By Dave Mason
The Center Square

A large group of Democratic lawmakers, union leaders and other supporters gathered behind Gov. Gavin Newsom Thursday as he announced California is proceeding with efforts to place a congressional redistricting initiative on the Nov. 4 ballot.

Voters will decide whether to draw new lines in advance of the 2026 midterm election, in response to redistricting efforts in Texas, said the Democratic governor, who many expect will run for president in 2028.

The initiative is for a constitutional amendment known as the Election Rigging Response Act, which would retain the California Citizens Redistricting Commission but temporarily adopt new congressional districts for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections, according to the Governor’s Office. The legislative package announced Thursday includes a bill calling for the Nov. 4 special election, another bill covering election costs and a bill establishing a new congressional map.

If Texas or other states don’t create new districts, the amendment would preserve California’s current districts, according to the Governor’s Office.

To be placed on the November ballot, the amendment needs a two-thirds vote in the Legislature, where Democrats hold a supermajority in both houses.

Thursday’s press conference at the Japanese American National Museum in downtown Los Angeles had all the energy of a campaign rally, as one speaker after another accused President Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans controlling the Texas Legislature of cheating to keep the U.S. House under GOP control. The large crowd behind Newsom held signs, chanted slogans and booed Trump.

Historically, the party in power in the White House loses one chamber of Congress in the first midterm. Republicans are vulnerable in the House, where they have a razor-thin majority.

Newsom said the redistricting initiative is a reaction to Trump’s call to Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to find the president five more congressional seats.

Trump realizes he will lose the midterm election in the House, which essentially means an end to his presidency, Newsom said. “Why else would he try to rig the system?”

“We can’t stand back and watch this democracy disappear district by district,” Newsom said.

But Thursday’s press conference drew immediate criticism from a Republican member of the state Senate.

“Governor Newsom has launched a high-stakes, partisan gerrymandering game, claiming it is essential for protecting California’s democracy,” Sen. Tony Strickland, R-Huntington Beach, told The Center Square Thursday in an email.

Strickland, who previously told The Center Square that no state should attempt redistricting in the middle of a decade, warned the California redistricting initiative is a dangerous precedent.

“California needs to respect and uphold the voter-approved, citizen-led redistricting commission – a gold standard and should be considered as a national model – as it is built on fairness and transparency and reflects bipartisan support,” Strickland said. “This debate must be focused on democratic integrity, a principle that I have consistently championed.”

Speakers at Thursday’s press conference also praised the nonpartisan California Citizen Redistricting Commission as a model that should be adopted across the nation. Aware of the support for the commission, Newsom called the Nov. 4 initiative a temporary measure made necessary by the actions of the Republican lawmakers in Texas.

One member of the California redistricting commission, Sara Sadhwani, went to the podium and noted how the panel, made up of Democrats, Republicans and independents, accomplished the extraordinary task of unanimously agreeing on lines for congressional districts. The result is “some of the most competitive seats in the nation,” said Sadhwani, a Democrat who’s a political science professor at Pomona College.

“But extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures,” Sadhwani said, referring to the need for a redistricting initiative to counter efforts in Texas.

Democrats in the Legislature and Congress, as well as representatives of unions and Planned Parenthood, also spoke in favor of the initiative.

“Folks, we are at a precarious moment in our nation’s history,” U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff, D-California, said, warning against the loss of freedoms and democracy and the creation of new autocracies.

“Instead of seeing our rights expand, we start to see them contract,” Schiff said. “This thing we call democracy is fragile.”

The press conference went beyond redistricting to cover other criticism of the Trump administration, everything from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests to cuts in education and health care.

California’s other U.S. senator, Democrat Alex Padilla, criticized the Trump administration’s tariffs and obsession with making 3,000 immigration arrests a day.

“They know they’re not just unpopular. They’re wrong,” Padilla said. “The only hope they have of keeping power next November is to rig the system.”