One in every of California’s most influential labor organizations endorsed redrawing the state’s congressional maps to counter President Trump’s effort to push Republican states, notably Texas, to extend his social gathering’s numbers in Congress in subsequent yr’s midterm election.
Republicans may doubtlessly lose as much as a half dozen seats in California’s 52-member delegation to the U.S. Home of Representatives. After it returns for its summer time recess on Aug. 18, the California Legislature is anticipated to vote to position the measure on the statewide poll in a particular election.
“President Trump has said that Republicans are ‘entitled’ to five more congressional votes in Texas. Well, they aren’t entitled to steal the 2026 election. California’s unions refuse to stand by as democracy is tested,” Lorena Gonzalez, president of the federation, mentioned in a press release. “California Labor is unified in our resolve to fight back against President Trump’s anti-worker agenda.”
Redistricting — the esoteric redrawing of the nation’s 435 congressional districts — sometimes happens as soon as each decade after the U.S. census tallies the inhabitants throughout the nation. Inhabitants shifts may end up in modifications in a state’s allocation of congressional seats, resembling when California misplaced a seat after the 2020 census the primary time within the state’s historical past.
The political redistricting course of had lengthy been crafted by elected officers to provide their political events an edge or to guard incumbents — typically in brazen, bizarrely formed districts. Californians voted in 2010 to create an unbiased fee to attract congressional maps primarily based on communities of curiosity, logical geography and making certain illustration of minority communities.
The California Federation of Labor is dedicated to spending a number of million {dollars} supporting a mid-decade redistricting poll measure, on high of what it already deliberate to spend on aggressive congressional races subsequent yr, in line with an individual acquainted with the plans who requested for anonymity to talk candidly in regards to the technique.
A spokesperson for a number of organizations dedicated to preventing any effort to vary the state’s redistricting course of mentioned that Charles Munger Jr., the son of a billionaire, and who bankrolled the poll measure to create the unbiased fee, is dedicated to creating positive it isn’t weakened.
“While Charles Munger has been out of politics since 2016, he has said he will vigorously defend the reforms he helped pass, including nonpartisan redistricting,” mentioned Amy Thoma, spokesperson for the Voters First Coalition. “His previous success in passing ballot measures in California means he knows exactly what is needed to be successful. We will have the resources necessary to make our coalition heard.”
