favor of a blatantly gerrymandered map that could all but wipe out California’s Republican representation in Congress.

Sinay, a Democrat, is ambivalent.

She understands the impetus behind the move, a tit-for-tat response to a similar Republican gerrymander in Texas, done at President Trump’s behest to shore up the GOP’s chances ahead of a perilous 2026 midterm election.

“I think what President Trump requested is absolutely abhorrent. I think that Texas doing this is absolutely abhorrent,” Sinay said. “I do not support the actions of the current administration. I think that their actions are absolutely dangerous and scary.”

But, she said, “I don’t think this is the best way to stop what the administration is doing.”

Sinay noted Republicans have more gerrymandering opportunities nationwide than Democrats, should political adversaries go that route, and she questioned the cost of California’s Nov. 4 special election, which could run into hundreds of millions of dollars.

“There are too many people right now that are hurting that could use that money in much better ways,” Sinay said.

Other commissioners disagree.

Sara Sadhwani, 45, a Democrat who teaches political science at Pomona College, spoke at Gov. Gavin Newsom’s rally kicking off the gerrymandering effort and testified before the state Senate, urging lawmakers to put the matter before voters so they can give Democrats a lift.

“These are extraordinary times,” Sadhwani said, “and extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures.”

Trena Turner, a pastor in Stockton and fellow commissioner, said she’s tremendously proud of the commission’s work and believes its impartial approach to political line-drawing is a model the rest of America should embrace.

But, she said, “I don’t think we should be playing by individual rules, different rules from state to state,” given what’s taken place in Texas and the threat of GOP gerrymandering in other places, such as Florida.

“The voices that we need to speak up for now are not just our individual congressional districts,” said the 64-year-old Democrat. “We need to speak up for the voices of our nation, for the soul of our nation.”

Neal Fornaciari, a Republican who chairs the redistricting commission, said individual members are speaking strictly for themselves. (Though its map-making function was completed at the end of 2021, the commission remains in existence.)

Commissioners “are exercising their 1st Amendment right to free speech,” said Fornaciari, 63, a retired mechanical engineer who lives in Shingletown, in the far north of California. But, he emphasized, “The commission is in no way involved in this redistricting effort.”

He even declined to state his personal views on the Democratic gerrymander, lest someone mistakenly assume Fornaciari was speaking on the commission’s behalf.

The body was created in 2008 when California voters approved Proposition 11, also known as the Voters First Act. Spearheaded by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the measure sought to bring balance to legislative races by taking redistricting away from lawmakers, who tended to draw the state’s political lines to suit their interests and minimize competition.

In 2010, voters extended the commission’s oversight to congressional races.

Consisting of 14 members, the panel is divided among five Democrats, five Republicans and four members with no party affiliation. More than 30,000 Californians applied for the positions.

The 14 who landed the job survived a grueling selection process, overseen by the nonpartisan state auditor, which involved detailed questionnaires, multiple essays and face-to-face interviews. The final lineup included a seminary professor, a structural engineer and an investigator for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Over the course of 16 months — and through days sometimes lasting 12 hours or more — commissioners produced 176 maps. They created district boundaries for 52 members of Congress, 120 state lawmakers and four members of the Board of Equalization, which oversees tax collection in California.

Commissioners worked for free, receiving no salary, though they did get a $378 per diem on days they spent in session.

It’s a point of pride that no one sued to overturn the commission’s work, a rarity in the highly litigious field of redistricting.

“Most of the time if you watched our meetings I doubt if you could have correctly guessed all our political affiliations,” Russell Yee, a Republican commissioner, said in an email. “We approved our final maps unanimously. We proved that citizens can rise above political, racial, regional, and generational differences to do the public’s work together in an open and successful manner.”

(All commission meetings were open to the public, with proceedings livestreamed on the internet.)

Yee, 64, the academic director at a small Christian study center in Berkeley, said he was generally opposed to the Democratic gerrymandering effort “because two wrongs don’t make a right. The ends do not justify the means.”

However, while Yee leans against Proposition 50, as the November ballot measure has been designated, he will “keep listening with an open mind.”

Even if voters crumple up and toss the congressional maps Yee and others drafted, none felt as though their labors were wasted. For one thing, they said, the other political boundaries, for state legislative contests and the Board of Equalization, will remain intact. And the congressional lines yielded a set of highly competitive races in 2020 and 2024.

“We’ve shown twice now that independent, citizen redistricting can work well even in a state as populous, demographically diverse, and geographically complex at California,” Yee said.

For her part, Sinay, the nonprofit consultant, is uncertain about Proposition 50.

One thing she wants, Sinay said, is reassurance “this isn’t a permanent power grab” and that congressional redistricting will, in fact, revert to the commission after the next census, as Newsom and gerrymandering proponents have promised. Sidelining self-interested politicians is definitely a better way to draw political maps, she suggested, but ultimately it’s up to voters to decide.

“I will definitely support whatever the people of California want,” Sinay said.

SACRAMENTO — This just seems wrong: Californians overwhelmingly approved an anti-crime ballot measure in November. But our governor strongly opposed the proposition. So he’s not funding it.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic legislative leaders, however, are now under pressure to fund the measure in a new state budget that’s being negotiated and must pass the Legislature by June 15.

A core principle of democracy is the rule of law. A governor may dislike a law, but normally is duty- bound to help implement and enforce it. Heaven save us if governors start traipsing the twisted path of President Trump.

But this isn’t the first time for Newsom. Voters twice — in 2012 and 2016 — rejected ballot measures to eliminate the death penalty. Moreover, in 2016 they voted to expedite executions. But shortly after becoming governor in 2019, Newsom ignored the voters and declared a moratorium on capital punishment.

Nothing on California’s ballot last year got more votes than Proposition 36, which increases punishment for repeated theft and hard drug offenses and requires treatment for repetitive criminal addicts.

It passed with 68.4% of the vote, carrying all 58 counties — 55 of them by landslide margins, including all counties in the liberal San Francisco Bay Area.

“To call it a mandate is an understatement,” says Greg Totten, chief executive officer of the California District Attorneys Assn., which sponsored the initiative. Big retailers bankrolled it.

“It isn’t a red or blue issue,” adds Totten, referring to providing enough money to fund the promised drug and mental health treatment. “It’s what’s compassionate and what’s right and what the public expects us to do.”

Rolled back Proposition 47

Proposition 36 partly rolled back the sentence-softening Proposition 47 that voters passed 10 years earlier and was loudly promoted by then-Lt. Gov. Newsom.

Proposition 47 reduced certain property and hard drug crimes from felonies to misdemeanors and arrests plummeted, the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California found.

Proposition 36 was inspired by escalating retail theft, including smash-and-grab burglaries, that were virtually unpunished. Increased peddling of deadly fentanyl also stirred the public.

The ballot measure imposed tougher penalties for dealing and possessing fentanyl, treating it like other hard drugs, such as heroin and cocaine. But the proposition offered a carrot to addicted serial criminals: Many could be offered treatment rather than jail time.

Newsom adamantly opposed Proposition 36.

“We don’t need to go back to the broken policies of the last century,” the governor declared. “Mass incarceration has been proven ineffective and is not the answer.”

Newsom tried to sabotage Proposition 36 by crafting an alternative ballot measure. Top legislative leaders went along. But rank-and-file Democratic lawmakers rebelled and Newsom abandoned the effort.

The Legislature ultimately passed 13 anti-theft bills that Newsom and Democrats hoped would satisfy voters, but didn’t come close. Totten called the legislative product “half measures.”

Proposition 36 was flawed in one regard: It lacked a funding mechanism. That was part of the backers’ political strategy. To specify a revenue source — a tax increase, the raid of an existing program — would have created a fat target for opponents.

Let the governor and the Legislature decide how to fund it, sponsors decided.

“We didn’t want to tie the hands of the Legislature,” Totten says. “The Legislature doesn’t like that.”

Anti-crime measure won’t work without funding

Without funding from Sacramento, Proposition 36 won’t work, says Graham Knaus, chief executive officer of the California State Assn. of Counties.

“We believe strongly that if it’s not properly funded, it’s going to fail,” Knaus says. “Proposition 36 requires increased capacity for mental health and substance abuse treatment. And until that’s in place, there’s not really a way to make the sentencing work.”

There’s a fear among Proposition 36 supporters that if treatment isn’t offered to qualifying addicts, courts won’t allow jail sentencing.

“That will probably get litigated,” Totten says.

“Counties can’t implement 36 for free,” Knaus says. “Voters declared this to be a top-level priority. It’s on the state to determine how to fund it. Counties have a very limited ability to raise revenue.”

The district attorney and county organizations peg the annual cost of implementing the measure at $250 million. State Senate Republicans are shooting for the moon: $400 million. The nonpartisan legislative analyst originally figured that the cost ranged “from several tens of millions of dollars to the low hundreds of millions of dollars each year.”

Newson recently sent the Legislature a revised $322-billion state budget proposal for the fiscal year starting July 1. There wasn’t a dime specifically for Proposition 36.

The governor, in fact, got a bit surly when asked about it by a reporter.

“There were a lot of supervisors in the counties that promoted it,” the governor asserted. “So this is their opportunity to step up. Fund it.”

One supervisor I spoke with — a Democrat — opposed Proposition 36, but is irked that Newsom isn’t helping to implement it.

“It’s disappointing and immensely frustrating,” says Bruce Gibson, a longtime San Luis Obispo County supervisor. “Voters have spoken and we need to work together with the state in partnership.”

In fairness, the governor and the Legislature are faced with the daunting task of patching a projected $12-billion hole in the budget, plus preparing for the unpredictable fiscal whims of a president who keeps threatening to withhold federal funds from California because he doesn’t like our policies.

“I am quite concerned about adequately providing the necessary funding to implement Proposition 36,” says state Sen. Tom Umberg of Santa Ana, a strong Democratic supporter of the measure.

He’s fearful that the Legislature will approve only a token amount of funding — and the governor will veto even that.

Under California’s progressive system of direct democracy, voters are allowed to bypass Sacramento and enact a state law themselves. Assuming the statue is constitutional, the state then has a duty to implement it. To ignore the voters is a slap in the face of democracy.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Villaraigosa, despite climate credentials, pivots toward oil industry in run for governor
The what happened: Trump threatens to strip federal funds to California over transgender youth athletes
The L.A. Times Special: Killing wolves remains a crime in California. But a rebellion is brewing

Until next week,
George Skelton

—
Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up here to get it in your inbox.