Gavin Newsom’s gerrymandering scheme is a shameless power-grab at the expense of Californians

California Gov. Gavin Newsom pretends his blatant gerrymandering scheme is a battle for democracy, but he’s spitting on the will of Golden State voters — merely to boost his bid to become Democrats’ 2028 nominee.

Falling in line with Newsom’s demand to gerrymander Cali’s House districts in retaliation for Texas’ own redistricting, state lawmakers unveiled a redrawn map designed to move Democrats from 43 to 48 seats out of 52 total.

Problem No. 1: With 2008 and 2010 ballot initiatives, voters wrote state law to cut the politicians out of redistricting, putting it in the hands of a citizen-led independent commission.

So what Dems are actually rushing through is a new ballot proposal to rewrite the law through 2030 (giving legislators the right to redraw again, any time another state does) which voters would have to OK in a special election set for this Nov. 4.

Problem No. 2: All new bills are supposed to face a 30-day “cooling off” period for review before lawmakers vote, but Dems are trying to rush this through in under a week so they can meet to meet the deadline for the November ballot.

Republicans are suing to stop that violation of the state Constitution; if the state’s judges (chosen overwhelmingly by Democrats) let that go ahead, the voters may still reject the idea.

Polling even early this month showed they wanted to stick with the independent commission by better than 2:1.

Cue the burning of millions on nonstop TV ads trying to sell voters on this greasy power-grab.

(By the way: Behind-the-scenes Dem maneuvering has left Cali’s current “nonpartisan” map pretty skewed: As Rich Lowry has pointed out, Republicans won nearly 40% of the statewide House vote in 2024, yet got only about 17% of the seats.

The GOP redistricting in Texas will only match that slant.)

So the big winners here are Newsom’s bid to cement his image as a no-holds-barred opponent of the GOP, plus the consultants who’ll rake in big bucks to sell the public on something it hates.

Meanwhile, Californians are fleeing the state in record numbers because Democratic rule has made it unaffordable.

As a result, the state’s on track to lose four House seats after the 2030 Census: The redistricting drive sure calls to mind “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.”

It’s not even a serious fix for national Democrats’ woes: The party lost more than 2 million registered voters to the GOP just from Election Day 2020 to Election Day 2024, and another 200,000 in the nine months since.

Newsom may be winning the love of Democrats’ base, but he’s leading the party to waste its time and money on gimmickry that has no hope of reversing its decline.