On the first Tuesday of November, California registered voters will go to the polls to vote on one topic: redistricting. Based on recent history, this really should not be occurring. It actually betrays the lack of integrity of the monopoly party in the Legislature and Governor Gavin Newsom. I recently served as a California state senator for six years. Please allow me to give you a little history.
Let’s start with Proposition 11 (2008), also known as the Voters FIRST Act. It was drafted by the director of California Common Cause, Kathay Feng. The majority of the funding came from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Dream Team and Charles Munger, Jr.. It was opposed by the California Democratic Party. It barely passed, 50.8 percent to 49.2 percent.
This voter approved initiative created the California Citizens Redistricting Commission. It first met in 2010 and had 14 members. It has functioned two times now. But the model caught the interest of one California Democratic State Senator, Ben Allen, D-Santa Monica.
Sen. Allen wrote Senate Bill 1108 (2016) to provide for the permitting of all counties and cities to establish their own redistricting commissions. This seemed logical and I voted for the bill. It was signed by Governor Jerry Brown.
Allen followed up with another bill, Senate Bill 1018 (2018), allowing school districts, community college districts, and special districts to create redistricting commissions. This also made common sense, and I also voted for this legislation. It too was signed by Governor Brown.
California municipalities now had the ability for their governing bodies to delegate the decennial process to a commission or committee every ten years. Allowing managers to transfer a time-consuming task to a handpicked group of experts only makes sense.
But, in 2019, Sen. Allen tightened the ratchet by authoring Senate Bill 139 to impose “independent redistricting commissions” for California’s counties with populations of 400,000 residents or more to adopt supervisorial districts after each federal decennial census.
Why would Allen come back and force, at that time, 21 of California’s counties to establish redistricting committees? It was the usual pablum: “Gerrymandering has continued at the local level. In many jurisdictions, incumbents have used the local line-drawing process to disenfranchise growing ethnic and language minority communities, reduce the voting power of political minorities, and even draw political opponents out of the district they were planning to run in.”
This is why we have legislators in Sacramento—to fix perceived problems because they are so much smarter than those at the local level. I’m being a little snarky, but mandates can get a little overreaching. That’s why I voted against this bill in the Senate Governance and Finance Committee and twice on the Senate Floor (May and September). But the super-majority party almost always consistently votes for bills that are authored by members of their party. It would go to the governor’s desk.
What happened next was a surprise. Gov. Newsom did not sign this bill.
Here was his message:
“To the Members of the California State Senate:I am returning Senate Bill 139 without my signature.This bill requires a county with more than 400,000 residents to establish an independent redistricting commission tasked with adopting the county’s supervisorial districts following each federal decennial census.While I agree these commissions can be an important tool in preventing gerrymandering, local jurisdictions are already authorized to establish independent, advisory or hybrid redistricting commissions. Moreover, this measure constitutes a clear mandate for which the state may be required to reimburse counties pursuant to the California Constitution and should therefore be considered in the annual budget process.”So, why the history lesson? Because there is profound disingenuousness in the consistency of dealing with redistricting. How can a senator be so enthralled with the California Citizens Redistricting Commission concept in 2019, but then turn around in 2025 and toss its work into the trash bin? Senator Allen voted for ACA 8 and AB 604, the legislation putting Proposition 50 on the November ballot to address Congressional redistricting.
But Senator Allen wasn’t alone. Here are the nine California state senators who voted for his SB 139 in 2019 and Gov. Newsom’s initiative in 2025: Allen, Archuleta, Durazo, Gonzalez, Hurtado, McGuire, Rubio, Stern, Umberg, and Wiener.
Most of these hypocritical legislators are near the completion of their involvement in the Capitol thanks to term limits. If these nine would have opposed this effort to allow Newsom to supposedly play tit-for-tat with President Trump, it may not have moved out of the state Senate or just squeaked by with one vote. Instead of being principled, they played politics. They should be ashamed of themselves. And, once again, the monopoly party is placing a large fiscal cost on California’s already over-taxed residents.
Even more damning are Newsom’s own words. He knew that the commission “can be an important tool in preventing gerrymandering” and that Sacramento would be “required to reimburse counties.” But Gavin, why flip-flop and why impose Proposition 50’s cost of $280 million on Californians? Are you kidding me?
Newsom and his colleagues in the state Senate are showing serious character flaws. Cramming Proposition 50 on the November special election ballot is an improper use of public funds. Especially as the state of California continues to sink further into debt thanks to Newsom’s fiscal mismanagement. His manipulating voters with their own tax dollars borders on criminality.
John Moorlach is a senior fellow and director of the Center for Public Accountability at California Policy Center. He previously served in the California State Senate and on the Orange County Board of Supervisors.
