After President Donald Trump reached out to several GOP governors to urge them to gerrymander their maps for the 2026 election cycle, it started a chain reaction of responses from Democrats.
One of the strongest reactions to the move was from California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who introduced Proposition 50 as a ballot measure designed to redistrict his state and reclaim the five House seats Texas was set to gain via its new maps.
Now Attorney General Pam Bondi is claiming that obstruction took place during the California balloting process, alleging that key information was hidden that was relevant to the fight against Prop 50.
Several months agoTrump reportedly reached out to several GOP governors to get them to gerrymander their maps.
This was more or less unprecedented because districting maps are customarily drawn every 10 years after census reports are issued for each state.
While several states agreed to redraw their maps per Trump’s request, most of the processes would impact only one or two seats, but Texas was willing to erase five seats in traditionally blue districts.
Newsom then responded by saying he would redraw the maps in his state to regain those five seats, but he was going to do so via a ballot measure (this was all for appearances' sake to make it look like it was the suggestion of voters rather than outright gerrymandering, in my opinion).
In August, Newsom introduced Proposition 50, formally called the Election Rigging Response Act.
Newsom, at the time, stated, “Californians have been uniquely targeted by the Trump Administration, and thanks to the hard work of the California legislature, they will have a choice to fight back -- and bring much needed accountability to Trump’s efforts to undermine the democratic process.”
Initially, this received a lukewarm response, but Newsom wound up pouring a reported $171 million into promoting the legislation.
When the measure was put on the ballot in November, it easily passed, giving Newsom the green light to redraw his maps to counter the move by Texas, which had also been given the green light by the Supreme Court to enact its new boundaries.
This week, the Department of Justice accused Democrats of withholding key redistricting documents during the litigation discovery process pertaining to the measure, dumping several gigabytes of files on the government at the last second to overwhelm its attorneys in the final hours leading up to the hearings intended to fight against Proposition 50.
According to the DOJ, the documents that were turned over revealed that the maps were racially influenced, specifically bolstering voting opportunities for Latino residents.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is now arguing that it did not have control over the materials controlled by the consultant it hired for the project, Paul Mitchell. The DOJ countered that the DCCC had contractual rights to all materials. That being the case, it had the obligation to secure and hand over that data during the discovery phase.
The DOJ is hoping that it can disqualify the maps through a determination that they have a “racially driven design,” which the courts have ruled against in the past. The DCCC responded that the DOJ was trying to "slam square pegs into round holes to build up their paper-thin case.” If the DOJ is successful, it would surely help the GOP in an election cycle that has been historically horrific for the party in charge.
