The NPR Politics Podcast - If Texas Redraws Its House Map, California Governor Says It Will, Too

Episode Date: August 6, 2025

If Texas Republicans go through with their plan to redraw the state's congressional districts to give Republicans five more U.S. House seats, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, says he'll push through new districts in his state that benefit Democrats. We discuss the growing redistricting arms race and why, at least for California, it's not that simple.This episode: political correspondent Ashley Lopez, senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro, and KQED's Guy Marzorati.This podcast was produced by Casey Morell & Bria Suggs, and edited by Rachel Baye. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.For handpicked podcast recommendations every week, subscribe to NPR's Pod Club newsletter at npr.org/podclub.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for NPR and the following message comes from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. RWJF is a national philanthropy working toward a future where health is no longer a privilege but a right. Learn more at RWJF.org. Hi, this is Mitch from Columbia, Missouri, and I am driving to my first day of professional development as a middle school teacher for the 2025-2020s school year. This podcast was recorded at 105 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, August 6th, 2825. Things may have changed by the time that you're listening to this recording. But I know that I will be taking very highly detailed doodles all day long.

Thanks. Here's the show. Oof, middle school. I mean, I hope he keeps that Midwestern enthusiasm up because... Oh, my God. That is a rough age. God bless. I just had like flashbacks. God. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics. I'm Domenico Montanaro,

senior political editor and correspondent. And Guy Maserati of Member Station, KQED in San Francisco, is here as well. Welcome back to the podcast. Great to be with you all. And today on the show, we're talking about how Democratic leaders in states like California are responding to Republican efforts in places like Texas to redraw their state's congressional districts. Domenico, I want to back up for a second because a lot has happened, especially when we're talking about Texas in the last week or so. So can you remind us what's going on in Texas? Yeah. I mean, the basic point here is that Trump is trying to retain control of the levers of power in Washington. And traditionally, you know, the party out of power winds up gaining usually 20 plus seats in midterm elections. And it's

even worse than that when a president is below 50% approval, which President Trump is currently. So, you know, Republicans are facing some potential headwinds here, and Trump has asked Republicans in the state of Texas to find more seats. He wants them to, you know, create a map that could get as many as five seats. And they've done that, but they're running into the issue that Democrats have fled the state and they don't have, you know, the numbers to have a quorum. Right. And Democrats are effectively blocking this vote. although that's not expected to be able to hold up forever. Right. And Republicans are likely to get those five seats that they want.

Yeah. They eventually have to come home. And the governor can always call another special session. So we'll see what happens with that guy. I want to talk about California now. California governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, wants to redraw that state's districts to benefit Democrats. Can you explain why California Democrats might have more challenges in doing this than Republicans in Texas? Yeah.

the biggest challenge is that Newsom would have to go to the voters to make this change, unlike in Texas. And I think why that's a challenge in California is that the voters are the ones who have created the current redistricting process we have, which is independent. We have this independent commission. Voters gave it the power for congressional lines back in 2010. And this commission, they're not looking at voter registration. They're not looking to protect incumbents or really have any kind of political influence on their process. They've drawn these lines the last two cycles. Newsom is going to have to go to voters and kind of make the argument that it's, in his words, a break the glass moment, right? That even though this commission has been popular

among Californians, that it's time to set it aside and really pursue a more partisan gerrymandering of our lines. Yeah, so this would have to happen via ballot initiative, right? And how many votes is that going to need? Like, what is that shaping up to look like? Yeah, it's a pretty tight timeline, right? Like the goal that I've heard from Democrats in California is to get this on the ballot in early November. So legislature comes back to Sacramento, August 18th. From there, I think you're going to see a pretty quick process to both put this on the ballot, which would need a two-thirds vote, and also to approve a new map. I think the goal is let's have this gerrymandered map out there in public for the public to look at to know before they go to the polls. So yes, Newsom is going to have

to get to two-thirds support. There is a supermajority Democratic control in both the California Senate and assembly. And honestly, I've heard Democrats really shift on this in the last couple weeks. I don't know the seven stages of what, but they've moved past acceptance to maybe exuberance. Like there was initial skepticism. Could they get this done? Was there enough time? Is this a fair process? They've kind of moved past that. And what I'm hearing from a lot of Democratic legislators now is let's, you know, let's fight. Let's, you know, fight fire with fire. And if Texas moves ahead with this, let's have a trigger where California will have a new map as well. Yeah. And I wonder how Republicans, though, in California's congressional delegation are feeling about this. Are we hearing

yet? I'm sure they're not thrilled about being drawn out of their districts, but have they been speaking out about this yet? Yeah, I mean, they've become the biggest fans of California's independent redistricting in the last few weeks. I mean, we've heard, you know, Republicans obviously concerned for their own seats. We even heard a Republican Kevin Kylie in the Sacramento area, who a lot of folks see is particularly vulnerable in a redraw. He came out with a bill in Congress to say, There should not be any mid-decade redistrictings anywhere in America. He also criticized the House Speaker, Mike Johnson, said, you know, he should step in and kind of stop this. So clearly there is some concern among Republicans here that this map could, you know, lose them a few seats in California.

So I should say, like, California isn't the only state that has an independent commission for redistricting. There was, like, this movement across the country to get these commissions up and running to, like, have a say and how these lines are. drawn. What has changed, though, since California passed its commission? The whole world. I mean, everything about politics has changed since 2010 for the most part. I mean, there was no President Trump. There was no Donald Trump, even on the horizon, as a possibility to be president. And now he is. You know, he's taking a really partisan approach, trying to push to have as many seats as possible squeezed out of Texas. And it's the largest

state where Republicans can get those number of seats. That's why California on the Democratic side is so key because it's the largest state that has a majority of Democrats in the state who would be going to Congress and where Democrats feel like they could really try to squeeze out more seats for them and to be able to counterbalance Texas. So it's, you know, a huge issue for a lot of voters who feel like Democrats have not been fighting fire with fire and that they have been really fighting with one hand behind their back. I talked to Aaron Covey, who is the House editor at the Cook Political Report about this. And here's some of what she had to say. It's really forced them to operate at a disadvantage when it comes to a, you know, redistricting

arms race. Because Republicans largely control the redistricting process in red states. But in a lot of blue states, Democrats have ceded a lot of their power to these independent commissions, which draw fair maps, but don't allow Democrats to maximize their gains. There had been this movement with Democrats seeing redistricting happening, gerrymandering across the country where they see these weirdly shaped districts said that, hey, that's unfair. There should be a movement to have more independent commissions. Unfortunately for Democrats, it was mostly only Democrats that signed on for that and Republicans continued to be able to gerrymander. And look, the reason that they're able to do it so easily is because we are more segregated ideologically than we ever. have been before. And that kind of sorting makes it really easy to draw tight lines around,

you know, one party or the other. Yeah. Well, Guy, there are still a lot of Democratic voters in California, including people who voted for, you know, the original redistricting commission initiative. I mean, I wonder how they're seeing this. I mean, do you think they're, like, is there an appetite to change this and reverse course? I mean, we'll have to see. But I think the extent to which Newsom can make this a national election, right? If this goes to the ballot in California, his path to getting this pass is really about making this Democrats first Republicans. And you saw this right when Newsom was facing a recall a few years ago. His path to victory was really making this about red versus blue, California versus Trump, Democrats versus Republicans.

I think that's really going to be the strategy that he'll pursue to try to get this passed by California voters and not make this about any independent redistricting or fair maps, make this a partisan fight. And to Domenico's point, I think Newsom really sees this beyond just responding to Texas as responding to a desire by Democrats to have more combativeness, to have more fight, to be more confrontational. And I think he sees this both for his own ambitions and kind of where the party's at right now as a real opportunity to do this. And given the stakes here, this is likely going to be the most closely watched election in the country if they wind up getting this on the ballot in California

because there's a lot at stake. Yeah. All right. We're going to take a quick break. More in a moment. Support for NPR and the following message comes from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. RWJF is a national philanthropy working toward a future where health is no longer a privilege but a right. Learn more at RWJF.org. And we're back.

Domenico, there are several states where lawmakers are talking about redrawing their congressional districts, Missouri, Ohio, Florida, Illinois, and New York, just to name a few. What do you make of all these states considering new districts like in the middle of a decade? Yeah, I think it's really because they've set off this redistricting arms race with what started in Texas here. And I think all of the other states now are looking at ways that they could squeeze out some more seats to potentially either help President Trump or to be able to help. help Democrats try to take back the House to be a check on President Trump. And that's why we're seeing this all across the country. We're likely going to see this over the next six months to a year. And it's going to shape what happens in 26. We're going to have to wait to see how it all winds up shaking out. There's a lot that's going to have to happen. But it really is a political

earthquake in the sense that we're not even sure what the landscape is going to be, what the seats are going to be. And California and Texas are the two major players who we're going to be looking at. But like what kind of future does this sort of map out for us? I imagine there could be some fallout. If this is like an effective tool to keep control for either party, we could maybe see this happen every two years. I mean, what do you think could come of all this? Well, I mean, there's only so much, you know, juice you can get from the orange when you squeeze it, right? I mean, you can try to strain it. You can try to, you know, use a new tool. And they may get a few more drips out of this, but there's only so far they can really go. But you very well may see,

you know, more and continued attempts as populations change. A lot of southern states have been growing. The Sunbelt states have been increasing in population. That's only served to help Republicans because a lot of those places have been controlled by Republicans. Yeah. And I, what are you watching for in California as this debate continues? I'm really curious. So if Texas moves ahead with their plan, Newsom goes to the ballot, asking California voters for these new maps, what does the no campaign look like? I think when independent redistricting came about in California, it was really an effort by then-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, some of big financial supporters. Do they come out of the woodwork? I mean, they haven't really been

at the forefront of state politics in a few years. Is this more of like a good government campaign, where it's people who support the commission saying, look, you know, the proof is in the pudding. You compare California's House campaigns to what's going on in Texas and Florida. We've had far more competitive elections in our state over the last two cycles than those states that have drawn more partisan maps. Is that a winning message, you know, the good government thing? Or does this become a national kind of campaign as well? Do we see national Republican money pour into California to kind of fund this effort against Newsom? I'm really curious to see how that pans.

out. I will say we're kind of like already seeing this, right? Common Cause, which is one of the biggest advocates for nonpartisan redistricting, saying, like, there's reporting that their leaders are starting to rethink their position because of the, I mean, the sort of posture that Democrats have been put in. I think it just shows you how much Trump has really broken a lot of what had been, what people really felt were their strong beliefs in how to go about good government. All right. Let's leave it there for today. Thank you for joining us, guys. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics.

And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast. Support for NPR and the following message comes from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. RWJF is a national philanthropy, working toward a future where health is no longer a privilege. but a right. Learn more at our WJF.org.