California lawmakers advance first two bills in Democrats' redistricting plan

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -The California Senate on Thursday approved a redrawn political map aimed at giving Democrats five more seats in the U.S. Congress, countering the partisan advantage President Donald Trump hopes to gain from a Republican redistricting plan in Texas.

California Democrats, led by Governor Gavin Newsom, are pushing for fast-track passage of their redistricting plan, a package of three bills, through the Sacramento statehouse by Friday, just in time to place their proposed new map on the ballot for a special election on November 4.

Newsom, who enjoys a Democratic super-majority in both houses of the state legislature, ultimately seeks voter support for his plan. If it succeeds, it would neutralize a Trump-backed Texas bill designed to flip five Democratic seats to Republican control in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Republicans, including Trump, have openly acknowledged that the Texas effort is about boosting their political clout by helping to preserve the party's slim House majority in the November 2026 midterm races. That election already is shaping up as closely fought.

Democrats have characterized their bid to depart from California's usual independent, bipartisan redistricting process - adopted by voters in 2008 - as a temporary "emergency" strategy to combat what they see as extreme Republican moves to unfairly rig the system.

"The decks are stacked against us, so what we need to do is fight back," California Senator Lena Gonzalez, a joint author of the redistricting plan, said as the state Senate opened floor debate on the bill.

Democrats say more than 70% of their newly drawn congressional districts were adopted from maps used by the independent commission in formulating the current boundaries.

Republican Senator Tony Strickland objected, saying, "These maps were drawn behind closed doors."

Following nearly four hours of debate, the Senate approved the Democrats' redrawn map on a party-line 30-9 vote and sent the measure to the state Assembly, the lower house of the legislature.

The Assembly, meanwhile, gave its approval, 57-20, to another component of the package, a proposed constitutional amendment temporarily bypassing the bipartisan commission.

Unlike the California initiative, the newly drawn district lines in Texas would go into effect without voter approval, though Democrats have vowed to challenge the plan in court.

The Texas measure cleared a major hurdle on Wednesday when the state House of Representatives in Austin adopted it on an 88-52 party-line vote. The Texas Senate is expected to pass the measure next, possibly on Thursday. The two versions of the bill may then need to be reconciled before the legislation goes to Republican Governor Greg Abbott, who has said he will sign it.

"Big WIN for the Great State of Texas," Trump said on his Truth Social platform.

Democrats and civil rights groups say the new Texas map further dilutes the voting power of Hispanic and Black voters, violating federal law that forbids redrawing political lines on the basis of racial or ethnic discrimination.

BOTH SIDES BREAK WITH TRADITION

In pursuing redistricting mid-decade, both sides are breaking with long-observed political custom of generally altering political maps once every 10 years, following the U.S. Census to adjust for population changes.

Most Americans believe redrawing congressional lines to maximize political gain, known as gerrymandering, is bad for democracy, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll found.

Former President Barack Obama weighed in on the issue this week, supporting the Democratic effort as a necessary short-term response to Republican overreach in Texas. But he said he remained uneasy about the long-term consequences of gerrymandering.

Consideration of the Texas bill was delayed for two weeks after more than 50 Democratic state House members staged a walkout that denied Republicans the legislative quorum they needed to proceed.

Their collective absence sparked extraordinary efforts by Abbott and other Republican leaders to pressure the Democrats to relent, including civil arrest warrants, the imposition of fines and threats to withhold their pay.

The Democrats finally returned to Austin on Monday, by which time their legislative boycott had galvanized Democratic leaders in other states, especially California, where Newsom has vowed to "fight fire with fire."

"We're going to punch this bully in the mouth, and we're going to win," Newsom told reporters in a video conference call on Wednesday. "This is about the rule of Don versus the rule of law."

He was joined on the call by Texas Representative Nicole Collier, one of the leaders of the Austin walkout.

"These are the most segregated maps that have been presented in Texas since the 1960s," said Collier, who represents a predominantly non-white Fort Worth state district.

The Texas-California clash may be just the start. Other Republican-controlled states -- including Ohio, Florida, Indiana and Missouri -- are moving forward with or considering their own redistricting efforts, as are Democratic-led states such as Maryland and Illinois.

(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Donna Bryson, Mark Porter and Rosalba O'Brien)