California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed legislation Thursday evening to create new congressional maps designed by the Democrat-dominated legislature to eliminate half of the state’s Republican-held seats.
The so-called “Election Rigging Response Act” consists of bills that were stripped of their existing language, and filled with redistricting language, to evade a state requirement that legislation wait 30 days for approval.
In doing so, Newsom and the Democrats set aside the state’s nominally independent redistricting commission, which was established by the voters in 2008 (and which is gamed by Democrats anyway).
Newsom has claimed for weeks that he would only gerrymander the districts in his state if Texas did so — though Texas, at least, could claim to be acting on instructions from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)
The most recent U.S. Census in Texas was inaccurate, undercounting the state’s residents, and politicians cobbled together several “majority-minority” districts in a way the DOJ said had been unconstitutional.
In the end, California used first — taking advantage of the controversy in Texas to do what other Democrat-run states, notably Illinois, have already done: eliminating Republican seats to extend Democrats’ advantage.
California voters will have a chance to vote the new map up or down in a special election in November that will cost taxpayers more than $200 million. Tens of thousands in the state are still displaced by recent fires.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Zionist Conspiracy Wants You, now available on Amazon. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
