SACRAMENTO — California became center stage for the national political fight over House seats Friday when Gov. Gavin Newsom welcomed Democratic lawmakers from Texas who fled their home state to foil President Trump’s plans to redraw congressional districts.
California lawmakers plan to respond with their own plan to gerrymander districts to favor Democrats and neutralize any Republican seats gained in Texas in 2026, with a proposed map expected to become public next week, Newsom said at a news conference after meeting with the lawmakers.
“Make no mistake, California is moving forward,” the governor said. “We are talking about emergency measures to respond to what’s happening in Texas, and we will nullify what happens in Texas.”
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He noted that while Democrats still support the state’s independent redistricting commission, they must counter Trump’s plan in GOP-led states to give their party a better chance in next year’s midterm election.
“They drew first blood,” he later added of Republicans.
Asked about the gathering, a Trump administration spokesperson said Newsom was seeking the limelight to further his political ambitions.
“Gavin Newsom is a loser of the highest order and he will never be president, no matter how hard he prostitutes himself to the press,” said the spokesperson, Steven Cheung.
Friday marked the second time in two weeks that Texas Democrats have stood next to Newsom at the California governor’s mansion and warned that Republican efforts to draw a new map in their state would dilute the power of Black and brown voters.
The Texas Democrats hoped that their departure would leave the state Legislature with too few members present to change the map in a special session. They face $500 fines for each day of absence, as well as threats of arrest and removal from office by Gov. Greg Abbott and other Texas GOP officials. Some of the Democratic lawmakers were evacuated from a Chicago hotel where they were staying after a bomb threat Wednesday.
“We are now facing threats — the threat that we’re going to lose our jobs, the threat of financial ruin, the threat that we will be hunted down as our colleagues sit on their hands and remain silent, as we all get personal threats to our lives,” said Texas state Rep. Ann Johnson, one of six Texas Democrats at the news conference, who was among those evacuated from the Chicago hotel. “We as Democrats are standing up to ensure that the voices of every voter is lifted up in this next election, and that the next election is not stolen from them.”
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco); Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San José), chair of the California Democratic congressional delegation; California Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg); state Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Hollister) and other elected officials joined the meeting in a show of unity as California Democrats attempt to convince their own state’s voters to fight back.
Pelosi noted that the state’s congressional delegation is united in backing the redistricting proposal to counter Trump.
“The president has paved over the Rose Garden. He’s paved over freedom of speech. He’s paved over freedom of education, [an] independent judiciary, the rule of law,” Pelosi said. “He’s gone too far. We will not let him pave over free and fair elections in our country, starting with what he’s trying to do in Texas.”
She countered an argument some have made — that two wrongs don’t make a right.
“This is self-defense for our democracy,” she said.
The California plan calls for the state Legislature to approve a constitutional amendment establishing new congressional voting districts crafted to make GOP members vulnerable.
Passage of the bill would result in a special election on Nov. 4, with California voters deciding whether the state should temporarily pause the congressional boundaries created by an independent redistricting commission in 2021 and adopt new maps for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections.
If approved by voters, the measure would include a “trigger” specifying that it would take effect only if Texas or other Republican-led states follow through with redrawing their maps to boost GOP seats before the midterm election. California would revert to its existing redistricting law after the next census and before the 2032 election.
At least so far, California voters appear uncertain about whether they want to swap Newsom’s plan for the independent redistricting system they previously adopted at the ballot box.
An Emerson College poll found support for redrawing California’s congressional map at 33% and opposition at 25%. The survey of 1,000 registered voters, conducted Aug. 4 and 5, found that 42% were undecided.
Newsom has expressed confidence that California voters will back his plan, which he is casting as a rebuttal to Trump’s efforts to “rig” the midterm elections.
“I’m confident we’ll get it when people know what it is and what it’s not, and I think, at the end of the day, they understand what’s at stake,” Newsom said Thursday.
Newsom argues that California’s process is more transparent than Trump’s because voters here will see the map and decide whether the state should go forward with it.
To fulfill Trump’s request for five additional seats, Abbott is attempting to redraw House districts in Texas through a state legislative process that does not require voter approval. It’s unclear what will happen in Austin, with Democrats determined to block the effort and the governor and other Texas Republicans insisting they will keep pressing it.
The current special session ends Aug. 19. But in an interview with NBC News on Thursday evening, Abbott vowed “to call special session after special session after special session with the same agenda items on there.”
In addition to arrest on civil warrants, the Democrats are facing threats of being removed from office. Direct-deposit payments to the legislators have been curtailed, forcing them to pick up their checks in person at the state capitol in Austin or go without the money.
The redistricting fight has strengthened Newsom’s national platform as a potential 2028 presidential contender and bolstered his reputation as a Democrat willing to take the fight to Trump and his allies.
Since Trump took office in January, Newsom had been walking a fine line between calling out the president and working with him in hopes of being able to join together to rebuild from the California wildfires.
But Newsom took a hard line after Trump deployed the National Guard during federal immigration raids in Los Angeles in June, prompting the governor and his administration to much more aggressively resist the president’s agenda.
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