Redistricting is a purely political act. I know its boring, and very inside baseball, to talk about it, but jobs, power, influence and policy are all affected by how the political lines in any state are drawn. State legislatures were granted the power in Article 1, Section 4 of the US Constitution to draw Congressional lines, and, of course, most state Constitutions give them the right to draw state legislature lines. It is important to differentiate the power to draw state legislative districts and Congressional districts, because the Constitutional power to draw those lines are drawn from different sources.
With that introduction, let’s look at what California’s Arrogant Authoritarian in Charge (AAIC) Newsom is planning in the upcoming battle with regard to the redistricting of California Congressional lines.
First, we need to look at federal reapportionment laws. 2 USC Section 2a governs the “apportionment” process, that is, how the number of members of Congress are distributed between the states. Apportionment occurs once every ten years after the decennial census and that is when the states are allowed to draw the new Congressional districts.
Then, the redistricting process begins for both Congressional districts and state legislative districts in each of the respective states. That process is governed by state laws. The California law that governs that is Article XXI of the California Constitution, which puts the power in an independent Redistricting Commission, and which only has the power to redistrict once every ten years.
For many years, the courts stayed out of the redistricting process, and have only intervened if the districts were not “roughly equal” in population, or they violate the rules of the Voting Rights Act.
In 2021, the Biden Department of Justice, the League of United Latin American Citizens, the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, Voto Latino, and several other left wing groups filed a lawsuit against Texas for violating the Voting Rights Act. Those lawsuits triggered the ability of Texas to legally redraw its Congressional districts. In 2025, the Trump DOJ also wrote to Texas saying it had improperly considered race when it drew its Congressional districts. Texas agreed, and began the process of attempting to comply with the Voting Rights Act.
No such lawsuits were ever filed against California. California has no basis for redrawing its districts under Federal or State law. AAIC Newsom is somehow trying to imply that he has the right to redraw California’s Congressional districts for strictly political reasons based on the actions of Texas. There is no legal or Constitutional grounds for doing so, and his claim that he can do so is purely political rhetoric.
But you will never hear any of this from the media. The media believe Texas is acting for purely political reasons. They will never mention that the Biden administration and left wing groups in Texas started this fight. They will never say that the questionable interpretation of the Voting Rights Act, that they have been advocating for years, and which has been applied against states around the country, is now coming back to bite them. The media will never say that the left is now reaping what they have sown for over 50 years. Texas is allowed to redraw its districts, and apply the court cases that have condemned the use of race in drawing of the districts, because the left initiated the fight.
California has no such excuse, and quite frankly, has to violate state and federal law to do what AAIC Newsom has proposed. The media will never call him on that, and will continue to insist that Texas started this fight. They didn’t, the left did, and now the left and AAIC Newsom are whining about the process.
Next time, maybe the left will think before they start a fight they are certain to lose.