California Lawmakers Pass Redistricting Plan. Now It Heads to Voters

Updated at 12 p.m. Friday

A dramatic plan to reshape California’s congressional districts to favor Democrats will appear before voters this November, after state lawmakers voted Thursday to place the redistricting proposal on the ballot.

The votes in the state Assembly and Senate capped a frenetic week of debate on the map, as lawmakers faced a deadline to call the special election on the proposal, which will appear as Proposition 50.

The Nov. 4 vote is now set to be the marquee event in a nationwide showdown between Democratic and Republican states over political district lines that could help determine control of Congress in 2026.

“When all things are equal, when we’re all playing by the same set of rules, there’s no question that the Republican Party will be the minority party in the House of Representatives next year,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said at a signing ceremony late Thursday.

The Assembly approved the measure going before voters, Assembly Constitutional Amendment 8, on a 57-20 vote.

Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains, who is running for Congress in a competitive Central Valley seat, was the only Democrat to vote against the plan. Two other Democrats, Dawn Addis of Morro Bay and Alex Lee of San José, did not vote. Addis was absent due to a family death.

Newsom first publicly floated the idea of redrawing the state’s congressional map in July, after President Donald Trump called on Republicans in Texas to pass new maps adding more GOP-friendly seats.

Some Democrats in the Legislature initially expressed reservations about the idea. California voters gave congressional line-drawing powers to an independent commission in 2010, and the state’s current maps are drawn to reflect community input, not to maximize partisan advantage.

But after weeks of internal discussion between state leaders and Democrats in California’s congressional delegation, the party and allied advocacy groups united behind the plan. The measure going before voters, Assembly Constitutional Amendment 8, would enact a map favoring Democrats for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections.

“Today we give every Californian the power to say no, to say no to Donald Trump’s power grab and say yes to our people, to our state and to our democracy,” said Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, a Salinas Democrat.

The Legislature also approved two additional bills that Newsom signed on Thursday, one to fund the November election and another outlining the new House district lines. Lawmakers are expected to vote next week on a bill that would trigger the new maps only if another state moves forward with mid-decade redistricting.

In the Senate, the redistricting measure was placed on the ballot on a 30-8 party-line vote. Republicans in both houses assailed the plan as a reckless escalation of partisan warfare.

“You move forward fighting fire with fire, what happens? You burn it all down,” Republican Assembly Leader James Gallagher said. “And in this case, it affects our most fundamental American principle: representation.”

California’s proposed map threatens five incumbent Republican congress members.

In Northern California, Republican Reps. Doug LaMalfa and Kevin Kiley could see their districts redrawn to include more Democratic voters in Sonoma and Sacramento, respectively.

In Southern California, Rep. Ken Calvert’s district in the Inland Empire was moved to Los Angeles — making it virtually impossible for him to win in his current district. The new lines also establish significant hurdles for Rep. Darrell Issa in San Diego and Rep. David Valadao in Bakersfield.

The new lines would also shore up the reelection hopes of Central Valley Democrats Josh Harder and Adam Gray, by adding parts of the Bay Area to Harder’s seat and moving Gray’s district north into Stockton.

With more than half of their nine-member congressional delegation in jeopardy, Republicans in both chambers of the state Legislature uniformly opposed the redistricting. But lacking the votes, they had few options to halt the plan.

California’s Legislature only needs a majority of members present to establish a quorum — preventing Republicans from staging a walkout similar to one by Democrats in Texas. The state Supreme Court also rejected a legal challenge brought by Republican lawmakers over the expedited procedure used to rush the bills to a vote.

In the Senate, an amendment proposed by Sen. Suzette Martinez Valladares, a Republican from Santa Clarita, would prevent any member of the Legislature who supports ACA 8 from running for office for 10 years.

“If this body insists on moving forward with stripping power away from the voter-approved redistricting commission, then the very least we can do is we owe Californians meaningful safeguards against corruption,” Vallardares said.

The November election will cost in the “low hundreds of millions of dollars,” according to a legislative staff analysis. In 2021, the state allocated nearly $280 million to counties and the Secretary of State’s office to run a special election on the recall of Newsom.

In some counties, the November election will include local measures and races in addition to the redistricting question. Santa Clara County supervisors have placed a measure on the ballot asking South Bay voters to approve an increase in the county’s sales tax to help offset federal budget cuts enacted by Trump and Republicans in Congress.