former Congresswoman Lois Capps' gerrymandered district known as “the ribbon of shame.”
The Map of Former Rep. Lois Capps ‘Ribbon of Shame’ Gerrymandered District
Defeat Prop 50! Let’s Not Revisit the Ribbon of Shame!
By Andy Caldwell, October 7, 2025 2:46 am
Please Vote No on Proposition 50 to stop Gavin Newsom from rigging elections in California for the next several years. Your ballot is being mailed to you any day now.
What is this all about? Well, even the ACLU understands that “Redistricting is the process of drawing the lines of districts from which public officials are elected. When it’s conducted fairly, it accurately reflects population changes and racial diversity and is used by legislators to equitably allocate representation in Congress and state legislatures. When politicians use redistricting to manipulate the outcome of elections, however, it’s called gerrymandering — a practice that undermines democracy and stifles the voice of voters. Voters should be picking their politicians, not the other way around.”
Every ten years, after the US Census, the boundaries of districts which comprise the geographical areas from which representatives are elected to legislative bodies, such as the U.S. House of Representatives, are adjusted. Redistricting ensures that all representatives represent the same number of people.
In California, these lines are drawn by a voter-initiated independent citizens redistricting commission which Governor Gavin Newsom is trying to sideline. Gavin Newsom doesn’t want to wait for the next census, and he is trying to sabotage the independent work of the California Citizens Redistricting Commission that voters established. He and his fellow democrats are trying to justify this effort to eliminate as many republican congressional seats in the CA delegation as payback for Texas redistricting mid-census. However, what Texas did was fix a map that was not in compliance with how districts can legally be drawn.
By voting No on Prop 50, you will be preserving the current California law that voters approved that took redistricting away from politicians and placed this authority with a citizen’s commission that has been doing a reasonable job of creating fair districts.
The principle here? Most people believe that when they vote, they are choosing their representatives. But when politicians are drawing the boundaries of their own districts, it is they who are choosing their voters!
(Photo: history.house.gov/Oral-History/Women/Representative-Capps/)
One of the worst examples of this phenomenon known as gerrymandering happened right here on the Central Coast, courtesy of former Congresswoman Lois Capps. Her district has been used as an example of gerrymandering nationwide as her district lines were accurately referred as “the ribbon of shame.” The district ran up the coast some 200 miles from Oxnard to the Monterrey County line. The boundaries of the district ran along the shoreline until they went in to capture a democrat majority community and then the line returned to the shore! The lines for Capps’ district disappeared during high tide!
The ribbon of shame violated every single principle of what a district is supposed to look like, including being compact, binding together communities of interest, and using established boundaries, such as city limits, as a dividing line between one district and another. The purposes of these principles, among others, is to keep communities together so that they can rally together as a political force as it relates to electing someone who will truly represent them. Divided communities can’t do that.
And guess what? No surprise here. Gavin’s new maps for CA bring back several versions of that ribbon of shame. As Tom Del Beccaro reports, if Proposition 50 is approved, California’s Modoc County on the Oregon Border, which has 2 people per sq. mile living on its ranches and farms, will be joined together in the same district as densely urban San Francisco some 6 hours away! What does that mean in practical reality? The needs and wants of the people in Modoc will never be considered by their representative who will spend all his/her efforts on San Francisco. The residents of Modoc and the communities in between there and SF are simply redistricting cannon fodder.
Please put a stop to Newsom’s raw power grab. Preserve the California Citizens Redistricting Commission by voting NO! on Prop 50. And please do SHARE this column with the many people who are not paying attention to much of anything happening in this state!
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HUGE NO ON PROP 50 – STOP NEWSOM NOW!!!
Under the new gerrymandered maps, our portion of conservative leaning Ventura County would be lumped in with the formerly liberal-leaning Westside of LA and Malibu.
I say FORMERLY liberal-leaning until they were burned out of their homes and then slow-walked on the permitting process to rebuild. With all of Newsom and Bass’ preening about “reimagining L.A. 2.0” i HOPE these coastal dwellers are being red-pilled and realizing that Democrats in 2025 are corrupt self-dealers that say one thing but screw you over when the chips are down.
Speaking of corrupt self-dealers, how about our globe-trotting, rainbow-flag waving insurance commissioner Lara? Anybody gotten a reasonably priced commercial property, fire or earthquake policy recently???
The operative reality in this article is “the many people who are not paying attention to much of anything happening in this state!” It reminds me of Winston Churchill’s famous observation “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” Soros and the government employee unions will spend millions in support of Prop 50. Screeching democrats will insist that it must be passed to “Save Democracy.” Moron voters in California will fall for it. Election results in California are as predictable as they are in North Korea, China and Iran.
Fed Up – I agree that the unions will be out in full force to fleece California. I am not convinced that the average voter is that dumb. I am more inclined to say that the vote counting in California is not free from fraud and will remain that way as long as tabulations are done on a computer. If elections were honest there would be no need to hide voter rolls from the DOJ.
We need same day voting, paper ballots and no mail in ballots.
If Prop. 50 passes, voters will never be able to get poor performing politicians out of office. You’ll notice that the proponents of Prop. 50 never mention that there are seven states with zero Republican Representatives in Congress. You will also notice that they never mention that Democrats represent 45% of the voters in this state, and that Independents and Republicans will have no voice. None.
How does that fit in with “democracy”?
This thing is illegal and strictly prohibited anyway, as so much of what Gavin Newsom & Co have done over the years, yet they rushed it through and onto the ballot and now here we are, in spite of lawsuits not yet decided. As I know you know. It will be challenged, but we want to show that tyrant Newsom NOW that he’s washed up, which he is, by voting NO on Prop 50.
In addition, the repeated mantra from Newsom & Co. is that Trump, by way of Texas, is doing something WRONG in redistricting, to which CA must respond with their own redistrict (although then isn’t CA doing wrong too, geniuses?). That a CA response is needed, however, or is fair retaliation, is nonsense. Texas CORRECTED some gerrymandered maps with redistricting, which was court-ordered by the way, making their action an ENTIRELY different situation than what the Gruesome Crew is doing in California.
Newsom’s (and the Dems’) Motto: “We Proudly Never, NEVER Stop Lying”
“Katie Porter Threatens to Walk Out of a Local TV Interview [about Prop 50]”
Here are the key remaining CA Dem gubernatorial candidates on the topic of Prop 50, including a very flustered and irritated Katie Porter. An entertaining (and revealing) 35 minutes, I thought!
Randy Wang hosts the John Phillips Show, KABC-AM 790:
https://omny.fm/shows/the-drive-home-with-jillian-barberie-and-john-ph-1/katie-porter-threatens-to-walk-out-of-a-local-tv-interview?in_playlist=the-morning-drive-with-jillian-barberie-john-phill
Supporters are lining up on the overpasses to shout ‘Yes on Shifty 50’.
Where I live it is assumed that everyone hates this administration and , thus, we will do what we have to do to save our democracy…..WRONG!
We are living in their version of democracy and it is GARBAGE.
Right now we have a President who is strong enough to force cities to get there sh*t together and
we have a weak Governor but a strong , but blind, one party voter base. Here in Marin county, we also have an extremely bias media stranglehold on our airways. Don’t believe me? Just drive an hour outside of the Bay Area and you can actually find radio shows that lean right.
I like the idea of being represented by the people I vote for (lol), but that is no longer the case.
Once elected , they are above us. They are unreachable. They only respond to scandal.
Let’s not give them another win with Shifty 50.
The gerrymandering that has occurred under the California Citizens Redistricting Commission was bad enough, but giving the redistricting authority to Hair-gel Hitler Newsom and the criminal Democrat thug majority in the legislature would be catastrophic. It would result in jack booted Marxist Democrat oppression much like in communist China which would be impossible to break free from. Definite NO on Prop. 50!
I have no power to get this out but we have lost prop 50 already.
If you vote No on “Prop 50” and do not fold your ballot white side out, your “No” vote is clearly visible through a hole in the pink envelope. So several people have a chance to make your envelope vanish before it gets into the counting machine. Newsom’s people are celebrating.
It will be okay, Amish Warrior, I think most people are aware of that from past elections —- I know I am — and will be sure to fold the ballot properly. 🙂