Gov. Gavin Newsom signed California's new redistricting plan that could slash five Republican-held House seats to counter Texas' mid-decade redraw of its congressional map.
Lawmakers in the state Assembly and Senate approved the redistricting plan on Thursday afternoon.
California Democrats introduced the plan last week that could slash five Republican-held House seats in the liberal-leaning state while bolstering Democratic incumbents in other battleground districts.
The move comes in direct response to efforts by Texas Republicans to redraw House districts in order to strengthen the GOP hold on the chamber in 2026. Texas Republicans passed a map creating five new winnable seats for the GOP in that state's House of Representatives on Wednesday.
California's plan aims to boost the Democratic margin to 48 of the state's 52 congressional seats, according to a source familiar with the plan who was not authorized to discuss it publicly. That's up from the 43 seats the party now holds. It would need approval from lawmakers and voters, who may be skeptical to give it after handing redistricting power to an independent commission years ago.
In addition, the proposal would generously pad Democratic margins in districts for competitive seats anchored in Orange County, San Diego County and the Central Valley farm belt, giving Democrats a potential advantage as Texas Republicans try to sway the tissue-thin balance of the House.
However, unlike in Texas, the California seats cannot become official unless approved by the voters.
As California and Texas scramble to redraw U.S. House maps before the 2026 midterm elections, the race is underlining redistricting's big role in determining political power.
Texas took action after President Donald Trump directed Republican-controlled states to change where the district lines are drawn based on where the population is likely to vote Republican - a practice known as partisan gerrymandering. California Democrats were poised Thursday to approve their redrawn congressional map in response.
Midterm elections often go against the president's party. Trump is trying to avoid a repeat of the 2018 midterms, when the GOP yielded control during his first presidency to a Democratic majority that stymied his agenda and twice impeached him.
The Texas maps next need approval from the GOP-controlled state Senate and Republican Gov. Greg Abbott's signature. They were drawn so Republicans could potentially pick up five seats in Congress.
The maps being considered by the California Legislature were drawn so Democrats could pickup five seats.
Here's what to know.
Each decade, the Census Bureau collects population data that is used to divvy up the 435 U.S. House seats proportionally among the 50 states. States that grew relative to others might gain a House seat at the expense of states in which populations stagnated or declined.
California and Texas, with the highest populations, have the highest number of representatives of all states.
Most states use their own rules and procedures to create the districts represented by each House member. The states with the lowest population numbers receive only one representative, which means the entire state is a single congressional district.
Americans can find their representative and see a map of their district on the U.S. House website.
The word "gerrymander" was coined in America over 200 years ago as an unflattering means of describing political manipulation in legislative mapmaking.
In states where lawmakers make the maps: If a political party controls a state's legislature and governor's office - or has such a large legislative majority that it can override vetoes - it can effectively draw districts to its advantage.
One common method of gerrymandering is for a majority political party to draw maps that pack voters who support the opposing party into a few districts, thus allowing the majority party to win a greater number of surrounding districts.
Another method is for the majority party to dilute the power of an opposing party's voters by spreading them among multiple districts.
By the first midterm elections after the most recent population count, each state is ready with its district maps, but those districts don't always hold. Courts can find that the political lines are unconstitutional.
While some states have their own limitations, there is no national impediment to a state trying to redraw districts in the middle of the decade. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2019 ruled that the Constitution does not prohibit partisan gerrymandering to increase a party's clout, only gerrymandering that's explicitly done by race.
"The laws about redistricting just say you have to redistrict after every census," Doug Spencer, Rothgerber Jr. Chair in Constitutional Law at the University of Colorado, has said. "And then some state legislatures got a little clever and said, 'Well it doesn't say we can't do it more.'"
Trump urged Texas to redraw maps to help the GOP, and his team has signaled that efforts could expand to other states, with a similar push underway in Missouri and Indiana. Ohio Republicans were already revising their map before Texas took action.
A new California map would need to be approved by voters in a special election in November because that state normally operates with a nonpartisan commission drawing the map to avoid the very sort of political battle that is playing out.
Democrats in Maryland and New York are mulling map revisions as well. New York, however, can't draw new maps until 2028, and even then, only with voter approval.
Democratic-run states have commission systems like California's or other redistricting limits more often than Republican ones do, leaving the GOP with a freer hand to swiftly redraw maps.
Democrats have also vowed to challenge the new Texas maps in court.
The California State Assembly has passed a redistricting plan that could slash five Republican-held House seats. The plans will now head to the State Senate for another vote.
The assembly approved the redistricting plan in a 57-20 vote Thursday.
In a sign of Democrats' stiffening redistricting resolve, former President Barack Obama on Tuesday night backed Newsom's bid to redraw the California map, saying it was a necessary step to stave off the GOP's Texas move.
"I think that approach is a smart, measured approach," Obama said during a fundraiser for the Democratic Party's main redistricting arm.
The incumbent president's party usually loses congressional seats in the midterm election, and the GOP currently controls the House of Representatives by a mere three votes.
Trump is going beyond Texas in his push to remake the map. He's pushed Republican leaders in conservative states like Indiana and Missouri to also try to create new Republican seats. Ohio Republicans were already revising their map before Texas moved. Democrats, meanwhile, are mulling reopening Maryland's and New York's maps as well.
However, more Democratic-run states have commission systems like California's or other redistricting limits than Republican ones do, leaving the GOP with a freer hand to swiftly redraw maps. New York, for example, can't draw new maps until 2028, and even then, only with voter approval.
The national redistricting battle enters its next phase Thursday as California Democrats are scheduled to pass a new congressional map that creates five winnable seats for their party, a direct counter to the Texas House's approval of a new map to create more conservative-leaning seats in that state.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has engineered the high-risk strategy in response to President Donald Trump's own brinkmanship. Trump pushed Texas Republicans to reopen the legislative maps they passed in 2021 to squeeze out up to five new GOP seats to help the party stave off a midterm defeat.
Unlike in Texas, where passage by the Republican-controlled state Senate and signature by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott are now all that's needed to make the maps official, California faces a more uncertain route. Democrats must use their legislative supermajority to pass the map by a two-third margin. Then they must schedule a special election in November for voters to approve the map that Newsom must sign by Friday to meet ballot deadlines.
The added complexity is because California has a voter-approved independent commission that Newsom himself backed before Trump's latest redistricting maneuver. Only the state's voters can override the map that commission approved in 2021. But Newsom said extraordinary steps are required to counter Texas and other Republican-led states that Trump is pushing to revise maps.
"This is a new Democratic Party, this is a new day, this is new energy out there all across this country," Newsom said Wednesday on a call with reporters. "And we're going to fight fire with fire."
As California and Texas scramble to redraw U.S. House maps before the 2026 midterm elections, the race is underlining redistricting's big role in determining political power.
Texas took action after President Donald Trump directed Republican-controlled states to change where the district lines are drawn based on where the population is likely to vote Republican - a practice known as partisan gerrymandering. California Democrats were poised Thursday to approve their redrawn congressional map in response.
Midterm elections often go against the president's party. Trump is trying to avoid a repeat of the 2018 midterms, when the GOP yielded control during his first presidency to a Democratic majority that stymied his agenda and twice impeached him.
The Texas maps next need approval from the GOP-controlled state Senate and Republican Gov. Greg Abbott's signature. They were drawn so Republicans could potentially pick up five seats in Congress.
The maps being considered by the California Legislature were drawn so Democrats could pickup five seats.
Here's what to know.
Each decade, the Census Bureau collects population data that is used to divvy up the 435 U.S. House seats proportionally among the 50 states. States that grew relative to others might gain a House seat at the expense of states in which populations stagnated or declined.
California and Texas, with the highest populations, have the highest number of representatives of all states.
Most states use their own rules and procedures to create the districts represented by each House member. The states with the lowest population numbers receive only one representative, which means the entire state is a single congressional district.
Americans can find their representative and see a map of their district on the U.S. House website.
The word "gerrymander" was coined in America over 200 years ago as an unflattering means of describing political manipulation in legislative mapmaking.
In states where lawmakers make the maps: If a political party controls a state's legislature and governor's office - or has such a large legislative majority that it can override vetoes - it can effectively draw districts to its advantage.
One common method of gerrymandering is for a majority political party to draw maps that pack voters who support the opposing party into a few districts, thus allowing the majority party to win a greater number of surrounding districts.
Another method is for the majority party to dilute the power of an opposing party's voters by spreading them among multiple districts.
By the first midterm elections after the most recent population count, each state is ready with its district maps, but those districts don't always hold. Courts can find that the political lines are unconstitutional.
While some states have their own limitations, there is no national impediment to a state trying to redraw districts in the middle of the decade. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2019 ruled that the Constitution does not prohibit partisan gerrymandering to increase a party's clout, only gerrymandering that's explicitly done by race.
"The laws about redistricting just say you have to redistrict after every census," Doug Spencer, Rothgerber Jr. Chair in Constitutional Law at the University of Colorado, has said. "And then some state legislatures got a little clever and said, 'Well it doesn't say we can't do it more.'"
Trump urged Texas to redraw maps to help the GOP, and his team has signaled that efforts could expand to other states, with a similar push underway in Missouri and Indiana. Ohio Republicans were already revising their map before Texas took action.
A new California map would need to be approved by voters in a special election in November because that state normally operates with a nonpartisan commission drawing the map to avoid the very sort of political battle that is playing out.
Democrats in Maryland and New York are mulling map revisions as well. New York, however, can't draw new maps until 2028, and even then, only with voter approval.
Democratic-run states have commission systems like California's or other redistricting limits more often than Republican ones do, leaving the GOP with a freer hand to swiftly redraw maps.
Democrats have also vowed to challenge the new Texas maps in court.
