Governor reveals election rigging response act to counter Trump’s push to gain five extra seats in Texas midterms
Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, said on Thursday state Democratic lawmakers would move forward with a redistricting plan to counter the Republican-led map-drawing effort in Texas aimed at securing a House majority after the midterm elections.
Newsom, joined by congressional Democrats and legislative leaders, unveiled a plan, known as the election rigging response act, that would override California’s independent redistricting commission and draw new congressional lines – a direct counter to a Texas effort, sought by Donald Trump, to push through mid-cycle maps that could hand Republicans five extra US House seats. The governor vowed the move would “neuter and neutralize” Texas’s proposal.
“Today is liberation day in the state of California,” Newsom declared at a rally in Los Angeles, in which he formally called for a 4 November special election to approve a new congressional map. “We can’t stand back and watch this democracy disappear district by district all across the country.”
Muh Jefferson!
Newsom, joined by congressional Democrats and legislative leaders, unveiled a plan, known as the election rigging response act, that would override California’s independent redistricting commission and draw new congressional lines
I don’t fault what they’re doing here; war is war. But just look at how easily the democratic process can be stripped away. Just a flick of the pen and it’s gone. No real safeguards. Not a single shot fired.
It’s important to realize you can’t really safe guard against authoritarianism once they already control the government
Agreed. We failed loooong ago. Now we are just along for the ride.
This plan will still require an approval from voters.
Conservatives never gave a damn about genuine fairness, it is time to stop playing ball with the fuckers.
…I don’t like this game, but we don’t seem to have any GOOD choices, just less awful ones.
There was an ICE raid right outside the building he was in today as a total intimidation tactic. ICE only got one person for so many suited up chuds. Fuck this shit
I thought it was border patrol, not ICE. Are they the same thing?
They’re both part of DHS
If they act without due process, there is no point in making a distinction.
I’m not sure the masked thugs even know the difference.
Ah i also don’t know how those differ
“We can’t stand back and watch this democracy disappear district by district all across the country.”
Yep, step the fuck up everyone.
Obviously what Texas is doing is reprehensible but in a winner take all election system where Texas always goes republican and California always goes dem, does this actually makw a difference?
Winner takes all only applies to presidential elections. In this case, they are redistricting for more congressional seats.
Yes because likely CAs redistricting plans to make more blue and less red…therefore offsetting the 5 seats Trump is asking Texas to find (which will be more red and less blue)
And thats assuming Republicans do redistricting math right. At the current outrage levels tightening margins is a big gamble. They could be turning it into a landslide… Assuming elections are fair.
It would be kind of crazy to see the Republican response if they lost like 30 seats or something, I am sure they would try to somehow invalidate the whole thing.
If that happens it would be a good time for democrats to approve legislation mandating non-partisan redistricting at the federal level.
…Assuming elections are fair.
That’s exactly what they’re trying to prevent.
Can the US just break up already
The Republic of California has a nice ring to it.
Needs something more to distinguish it from the California of old, how about the New California Republic, or NCR for short?
This is still a form of gerrymandering, right? I hope this does not kick off a wave of disenfranchisement across other red states.
We really need to get the US territories statehood/representation too. And DC.
Hopefully the results is that everyone is concerned about gerrymandering instead of just Democrats and something can be done about it at the federal level.
Somehow I doubt the trumpers are worried. They just want to win. If anything can guarantee their state goes for Trump they’ll take it.
I’m not American, but from my limited experience, my QAnon relatives (who are immigrants themselves in another western country!) were ok with martial law and taking away women’s rights as the price to pay to get out of the “dictatorship” they imagined with “forced vaccination” and “LGBT indoctrination” and immigrant “invasion”. They also have no problem with taking away LGBT rights because “they have too many now, look at Hollywood”. They constantly bring up about how Jews run the world and how bad Israel is, but they have no problem with Trump being their lapdog and enabling their worst atrocities and fantasizing about building a riviera in Gaza. When all the Palestinians there will have perished (something I dread is likely to happen), they’ll probably credit Trump with ending the genocide. And don’t get me started on Epstein, which was their whole reason for joining QAnon. Back in February they were excitedly telling me, unprompted, how Pam Bondi says the files are on her desk. They haven’t said anything since. Wanna bet they’ll get defensive if I ask them about it now?
My point is these people don’t care about democracy or human rights, they just scream about them when they experience disconfort, but really all they want is a godking who punishes “the right people” and reminds them every 10 seconds how special they are and how they deserve freedom and sovereignty not like the bad people who they are always persecuted by.
what do you mean, “kick off”?
Kicking off, say, five other states redrawing maps to cancel out California and to head off other blue states trying the same.
That sort of frantic escalation wouldn’t be good.
from what I’ve gathered (although it’s been hard for me to find the exact info I’m looking for) most of the states with nonpartisan or bipartisan redistricting commissions seem to be democratic states by a significant margin.
safe to assume the ones that have partisan commissions are already gerrymandered to hell and back. and there’s little to gain from doing it more; there will be diminishing returns.
i think an all out war would mostly benefit the dems but again i don’t have very concrete data so I’ll qualify these statements to be based on gut and not much more.
That’s my gut feeling as well. Gerrymandering is a Republican tradition and they’ve been doing it in red states for decades now. Hard to believe there’s much more to squeeze from it. Blue states however…
We tried playing fair, that got us Trump twice
I understand. I just fear out of control escalation like bickering characters in a cartoon.
It’s already out of control. This is self defense.
We already lost the rule of law to a dictator. We didn’t fire the first shot of this civil war, but we can’t ignore it.
I would hardly call it a civil war. It’s a civil struggle for sure, but I don’t think the majority of Americans have their heart in it, and nor should they. They’re being ruled by a minority.
For my part, I don’t consider MAGATs to be Americans anymore. It is a fundamental reason why I am learning how to use a gun, because I assume that the America we knew is no longer a thing. Concentration camps are not a sign of peace and civility.
I’m right there with you. These people have shown they simply don’t understand what it means to be an American. They’ve betrayed every value.
When Jan 6th happened it should’ve been the final wake-up call. Every Republican should be filled with the deepest shame and regret.
There are masked men with guns in unmarked cars disappearing people without any law binding them. What would you call that?
I understand, but, if playing the game by the rules doesn’t result in victory…
Gotta beat 'em at their own game. Good thing they’re parotting senile child rapists and are incredibly predictable. Clever is not in their playbook.
Hunh. Kinda like the Confederacy. 🤷🏼♂️
Do they need clever when they just barrel through every obstacle without even stumbling?
They stumble, it is just that the good guys offered a hand. Up to now, I and many other Americans thought the MAGATs were part of our society. With each abuse that the MAGA perpetuates, that belief crumbles ever faster. If this keeps up, normies will end up socking the bastards.
Just a note that none of this impacts presidential elections.
But if Texas does their thing, this would be a necessary response for the house
True… but if Trump had to contend with Democrat majorities in the house and Senate then he would have an incentive not to do illegal shit because he could be removed from office.
For house, sure, Senate not so much.
He might have faced legislative resistance to his initiatives, but removal from office would never have been on the table.
If you want to win you have to play the game.
(Or cheat, a win is a win)
Hmm, the UK went for Labour, but their go*ernment banned independent social media and blacklisted protesters anyway. So is the Democratic Party going to save our souls?
The United staaaaahahahahahahahahahahaaa of ahahahahahahaha MURIKA!
The Disjointed States of Shitcanistan
Republicans are geographically dispersed while Democrats are generally packed into urban areas. We lose 100% of the time if we try the same gerrymandering tactics. We need to be smarter, not play their games.
If you think I’m wrong, show me a single state we could flip from red to blue by gerrymandering. You need to show your work though. You can’t just say X state, you have to show HOW you could flip the state by gerrymandering.
You will have more democrat representatives in congress…
You could make the maps do anything. You could make every district in the state pass through one city.
is there anything preventing the usual cracking/packing tactics from being used? Create enormous completely red districts consisting of large swaths of rural areas, and then split the urban areas amongst their surrounding rural areas just enough to have a relatively safe win. Yes, the districts would be ugly as hell (and vary hugely in size), but assuming we’re okay with gerrymandering that was probably to be expected already
No. The strategy can work perfectly fine both ways.
The entire point of gerrymandering is to make the geography irrelevant.
If you have a large, reliably blue city where 80 percent vote Democrat you can split that into districts that go 60 percent Democrat so that Democrats win more seats but by smaller margins…
If you wanted to gerrymander in favor of Republicans, you would fracture the city even more so that you disperse those Democrat voters over more districts.
that’s what I thought
Shouldn’t they have saved the shot for another state, since Texas (AFAIK) stopped the attempt?
I mean, I am all for fighting. But Democrats have very little ammo.
Honestly it seems more like a attention grab for Newsom so he can run for president. I don’t want Newsom as the next candidate…
Yay! Race to the bottom! Zero-sum game! Are we winning yet?
Get off your high horse. What else do you want the opposition to do? Republicans are actively rigging the system in their favor and you want Democrats to take the high road again? Trump’s administration is an existential crisis to our democracy and at this point it’s obvious he’s working on consolidating even more power to further his evil agenda. If Democrats just keep wagging their finger while pretending everything’s fine then we’ll end up losing any leverage outside of violence.
I’m not arguing against it or against it being done. But I am going to laugh at “when they go low, we go high” mentality.
I mean I’ve watched as most of my life nobody hesitates to call Texas Secession discussions treasonous and mock it. But suddenly this year there’s lots of talk of California Secession without the same mockery.
I’m not saying don’t do it. But it’s all fucking hypocritical and we as a people are fucked.
We’re not talking about secession here. We’re talking about Republicans forcing minority rule in the House through untimely redistricting within the system. If Democrats take the high road and do nothing to counter it we are fucked. If Democrats break the same rules we may also be fucked down the line, but at least we’re fighting to not lose out to total domination of a fascist agenda. Democracy is definitely taking a hit because of both parties but at least for now we’ll have a somewhat more balanced and proportional rule in Congress.
In short, one side is doing it for an unfair advantage while the other is doing it for the survival of this country.
We as a people are fucked no doubt about it. Until Citizens United is overturned and news media is forced to follow a fairness doctrine again, half the people in this country will remain brainwashed and actively seek to fuck everything up for the rest of us.
Well, let’s be clear — one side is doing it under the guise of saving the country.
I’m not inclined to believe Gavin Newsom is the one to lead us out of authoritarianism.
