Governor reveals election rigging response act to counter Trump’s push to gain five extra seats in Texas midterms
Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, said on Thursday state Democratic lawmakers would move forward with a redistricting plan to counter the Republican-led map-drawing effort in Texas aimed at securing a House majority after the midterm elections.
Newsom, joined by congressional Democrats and legislative leaders, unveiled a plan, known as the election rigging response act, that would override California’s independent redistricting commission and draw new congressional lines – a direct counter to a Texas effort, sought by Donald Trump, to push through mid-cycle maps that could hand Republicans five extra US House seats. The governor vowed the move would “neuter and neutralize” Texas’s proposal.
“Today is liberation day in the state of California,” Newsom declared at a rally in Los Angeles, in which he formally called for a 4 November special election to approve a new congressional map. “We can’t stand back and watch this democracy disappear district by district all across the country.”
“We can’t stand back and watch this democracy disappear district by district all across the country.”
Yep, step the fuck up everyone.
Hmm, the UK went for Labour, but their go*ernment banned independent social media and blacklisted protesters anyway. So is the Democratic Party going to save our souls?
The United staaaaahahahahahahahahahahaaa of ahahahahahahaha MURIKA!
The Disjointed States of Shitcanistan
Yay! Race to the bottom! Zero-sum game! Are we winning yet?
Get off your high horse. What else do you want the opposition to do? Republicans are actively rigging the system in their favor and you want Democrats to take the high road again? Trump’s administration is an existential crisis to our democracy and at this point it’s obvious he’s working on consolidating even more power to further his evil agenda. If Democrats just keep wagging their finger while pretending everything’s fine then we’ll end up losing any leverage outside of violence.
I’m not arguing against it or against it being done. But I am going to laugh at “when they go low, we go high” mentality.
I mean I’ve watched as most of my life nobody hesitates to call Texas Secession discussions treasonous and mock it. But suddenly this year there’s lots of talk of California Secession without the same mockery.
I’m not saying don’t do it. But it’s all fucking hypocritical and we as a people are fucked.
We’re not talking about secession here. We’re talking about Republicans forcing minority rule in the House through untimely redistricting within the system. If Democrats take the high road and do nothing to counter it we are fucked. If Democrats break the same rules we may also be fucked down the line, but at least we’re fighting to not lose out to total domination of a fascist agenda. Democracy is definitely taking a hit because of both parties but at least for now we’ll have a somewhat more balanced and proportional rule in Congress.
In short, one side is doing it for an unfair advantage while the other is doing it for the survival of this country.
We as a people are fucked no doubt about it. Until Citizens United is overturned and news media is forced to follow a fairness doctrine again, half the people in this country will remain brainwashed and actively seek to fuck everything up for the rest of us.
Shouldn’t they have saved the shot for another state, since Texas (AFAIK) stopped the attempt?
I mean, I am all for fighting. But Democrats have very little ammo.
Honestly it seems more like a attention grab for Newsom so he can run for president. I don’t want Newsom as the next candidate…
If you want to win you have to play the game.
(Or cheat, a win is a win)
There was an ICE raid right outside the building he was in today as a total intimidation tactic. ICE only got one person for so many stored up chuds. Fuck this shit
I thought it was border patrol, not ICE. Are they the same thing?
If they act without due process, there is no point in making a distinction.
Ah i also don’t know how those differ
They’re both part of DHS
I’m not sure the masked thugs even know the difference.
Can the US just break up already
The Republic of California has a nice ring to it.
Needs something more to distinguish it from the California of old, how about the New California Republic, or NCR for short?
Newsom, joined by congressional Democrats and legislative leaders, unveiled a plan, known as the election rigging response act, that would override California’s independent redistricting commission and draw new congressional lines
I don’t fault what they’re doing here; war is war. But just look at how easily the democratic process can be stripped away. Just a flick of the pen and it’s gone. No real safeguards. Not a single shot fired.
It’s important to realize you can’t really safe guard against authoritarianism once they already control the government
Agreed. We failed loooong ago. Now we are just along for the ride.
This plan will still require an approval from voters.
Conservatives never gave a damn about genuine fairness, it is time to stop playing ball with the fuckers.
…I don’t like this game, but we don’t seem to have any GOOD choices, just less awful ones.
Republicans are geographically dispersed while Democrats are generally packed into urban areas. We lose 100% of the time if we try the same gerrymandering tactics. We need to be smarter, not play their games.
If you think I’m wrong, show me a single state we could flip from red to blue by gerrymandering. You need to show your work though. You can’t just say X state, you have to show HOW you could flip the state by gerrymandering.
is there anything preventing the usual cracking/packing tactics from being used? Create enormous completely red districts consisting of large swaths of rural areas, and then split the urban areas amongst their surrounding rural areas just enough to have a relatively safe win. Yes, the districts would be ugly as hell (and vary hugely in size), but assuming we’re okay with gerrymandering that was probably to be expected already
No. The strategy can work perfectly fine both ways.
The entire point of gerrymandering is to make the geography irrelevant.
If you have a large, reliably blue city where 80 percent vote Democrat you can split that into districts that go 60 percent Democrat so that Democrats win more seats but by smaller margins…
If you wanted to gerrymander in favor of Republicans, you would fracture the city even more so that you disperse those Democrat voters over more districts.
You could make the maps do anything. You could make every district in the state pass through one city.
Obviously what Texas is doing is reprehensible but in a winner take all election system where Texas always goes republican and California always goes dem, does this actually makw a difference?
Yes because likely CAs redistricting plans to make more blue and less red…therefore offsetting the 5 seats Trump is asking Texas to find (which will be more red and less blue)
And thats assuming Republicans do redistricting math right. At the current outrage levels tightening margins is a big gamble. They could be turning it into a landslide… Assuming elections are fair.
It would be kind of crazy to see the Republican response if they lost like 30 seats or something, I am sure they would try to somehow invalidate the whole thing.
…Assuming elections are fair.
That’s exactly what they’re trying to prevent.
If that happens it would be a good time for democrats to approve legislation mandating non-partisan redistricting at the federal level.
Winner takes all only applies to presidential elections. In this case, they are redistricting for more congressional seats.
This is still a form of gerrymandering, right? I hope this does not kick off a wave of disenfranchisement across other red states.
We really need to get the US territories statehood/representation too. And DC.
what do you mean, “kick off”?
Kicking off, say, five other states redrawing maps to cancel out California and to head off other blue states trying the same.
That sort of frantic escalation wouldn’t be good.
from what I’ve gathered (although it’s been hard for me to find the exact info I’m looking for) most of the states with nonpartisan or bipartisan redistricting commissions seem to be democratic states by a significant margin.
safe to assume the ones that have partisan commissions are already gerrymandered to hell and back. and there’s little to gain from doing it more; there will be diminishing returns.
i think an all out war would mostly benefit the dems but again i don’t have very concrete data so I’ll qualify these statements to be based on gut and not much more.
We tried playing fair, that got us Trump twice
I understand. I just fear out of control escalation like bickering characters in a cartoon.
I understand, but, if playing the game by the rules doesn’t result in victory…
Gotta beat 'em at their own game. Good thing they’re parotting senile child rapists and are incredibly predictable. Clever is not in their playbook.
Hunh. Kinda like the Confederacy. 🤷🏼♂️
Do they need clever when they just barrel through every obstacle without even stumbling?
They stumble, it is just that the good guys offered a hand. Up to now, I and many other Americans thought the MAGATs were part of our society. With each abuse that the MAGA perpetuates, that belief crumbles ever faster. If this keeps up, normies will end up socking the bastards.
We already lost the rule of law to a dictator. We didn’t fire the first shot of this civil war, but we can’t ignore it.
I would hardly call it a civil war. It’s a civil struggle for sure, but I don’t think the majority of Americans have their heart in it, and nor should they. They’re being ruled by a minority.
For my part, I don’t consider MAGATs to be Americans anymore. It is a fundamental reason why I am learning how to use a gun, because I assume that the America we knew is no longer a thing. Concentration camps are not a sign of peace and civility.
I’m right there with you. These people have shown they simply don’t understand what it means to be an American. They’ve betrayed every value.
When Jan 6th happened it should’ve been the final wake-up call. Every Republican should be filled with the deepest shame and regret.
There are masked men with guns in unmarked cars disappearing people without any law binding them. What would you call that?
It’s already out of control. This is self defense.
Just a note that none of this impacts presidential elections.
But if Texas does their thing, this would be a necessary response for the house
True… but if Trump had to contend with Democrat majorities in the house and Senate then he would have an incentive not to do illegal shit because he could be removed from office.
Hopefully the results is that everyone is concerned about gerrymandering instead of just Democrats and something can be done about it at the federal level.
