Dear California Democrats,
Let’s talk about Prop 50 for a minute, shall we? We’ve all got our ballots — Republicans, Democrats, and No Party Preference (NPP) voters. As a Democrat, you are probably inclined to mark YES — to stand up to Donald Trump.
I’d like to try to convince you to do the opposite — to vote NO — with a perspective that you might not have heard before.
You’re supposed to vote YES and I’m supposed to vote NO because this is a referendum on Gavin Newsom vs Donald Trump. You stand on Gavin’s side — at least when it comes to standing up to Trump. I get it.
After all, it’s true that Texas Republicans pushed through redistricting at Trump’s behest, in order to try to pick up five more Republican seats in Congress — part of Trump’s ‘maximum warfare, everywhere, all the time’ approach.
The typical Democratic rationale for Prop 50 is that you’ve gotta “fight fire with fire,” as the Yes on 50 posters say. Trump isn’t going to back down, so California Democrats need to stand up and hold the line. California needs to be redistricted to eliminate five Republican districts, to counter the advantage that the Texas legislature is giving to Republicans there.
The Republican argument that Prop 50 tears down independent citizen-led redistricting may be true on the surface, but there’s a deeper truth, you might say: someone needs to stand up to Trump and his determination to rig the election in his favor.
The problem with this line of reasoning, my Democratic friends, is that the cost of pursuing this act of defiance against Trump is trashing a thoughtfully designed system that works reasonably well for California.
When Paul Mitchell drew up the new congressional lines for California just a few months ago, he did so expressly for the purpose of eliminating five Republican seats. He wasn’t prioritizing issues like which community should go with which community, or how far representatives would have to drive to stay connected to their constituents, or whether voters in parts of the state that have historically felt overlooked might feel even more overlooked.
Thus, you get districts like the new CD02, running from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Oregon state line and then inland to Siskiyou, Shasta, and Modoc Counties. Its northeastern boundary is the intersection of the California, Oregon, and Nevada state lines northeast of Alturas, the county seat of Modoc County — very very far from the Golden Gate Bridge.
Driving the proposed district from end to end — from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Oregon and Nevada borders — would take nearly 13 hours. That’s not a community; that’s a road trip. And it’s a perfect example of what happens when partisan goals outweigh the needs of real people.
While CD02 is one of the most egregious cases, there are plenty of others. The fundamental problem with Prop 50 is that it is not appropriate to trash the integrity of California’s congressional maps in service of “fighting” Donald Trump. Voters in both Marin and Modoc Counties deserve a representative who understands their communities and can truly speak for them. Prop 50 harms that prospect in CD02 and many other districts around the state.
Here’s a thought, Democrats: Instead of fighting Trump by gerrymandering the bejesus out of our great state — laying waste to maps painstakingly created by an independent citizen’s commission — how about you show him up by managing California better than Trump is managing the country? Prove that a Democratic-led California can reduce crime and homelessness, protect communities from wildfires, improve schools, and tackle the cost pressures families face.
That’s the “retribution” Californians deserve — and the standard you should demand of yourselves.
Sincerely,
Bill Jackson
Chair, SFGOP
No posts
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.