California’s Political Maps Are Drawn Independently. Will Newsom Change That?

When Jeanne Raya joined California’s first independent redistricting commission in 2010, she felt emboldened — this was the opportunity for a citizen-led group to do what she viewed as important work, free of partisan politics.

“It’s important because the process listens to the people, gives people the opportunity to participate actively, to have access to the maps and to have a voice in how they are drawn,” she said.

Raya, a Democrat, is now among the critics speaking out against the escalating political chess game between California and Texas, which races to redistrict ahead of the 2026 midterms.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has responded with his own plan to redraw the state’s political maps if the Republican-led effort in Texas is successful.

“It’s triggered on the basis of what occurs or doesn’t occur in Texas,” said Newsom, addressing reporters during an unrelated news conference in Sacramento on Monday. “If they move forward, California will not sit by idly and watch this democracy waste away. We’ll fight fire with fire.”

These kinds of bold declarations from Newsom in recent weeks have set the stage for a high-stakes political drama. The state’s voter-approved independent redistricting commission, which advocates against political gerrymandering, is now caught in the middle.

In 2008, California voters first approved a ballot measure that removed the power of state legislators to draw their own seats. (In Texas, state lawmakers are currently responsible for redrawing congressional districts.) Two years later, California voters decided to expand the commission’s authority to include congressional maps. This measure garnered over 66% support statewide, according to political data analyst Paul Mitchell.

Raya said the maps drawn up during her tenure survived multiple challenges until the next commission began its work in 2020. She said the group’s non-partisan approach, based on population changes and in compliance with the federal Voting Rights Act, helped represent more communities of color that the political system had historically overlooked.

“We did draw districts that reflected communities of interest that had not previously had the attention they should have because legislators were drawing districts to choose voters that would assure incumbents staying in office,” Raya said.

The commission’s past work resulted, for example, in three more Latino-majority districts in the Central Valley. And notably in the Bay Area, the 8th Congressional District became the most racially and ethnically diverse district in the region and statewide.

In the face of the current political moment, Newsom has said he is exploring several different pathways to enact new maps, including asking the state Legislature to place a measure on the ballot in a special election, which would ask voters to approve new maps for congressional districts or to create a new process for drawing them.

“The problem is that the commission remains highly popular with voters in polling,” Mitchell told KQED’s Political Breakdown podcast. “To get around that, Newsom may need to make concessions, like a temporary pause that resumes the independent redistricting process, after the next census.”

Raya, who spent 10 months working on the commission to draw up the maps at the time, said the special election route would be logistically challenging and costly.

“There is absolutely no way you can have that same level of transparency, which is the central component of independent redistricting, in two months,” she said. “Not to mention, of course, the cost of doing this. We’re in a deficit, and we’re going to think about spending a lot of money to put up an initiative that is the governor’s initiative or the legislature’s initiative. So [that’s] partisan right there, as opposed to an initiative from the people.”

The redistricting moves have also drawn criticism from Republicans. California Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-Rocklin, whose seat would be in jeopardy, said he plans to introduce a bill that would invalidate any new political maps drawn up before the 2030 Census. He’s also opposed to throwing out the independent commission to return power to politicians.

“I don’t think it was a good thing, regardless of which state is doing it, whether it’s a red state or a blue state,” Kiley told KQED. “Constantly shifting around district lines based upon when you think it’s politically convenient, it’s a really unhealthy thing for democracy.”

Raya supports a proposal like Kiley’s and believes the redistricting drama goes against most Californians’ values.

“The idea of doing this sort of as retribution for what’s happening in Texas — we’ve seen what retribution politics looks like on the federal level. And I don’t think Californians want that,” she said.

KQED’s Keith Mizuguchi and Brian Watt contributed to this report.