A ballot measure put to the people of California on November 4 saw an overwhelming victory for Golden State Democrats. Proposition 50 asked voters to approve the “temporary use of new congressional district maps through 2030.” With a whopping 63.8% voting in favor and just 36.2% against (based on 70% of the vote counted), it is anticipated that the new district borders will add an additional five “safe” seats for Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives.
But how did this initiative start, and what are the wider implications? Liberty Nation News spoke with Editor-at-Large James Fite to explore these questions and more.
### Birth of a Movement?
**Mark Angelides:** This whole exercise has its roots in the 2020 Census report admitting that major mistakes were made. What’s the deal here?
**Jim Fite:** The redistricting process is supposed to go like this: Every ten years, the Census updates the demographic information for the nation, revealing how many people live in each state. That count is then used to determine how many representatives each state should have in the U.S. House.
Each state’s legislatures—or, in some cases, independent redistricting commissions—then redraw the congressional district maps. However, back in 2022, the U.S. Census Bureau announced that it had significantly undercounted populations in six states and overcounted in eight.
If the information used to create the latest congressional maps was incorrect, then the maps themselves are flawed.
**Mark:** Yes, and even the Bureau admitted these counting errors almost entirely negatively affected the GOP. How much impact will these new districts have on the eventual makeup of the House, considering several Republican-leaning states are doing the same?
**Jim:** It’s hard to say exactly how big a difference this will make. The only way to know with certainty how an election will turn out is to wait until the votes are in.
That disclaimer aside, think of any given congressional seat as existing on a spectrum from “reliably Democratic” to “leans Democratic,” “toss up,” “leans Republican,” and finally “reliably Republican.” The ends of that spectrum are called reliable for a reason.
Gavin Newsom’s redistricting plan is projected to result in at least four, and possibly as many as five, seats currently held by Republicans being won by Democrats in the 2026 midterm elections. That would be enough to flip the House majority.
But California isn’t the only state in this gerrymandering game. Texas alone is projected to pick up another five Republican seats based on its new maps, resulting in a net movement of zero across both states.
Ohio’s new map makes it more likely the GOP will flip two Democratic districts, while Missouri and North Carolina could allow Republicans to pick up one more seat in each state. So, as of now, it seems Republicans are up by four.
### The Prop 50 Progeny
**Mark:** There’s a lot of speculation about whether this will lead to a tit-for-tat escalation. But is it true that most Democrat-leaning states are already heavily gerrymandered?
**Jim:** If you look at actual vote results compared to how many representatives of each party sit in Congress, it does appear that solid, dark blue states are about as gerrymandered as they can get—but the same is true for the reddest states as well.
A study last year from the University of Minnesota revealed that 13 states have been represented in Congress by a single party consistently for the last six congressional elections.
Currently, Democrats control the full congressional delegations—both House and Senate—in seven states: Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Mexico, and Rhode Island. Yet, in each of these states, registered Republicans vote in every election. This sizable portion of the population is unfairly unrepresented in Congress.
To be completely fair, Vermont probably belongs in that category as well, since Senator Bernie Sanders is the only non-Democrat but technically caucuses with them.
The same situation applies to Democrats in a dozen red states. Democratic voters exist in all of these states, yet not a single Democrat sits in the House or Senate for Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, West Virginia, or Wyoming.
It’s only the states that still have mixed-party delegations that could possibly gerrymander any more than they already are.
**Mark:** How far is what’s happening now from the vision of the Founders?
**Jim:** The Founders originally planned to avoid political parties, although, of course, that didn’t last beyond the first Congress. The United States was also much smaller during the Founders’ lifetimes. James Madison, often considered the last of the Founders to pass, died in June of 1836. Arkansas was admitted as the 25th state that same month.
At that time, the U.S. population was estimated at around 15 million people. While the Founders may have imagined a larger populace in their wildest dreams, 342 million people spread across 50 states over some 3,000 miles from the Atlantic to the Pacific is a very different and complex situation.
Most likely, problems like today’s gerrymandering weren’t part of the original plan—or perhaps weren’t even considered. In hindsight, however, such challenges seem inevitable.
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As California’s Proposition 50 shows, redistricting remains a powerful and contentious political tool, with wide-reaching implications for the balance of power in Congress and the representation of voters across the nation.
https://www.libertynation.com/california-prop-50-sets-the-stage-for-midterm-battle/