California under pressure — again — as redistricting wars escalate

WASHINGTON- When the U.S. Supreme Court sharply scaled back a key provision of the Voting Rights Act last week, Washington Democrats sent a message: Redistricting rules have changed and California — the nation’s largest blue bastion — may have an additional role to play.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said Democrats should “play by the same set of rules” as Republicans. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) promised to fight in “the Deep South and across the country.” And Rep. Terri Sewell, a Democrat from Alabama, was blunt: “I’ll take 52 seats from California, I’m sure. And 17 seats from Illinois.”

These calls for action come as Republican governors in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee call special legislative sessions to redraw the map of Congress ahead of this year’s midterm elections. Florida also approved new maps that could give the GOP four additional seats in the House, and President Trump has urged other Republican states to follow suit.

The Republican response has intensified pressure on Democrats to act, including those in California — where the decision could upend not only the congressional map, but also legislative and local elections.

“We cannot allow this national Republican gerrymandering effort to go unanswered,” said Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach). “If the Republicans go for it, I think we need to leave all options on the table.”

For now, California’s response is far from settled.

Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Los Angeles) warned of “accelerating a race to the bottom.”

(J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press)

The chairman of the California Democratic Party said there are currently no plans to redraw the maps — just months after voters approved a constitutional amendment allowing mid-decade redistricting backed by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The Democratic consultant who drew the state’s current congressional district boundaries says an all-blue map, while possible to create, would likely hurt Democrats more than help them in the long run. And some Democrats in the state Congress worry that the push to match Republican partisan efforts could be bad for the American electorate.

“Rather than accelerating a race to the bottom, the next step is to reduce it because you can reach a point of no return,” said Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Los Angeles), one of the state’s most prominent black lawmakers. “And that’s where we’re headed.”

What California decides – and when – will matter nationally. With 52 congressional seats, no state has more to offer Democrats in a redistricting war. But experts, lawmakers and party officials say the path forward is more complicated than calls from Washington suggest.

California could see 48 blue seats, out of 52

That’s partly because California has already acted. In 2025, voters approved Proposition 50, which drew new congressional district boundaries designed to favor Democrats for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections. The new maps, which could give up to 48 Democratic seats out of 52, are already in effect and voters have begun receiving their absentee ballots.

Going further is not currently on the table – at least not yet.

“We haven’t yet fully won the seats on the map that was drawn in 2025. It seems like going too far to say we’re going to go back to the drawing board and redraw the map,” said Rusty Hicks, chairman of the California Democratic Party.

Hicks said that doesn’t mean the issue couldn’t be part of a future discussion, but he said Democrats in other states shouldn’t look beyond what California has already done.

“We’re trying to get 48 back. How many more do you want us to get back? You want us to get 52 blue? Well, y’all should get in on the fight,” Hicks said. “You should all win seats. Let’s all do it together, because California can’t do it alone, it will take the rest of the country.”

Others aren’t convinced the more aggressive option makes strategic sense in California.

Paul Mitchell, the Democratic redistricting consultant who drew California’s congressional maps under Proposition 50, said the push for a 52-0 delegation reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of how a partisan map would work in the state over time.

“A 52-nil card would have the potential to backfire on us,” Mitchell said. “In 2026, we might win 52 seats. But then in 2028 or 2030 – a bad year for Democrats, let’s say – Democrats lose 11 of those seats. You’ve lured these districts so demonically to a Democratic advantage in a good year that in a bad Democratic year they don’t have the capacity to withstand the challenge.”

Ruling could jeopardize state’s voting rights law

The political debate over congressional maps has so far dominated conversations in Washington. But legal scholars and redistricting experts say the move could also have consequences for California’s mayoral, school board and county supervisor elections.

The justices’ decision, made by the Court’s conservative majority, says states cannot take race into account when creating majority-minority voting districts while still allowing them to accommodate partisan interests.

“A purely partisan map is actually more defensible now than a map drawn with racial considerations,” said Rick Hasen, an election law professor at UCLA. “It’s shaking the world.”

The decision now endangers any drawn district, regardless of level of government, that relied on the Voting Rights Act to justify its boundaries, Hasen said.

And in California, that uncertainty extends to districts established under the state’s Voting Rights Act, which extends protections for minority voters beyond federal law, he said. State law was not directly at issue in the Supreme Court’s decision, but Hasen argues the court’s reasoning could provide new legal grounds for challenging state law as potentially unconstitutional.

Cities like Santa Monica and Palmdale have faced lawsuits alleging their city council general elections diluted the Latino vote. Palmdale settled its case and agreed to move to district elections; The Santa Monica case is ongoing. Hasen argued that cities, as well as other agencies, such as school boards, could now return to court to challenge whether district maps drawn as a result of the California Voting Rights Act are unconstitutional.

“It hasn’t been tested yet,” he said, but he fears the same arguments made to challenge the federal Voting Rights Act could be made against state law.

At the state level, Republican strategist Matt Rexroad believes the decision will also affect the California legislature. He argues that the lines drawn for the state’s Assembly and Senate districts are racial gerrymanders.

“These legislative lines, I would say, are unconstitutional,” Rexroad said. “And these lines will probably change by 2028.”

But Rexroad’s biggest concern goes beyond just a set of maps: It’s about the future of the independent California Redistricting Commission, the nonpartisan body he has championed for years.

A threat to independent redistricting

Rexroad envisions a scenario in which the national political environment provides little incentive for California Democrats to return mapping power to the commission. If Republican states continue to aggressively redraw maps, Democrats will have another justification for keeping power in the hands of the Legislature, the same argument made for passing Proposition 50, he said.

“I don’t think the California Redistricting Commission has ever been more threatened than it is right now,” he said.

J. Morgan Kousser, a historian who has testified as an expert witness in voting rights cases for 47 years, said California’s commitment to the commission could depend on how aggressively Republican states act on redistricting.

“If we return to an all-white South in Congress, California may not return to equity standards,” Kousser said. “It can’t disarm. It can rearm.”

Mitchell, the redistricting consultant, said he hoped California and other states would choose the disarmament path and that there was a national push for independent commissions in each state.

“It’s not good for anyone,” he said. “It was basically a nerd war for lines that improved no district, anywhere.”