Top Proposition 50 Opponent Confident Despite Spending Slowdown

Charles Munger Jr., the Bay Area megadonor leading the campaign against Proposition 50, said he remained confident opponents can defeat the redistricting measure on the November ballot, despite a recent slowdown in their campaign spending and the measure pulling ahead in most polls.

The Palo Alto physicist has spent nearly $33 million against Proposition 50, which would replace California’s current congressional lines, drawn by a citizen commission, with a map favoring Democrats. Munger Jr. bankrolled the 2008 ballot measure that created the citizen commission and is far and away the top spender in this year’s campaign.

“I’ve spent a literal fortune now and a great deal of time, energy and frankly agony in trying to keep this future from overtaking the people of California,” Munger Jr. said. “And it’s now up to them what they do.”

In an interview with KQED’s The California Report, the normally reclusive Munger Jr. pushed back against supporters of the measure, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has argued that Proposition 50 is needed to combat Republican gerrymandering in states such as Texas.

Democrats in California placed Proposition 50 before voters after President Donald Trump called on GOP-led states to redraw their maps mid-decade, to give Republicans a better chance of hanging on to control of Congress in next year’s midterms.

Munger Jr. said Democrats should work to win back control of the House fair and square — with California’s current maps.

“You can win as many seats in the fair districts that we have as you can win by this gerrymander,” Munger Jr. said. “The only difference is the politicians aren’t choosing which Democrats and which Republicans are going to be elected.”

Newsom and Democratic-aligned groups have saturated the airwaves in recent weeks, framing the contest in partisan terms and billing Proposition 50 as an antidote to total Republican control of government in Washington, D.C..

Meanwhile, ad spending against the measure has plateaued, according to AdImpact.

Since Oct. 12, advertisers supporting Proposition 50 have spent $26.8 million compared with just $341,000 by opponents. And supporters have reserved nearly $10 million in advertisements for the closing two weeks of the campaign, compared to just $9,000 from opponents.

Asked if he still believes the measure can be defeated, Munger Jr. said, “The short answer is yes.”

“One of the things we’re trying to do is build enough of a coalition of those people [who] understand the issues and what’s good for the country, that the participation between the merely partisan Democrats and the merely partisan Republicans and their money will cancel out — leaving a majority on the right side of the issue,” he added.

Few big-dollar Republicans have joined Munger Jr. in the fight against Proposition 50. On the other side, Democratic megadonor George Soros and Tom Steyer have poured tens of millions of dollars into the redistricting campaign, joined by powerful teacher and nurses unions and thousands of small-dollar donors across the country.

Even former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who partnered with Munger Jr. in 2008 to win voter support for the commission, has done relatively little campaigning to save the commission’s work.

Munger Jr. described his own role in passing the measure creating the commission, Proposition 20, “as close to a one-man show as it ever gets in politics.”

“So, I’m quite committed to this because of the labor I put into it and because I think I understand the issues well enough to justify that labor,” he added.

Munger Jr. said the commission’s work has resulted in a competitive congressional map that forces California candidates to campaign hard and listen to constituents’ needs. In the last two congressional elections, California has had 21 House races finish within 10 percentage points, compared to 11 in Texas and Florida combined.

While Proposition 50 is written to expire after the 2030 election and hand line-drawing power back to the citizens’ commission, Munger Jr. warned of a future campaign to make the pro-Democratic lines permanent.

“Of course they’re going to do that,” he said. “Name a politician, name a state in the union where gerrymandering occurs, where the gerrymandering power did not seek to keep that power. You won’t find one.”

KQED’s Madi Bolaños contributed to this report.