Dem
47
GOP
53
Within 2 hours of the special session of the Texas legislature ending, Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows (R) gaveled in a second special session. This time, Texas Republicans are determined to steal five Democratic House seats by rigging the district boundaries. When the Texas House Democrats come back, which they have said they will do, there will be a quorum and the bill adopting the new map will pass. The Democrats said they made their point and simply couldn't stay in Illinois indefinitely, even with the support of Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D-IL). Being in the Texas legislature is a part-time job. It pays $7,200 per year plus $221 per day the legislature is in session. No one can live on that except very rich people, so most legislators have regular jobs and businesses they can't leave for 6 months. Burrows told the absent legislators that if they returned before the session today, they would be arrested.
Meanwhile California Democrats announced their response to the Texas move on Friday. There is a new map that will override the map drawn by the independent commission, but only for 2026, 2028, and 2030. Then, after the next census, the independent commission gets to draw the map for 2032 to 2040.
The new map is based on partisan registration numbers rather than PVIs. Here is a summary of the new map, whose goal is to unseat these five Republicans. First, Doug Malfa's district, CA-01, which covers Chico, Redding, and Susanville in the north, had a GOP registration advantage of 17 points and a PVI of R+12. That will swing to a Democratic registration advantage of 10 points.
Second, Kevin Kiley's 450-mile long district that includes the Sacramento exurbs and Lake Tahoe will be significantly shortened. The 6-point GOP edge in the R+2 district will become an 8-point Democratic registration edge.
Third, David Valadao's R+1 district in the Central Valley, including parts of Bakersfield, will become much bluer, raising the Democratic registration edge by 6 points. Valadao will have a tough time hanging on, especially if there is a blue wave.
Fourth, Ken Calvert in CA-41, an R+2 district around Riverside County and Palm Springs, will change dramatically to a 20-point registration advantage for the Democrats. Bye, Ken.
Fifth, Darrell Issa, one of the richest and most detested members of the House, has an interesting history. He was first elected to the House in CA-48 in 2000. In 2002, the district was renumbered CA-49. Issa ran and won again. He was reelected again in 2004, 2006, 2008, and 2010. After the 2010 census, the district was made more compact, but Issa ran and won again. Also in 2014. In 2016, he won by about 3,000 votes. In 2018, he saw that he would not win and did not run. In 2020, he switched to CA-50, a friendlier district to him on the grounds that he owned his mother's home there. He ran and won. In 2022 he switched to the new CA-48, which now covered the eastern part of San Diego County and western part of Riverside County and won. In 2024 he won again. The new district will add deep-blue Palm Springs and purple Escondido and San Marcos and take out deep-red Poway. This will be his biggest challenge ever.
In addition to targeting the five Republicans above, three vulnerable Democrats will get help from bluer districts. These are Adam Gray (R+1) around Modesto and Merced, Derek Tran (D+1) in Orange County, and George Whitesides (D+3) in northern L.A. County. Small blue areas have been added to the districts of Democrats Josh Harder (D+1) in San Joaquin County and Mike Levin (D+4) around Oceanside and Encinitas. By making these districts bluer Democrats won't have to spend as much money defending them, leaving more money for other fights.
One problem Democrats had is they complied with what is left of the Voting Rights Act. That restricted their ability to muck around with minority-majority districts, even though it would have helped them. In Texas, they are simply ignoring the VRA and are assuming that either the Supreme Court will bail them out or take so long to rule on the expected lawsuits that it is too late to change the 2026 map. If the California Democrats had ignored the VRA, they could possibly have made the House delegation 52D, 0R.
However, even with the new map, the Democrats are not home free. There will be a special election in November in which the voters have to approve the map for 2026, 2028, and 2030. It is not a slam dunk that the initiative will pass. Former Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will fight tooth and nail to defeat the initiative, so there will be ads from dueling governors flooding the airwaves soon. The amount of money to be spent on the special election is expected to be way north of $100 million. Here is Schwarzenegger training for the special election campaign. In addition to his partisan instinct to help save Republicans, Schwarzenegger is insulted by the workaround. The independent commission was instituted on his watch and he is very proud of it:
Schwarzenegger won't be the only Republican opposing the measure. Kevin McCarthy is leading the fundraising campaign. Charles Munger Jr. has already pledged $30 million. It is possible the Republicans will be able to outspend the Democrats, but if spending the most money determined the winner, President Harris would be sitting in the White House now. She and her super PACs outspent Trump by $800 million and she still lost. Also, in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race in April, Elon Musk's $21 million for the Republican dwarfed what Democrat Susan Crawford had to spend but she still won by 10 points. (V)