California’s Redistricting Commission is Already ‘Gerrymandered’

California Governor Gavin Newsom announced his intentions last week to blow up California’s independent redistricting commission, effectively tampering with the state’s electoral maps mid-decade… because TRUMP.

Gov. Newsom plans to redraw electoral district boundaries for the state’s members of the U.S. House of Representatives. However, California is currently very gerrymandered already, even with the state’s supposed “fair-representation” California Citizens Redistricting Commission known as “We Draw The Lines.”

Newsom made this announcement as Texas continues with their current plans for a mid-decade redistricting, the Globe reported. Last month, Texas Governor Greg Abbott added redistricting to the 2025 state agenda, because the U.S. Department of Justice raised legal concerns over the constitutionality of four districts in the state over where district lines were redrawn in 2021 following the 2020 Census.

According to Texas Policy Research:

“The trigger for this redistricting session was a 2024 en banc decision from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. In Petteway v. Galveston County, the court struck down 36 years of precedent and ruled that the Voting Rights Act (VRA) does not allow ‘coalition’ districts, where two or more minority groups combine to form a majority.

That ruling overturned Campos v. City of Baytown (1988), which had long permitted Black and Hispanic voters to be treated as a single legal coalition in redistricting cases. Now, such coalitions are no longer valid in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

The court held that Section 2 of the VRA protects ‘a class’ of citizens, not multiple distinct classes acting together. This means Texas lawmakers can no longer justify majority-minority districts built from overlapping racial and ethnic groups.”

The Texas Legislature is not a full-time Legislature.

“I’m not going to sit back any longer in the fetal position, a position of weakness, when in fact California can demonstrably advance strength. If the American people are given a fair chance and a voice and a choice, we will take back Congress,” Newsom said. “The process would unfold in a way where maps will be made available in a transparent way. A special election would be called, likely to be the first week of November to approve the changes. We will go to the people of this state in a transparent way and ask them to consider the new circumstances, to consider these new realities.”

The California Citizens Redistricting Commission is charged with completing the decennial job of drawing district lines for State Senators, State Assembly Members, U.S. Representatives, and State Board of Equalization Members. 

However, in the last round of redistricting, before their work had even begun, the commission was riddled with talk about double-dealing and management problems.

In 2021, the Globe reported that a California Public Records Act request by Attorneys Harmeet Dhillon, Michael Columbo and Mark Meuser was made on my behalf (California Globe editor Katy Grimes), which produced evidence that members of the California Citizens Redistricting Commission were holding secret meetings. The public records request was based on concerns raised in a letter from Charles T. Munger to the California Redistricting Commission dated May 7, 2021, as well as an op-ed authored by two former CRC commissioners, Cynthia Dai and Jodie P. Filkins, dated July 14, 2021.

Remember, this was done during the Covid flu pandemic, while Californians were locked down.

Attorney Columbo told the Globe the CPRA request yielded significant information not made public by the California Redistricting Commission – pages of handwritten notes and discussions, which were not part of regular, noticed redistricting commission meetings.

The redistricting commission provided the documents to the attorneys producing numerous pages of hand-written redistricting commissioners’ notes regarding redistricting meetings and communications with outside parties held in secret, and not during the noticed public CRC meetings documented on the CRC’s website.

In 2020, the California Citizens Redistricting Commission had a committee meeting on the Voting Rights Act (VRA) compliance. But some were concerned that the committee was keeping statistical analyses on voting patterns by race confidential to use in decisions on district voting lines.

According to the John Locke Foundation, “The Voting Rights Act is not a scheme for racial proportional representation.” They explain:

• The Voting Rights Act prohibits redistricting in a way that limits citizens’ ability to “elect representatives of their choice” on account of their race;
• Using racial data in redistricting would make legislators vulnerable to charges that race played a predominant role in drawing districts, something that has caused courts to overturn districts in the past;
• Redistricting criteria such as compactness will result in Voting Rights Act–compliant districts without using racial data.

Based on the notes and CPRA documents, this shows a deliberate strategy of keeping that analysis from the public.

The Dhillon Law Firm filed an Emergency Petition with the California Supreme Court. They petitioned the court to:

“Some of these shenanigans were no doubt reflected in the first draft of maps released in mid-November,” Jennifer Oliver O’Connell with RedState reported. “These maps showed districts consisting of minority neighborhoods being hacked apart, and a trend toward breaking up Asian strongholds in the San Gabriel Valley and certain cities in Orange County. With the loss of one congressional district thanks to the California Adios, all eyes are also on the most populous County: Los Angeles.”

The California Citizens Redistricting Commission was frought with controversy from the beginning… because this is California. In 2011, I reported that accusations charged that the California Citizens Redistricting Commission wasn’t the non-partisan, citizen-run organization as was promoted statewide. Earlier CalWatchDog.com news stories revealed two commissioners who failed to disclose campaign contributions. Questions were raised about the California State Auditor’s background investigation of redistricting applicants.

A complaint was filed against Redistricting Commission Executive Director Daniel Claypool for attempting to discredit the testimony of a Coachella Valley resident. Bluring the lines even more, the redistricting commission’s Executive Director is a former employee of the state auditor.

You can see how the Citizen’s Redistricting Commission is vulnerable as a non-partisan organization, and has been subjected to heavy manipulations since its creation.

California Rep. Kevin Kiley is proposing legislation to put a halt to this mid-decade practice:

“I am introducing legislation in Congress to stop Newsom’s corrupt scheme to overthrow our Citizens Redistricting Commission and seize its powers for himself. My bill prohibits congressional districts from being redrawn in the middle of the decade. This is already the law in California under our State Constitution, which provides that redistricting is done once a decade by an Independent Commission. But Newsom is planning to blow all of this up so he can impose his own partisan map on voters before the next election. Fortunately, Congress has the ability to protect California voters using its authority under the Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution. This will also stop a damaging redistricting war from breaking out across the country.”

The California Citizens Redistricting Commission is a state agency created by the passage of California Proposition 11 in 2008, also known as the “Voters First Act.”

The California Citizens Redistricting Commission draws the boundary lines for California state legislative districts and Board of Equalization districts after each decennial census.

Take a look at California’s Congressional district map and tell me this isn’t gerrymandered. Every district is included: