Gov. Gavin Newsom stood alongside six Democrats from the Texas Legislature on Friday and joined them in accusing President Trump and Republicans of trying to “rig” elections to hold onto congressional seats next year.
“They play by a different set of rules and we could sit back and act as if we have some moral authority and watch this 249-, 250-year-old experiment be washed away,” Newsom said of the nation’s history. “We are not going to allow that to happen.”
The Texas lawmakers and the governor spoke with reporters after meeting privately at the Governor’s Mansion in Sacramento to discuss a national political fight over electoral maps that could alter the outcome of the midterm elections and balance of power in Congress.
At the urging of President Trump, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott called his state Legislature into a special session this week that includes a call to redistrict the Lone Star State to help Republicans pick up seats in Congress.
The move is part of a gerrymandering effort pushed by Trump to prevent the GOP from losing control of the House of Representatives next year. If Democrats take the House, they could derail the president’s agenda, which has so far included a crackdown on undocumented immigrants, tariffs on imports, rescinding efforts to combat climate change and undercutting state protections for the LGTBQ+ community, among other policy priorities.
Newsom has threatened to mirror Trump’s tactics and said he’s in talks with leaders of the California Legislature to redraw the state’s congressional districts to favor electing more Democrats and fewer Republicans.
Texas Democrats, who said they traveled to California to meet with the governor and explain the state of play in Texas, pledged do everything in their power to push back against Trump’s plan.
“We’re going to use every tool at our disposal in the state of Texas to confront this very illegal redistricting process that is going to be done on the backs of historic African American and Latino districts,” said Texas state Rep. Rafael Anchía.
Another group of Texas lawmakers are expected to meet with Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker in Chicago.
Changing the maps to benefit Democrats is a massive departure from California’s work over the last decade to remove political partisanship from the redistricting process.
California voters in 2010 gave an independent Citizens Redistricting Commission the power to determine the boundaries of voting districts for the U.S. House of Representatives instead of leaving that authority with the state Legislature.
To redistrict before the midterms, the most legally sound option is for state lawmakers to send a constitutional amendment to voters that seeks to allow changes to the voter map outside the boundaries of California’s independent redistricting process. The vote would need to happen in a special election before the June primary.
Newsom has said he’s also exploring a potential legal loophole that could allow the California Legislature to redraw the congressional maps themselves with a two-thirds vote.
The governor’s office said state law charges the redistricting commission with crafting new maps after a census, which is conducted about every 10 years. But they say the law is silent on everything that happens in between that time period.
Newsom’s lawyers believe it could be possible for the Legislature to redistrict congressional seats mid-decade on its own without going to the ballot.
The governor’s call to fight Trump using his own gerrymandering tactics has drawn a mixed response.
Newsom argues that Democrats will continue to lose if they remain the only party that plays by the rules. But others worry about the integrity of electoral outcomes across the nation if political parties in every state resort to naked political gamesmanship to gain control.
Texas Republicans have long been accused of crafting political maps to dilute the power of Black and Latino voters, which led to an ongoing lawsuit from 2021. Newsom’s effort in California would effectively seek to increase the share of Democrats in Republican-held districts.
Redistricting experts in California say redrawing the maps in the Golden State could create the potential for Democrats to flip at least five of the seats held by GOP incumbents.
Democrats may have the potential for greater gains from gerrymandering, particularly in places such as California that have attempted to practice nonpartisan redistricting, compared to states such as Texas, where maps are already drawn in favor of Republicans.
“It should be no surprise to anybody who covers Texas that every decade since 1970 Texas has been found to discriminate against people of color in its redistricting process,” Anchía said.
“In trying to do this, it is going to create great harm, not only to the people we represent, to the voters of the state of Texas, but also potentially to all Americans,” he said about Trump’s plan.
It’s common for the party in control of the White House to lose seats nationally in the first election after a presidential contest. Republicans hold majorities in the Senate and the House, and losing power to Democrats could be detrimental to Trump’s presidency.
Trump’s job approval rating dropped to a second-term low of 37% in a Gallup poll conducted earlier this month. The dip is just above his lowest approval rating ever of 34% at the end of his first term.
Trump has said publicly that he thinks it’s possible for Republicans to redistrict and pick up five seats in Texas, with the potential for gains in other states that redraw their maps.
