By The Signal Editorial Board
“Democracy is on the ballot Nov. 4.”
It sure is. But when that statement comes from proponents of Proposition 50, it drips with hypocrisy.
Remember that those advocating in favor of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s partisan gerrymandering scheme are the same ilk who removed President Joe Biden from his re-election campaign last year and installed Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party nominee, with nary a primary vote. That’s democracy?
And they’re the same ilk that worked devilishly hard to remove the Republican nominee, now-President Donald Trump, from ballots in multiple states as they tried to avoid facing him fair and square in the election that he ultimately won.
Democracy, indeed.
As the argument goes from Democratic leaders including Newsom and former President Barack Obama — who, arguably, served as the shadow, un-elected president during the enfeebled term of Biden — Proposition 50 is necessary to counter Republican gerrymandering in places like Texas, where Trump and the GOP hope to gain enough seats to preserve their thin majority in Congress during next year’s midterm elections.
It’s the old, “They hit us first,” argument. Like in preschool.
What the proponents of Proposition 50 don’t point out, though, is that Democrats have been gerrymandering congressional districts in multiple states for many years. To be fair, so have Republicans.
By way of example, in Maryland, Democrats won about 62% of the vote in 2024 — but hold 88% of the state’s eight congressional seats. That is, all but one.
In Illinois, Democrats won about 55% of the 2024 vote but hold 14 out of 17 congressional seats — about 82%.
And, just to be fair, we’ll cite an example of a state where Republicans have done the creative carving: In North Carolina, the GOP holds about 70% of congressional seats but in 2024 pulled about 50% of the vote.
All of this is to say, Newsom and Co. are merely using the Texas controversy as an excuse for a nakedly partisan power grab. Texas is not the first state where gerrymandering has reared its ugly head, nor is gerrymandering a uniquely Republican technique.
There are those who argue — with a good degree of merit — that Democrats have actually perfected it to a higher level.
Here in California, even with the independent Citizens Redistricting Commission, which was created in 2008, Republicans hold just nine of the state’s 52 congressional seats — that’s about 17%. In the 2024 election, about 39% of the state’s votes went Republican.
One could argue that, even with the independent commission, California is already gerrymandered.
Still, Prop. 50 would essentially toss aside the “gold standard” for nonpartisan creation of congressional districts.
“Voter approval of an independent commission effectively ended the backroom partisan gerrymandering that characterized redistricting in California for decades,” Jeanne Raya, the commission’s first chair after it was created, wrote in a recent commentary for CalMatters. “Commission members spent nearly a year drawing new maps, giving citizens access to more than 100 public meetings and different ways to submit written comments. Voters could describe their communities, their environment, their infrastructure and their economy. This gave the commission a picture of the whole of California and helped it create districts that gave voters a fair chance at electing accountable representatives.”
Prop. 50 would throw all of that away — the transparency, the public input, the accountability. All of it.
Those who favor Prop. 50, with their Trump Derangement Syndrome on full display, argue that it’s necessary to “punch back” at Trump by rigging the 2026 election to steal five more California seats away from the GOP. Prop. 50 would do away with the districts drawn after the last census by the independent commission, and replace them with new districts drawn in secret by Democratic politicians who, of course, stand much to gain personally if the new lines gain voter approval.
Drawing district lines in secret to “protect democracy.” Oh, the irony. Add this to the growing list of un-democratic things the so-called Democrat Party has attempted in recent years.
Here locally, Prop. 50 would come home to roost in a most disturbing way: Instead of one congressional representative, we would have three, with the SCV’s influence thus diluted.
The Santa Clarita Valley, currently represented in District 27 by Rep. George Whitesides, D-Agua Dulce, would be split asunder into three different districts, placing parts of the SCV in districts with territories that have very little in common with our community. The eastern portions of the 27th District that include Acton and Agua Dulce would be placed in the 30th District, which has a larger Democratic voter registration edge than the SCV; and some western pockets of the SCV, including Castaic, would be added to Conejo Valley communities in the 26th District.
Lastly, let’s not forget that the proponents of Prop. 50 are arguing that it’s only temporary — the Citizens Redistricting Commission supposedly would take over again in 2030, after the next census.
Really? After the California Democrat supermajority gets used to being the super-duper-majority, they’ll relinquish control of the district lines to the independent commission again?
Do you buy that? If you do, we have a bridge over the ocean in Palmdale we’d like to sell you. Smart money would be that this would become the latest in a long line of “temporary” political moves to become permanent. All the Democrats would have to do in 2030 is find another bogeyman to blame for perpetuating the gerrymandering.
“Democracy is on the ballot.”
Indeed. And you can protect it by voting “No” on Proposition 50.
