To Right-Wing Billionaire Charles T. Munger, Jr.: Despite the fact that you, along with former Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, supported the 2008 ballot measure that created an independent redistricting commission for California state legislative offices and the 2010 ballot measure that extended the independent commission’s jurisdiction to California’s Congressional elections, “cynical hypocrisy” now be thy name.

After being approved by both chambers of the California state Legislature, on August 21, Governor Gavin Newsom signed the “Election Rigging Response Act”, a ballot measure (Proposition 50) that will come before the entire California electorate in a Special Election this November 4 for an up or down vote.

The measure, as the Golden State governor explained, calls for a “temporary” shift of the power to redistrict California’s Congressional seats from the state’s constitutionally mandated extreme partisan gerrymander that, at the express request of President Donald J. Trump, was adopted by the GOP-controlled TX state Legislature. Newsom is of the view that a “temporary” departure from California’s non-partisan redistricting is necessary to counteract Republican rigging of the 2026 Congressional election. (In this writer’s view, Prop. 50 is needed to prevent this nation from devolving into a full-blown fascist dictatorship.)

Note: Prop. 50 does not alter the continued use of the independent redistricting commission with respect to Golden State legislative offices.

Even before Newsom signed the Election Rigging Response Act into law, Californians, statewide, received a slick, 4-page mailer from a group calling itself “Protect the Voters First Act”. At the bottom of the last page, the mailer reveals that Munger is its principal funder.

Munger’s mailer accurately describes California’s independent redistricting commission system that he helped to create as a “landmark election reform”; one that “has become a national model for independent redistricting.” But the right-wing billionaire’s deceptive mailer fails to mention that, in 2021-22, every Congressional Republican opposed federal legislation that would have extended California’s “national model for independent redistricting” to all 50 States.

Instead, the mailer falsely goes on to proclaim that California’s Prop 50 is a threat to democracy…

Cynical hypocrisy

Over the past fifteen years, in every state where they’ve gained trifecta state government control (governor + both chambers of state legislatures), Republicans have either created or aspired to create extreme partisan gerrymandered state legislative and Congressional districts in order to entrench power and prevent a majority of their respective electorates from regaining it.

What these hypocrites neglect to mention is that not a single Republican member of the U.S. House voted for a 2022 election reform measure that would have mandated that every state utilize California’s “landmark election reform” for Congressional elections. After that reform measure passed the Democratically-controlled U.S. House, Republicans used the filibuster to block it in the U.S. Senate.

The Republican approach is especially cynical. They pretend to favor fair electoral maps in Blue States like California because that maximizes the size of the California Republican delegation. Those same Republicans refuse to mandate that Republicans in other States produce fair maps, because that could reduce the number of Congressional Republicans elected elsewhere. Fairness for me, but not for thee.

Project REDMAP

Extreme partisan gerrymandering was the key goal of the GOP’s “Project REDMAP” scheme in 2010, headed up successfully at the time by longtime political operative Karl Rove, as detailed in David Daley’s 2016 book, Ratf**ked: The True Story Behind the Secret Plan to Steal America’s Democracy. The project was by no means confined to Deep Red States.

The goal of extreme partisan gerrymandering is to manipulate electoral maps so that political power becomes entrenched. The Party engaging in extreme partisan gerrymandering locks in its power over an ensuing decade when it draws up new maps following the decennial U.S. Census.

At its core, extreme partisan gerrymandering is a deeply undemocratic project that strips a majority of the electorate of its ability to remove one Party from its entrenched power.

Swing-state Wisconsin, as we previously observed, provides a classic example. As a result of a low-turnout 2010 midterm election, trifecta control was narrowly flipped from Democrats to Republicans in the Badger State. Upon gaining trifecta control, Republicans then produced a 2011 Plan that shifted 2.3 million state residents — more than 40% of its population — into new state Assembly districts. A Republican majority in the Legislature became entrenched over at least the next decade.

As one of the successful petitions filed with the WI Supreme Court challenging the redistricting noted:

For the People Act

Back in D.C. in 2022, the “For the People Act”, HR-1, entailed a comprehensive election, campaign, ethics and voting rights reform measure that would have, among other things, eliminated partisan gerrymandering of Congressional Districts, curbed dark money campaign contributions, and would have preempted many state-based GOP voter suppression and intimidation laws, schemes and tactics around the country. A Democratic majority passed it in the House. All but two House Republicans voted against it. Those two Republicans voted not present.

In other words, every Republican member of the California Congressional delegation who now insists that California retain fair maps for the 2026 election so as to preserve their own seats, voted to allow Republicans in other states to utilize rigged maps to obtain and perpetuate Republican control of Congress.

Although 49 Senate Democrats co-sponsored the Senate version of the bill, it died after then Democratic Senators Joe Manchin (WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) (both would soon declare themselves independent and are no longer in office) refused to waive the undemocratic filibuster for this critical voting rights legislation.

Can’t be Challenged in Federal Court

Trump’s threat to sue California if voters pass Prop 50 is nothing but hot air.

In Rucho v. Common Cause [PDF] (2019), the U.S. Supreme Court’s right-wing majority ducked the issue of whether extreme partisan gerrymandering violated the U.S. Constitution, ruling that the issue was not justiciable in federal courts.

In other words, partisan gerrymandering of Congressional Districts, no matter how extreme, cannot be contested in federal court. (Note: That doesn’t foreclose the new lawsuit alleging that TX illegally engaged in a race-based gerrymander, which is still — for now — in violation of the Voting Rights Act.)

Fool’s errand

Anyone who thinks democracy can be shielded via Blue States leading by example in the form of independent redistricting commissions while Republicans, in both Red States and elsewhere, rig the system via extreme partisan gerrymandering, is engaged in a fool’s errand. The ultimate question is fair representation for all in the U.S. House of Representatives, the People’s House. And that can’t occur if only Blue States play by the rules.

As a guest on a recent BradCast noted, it’s perhaps best to think of Prop 50 as a form of “nuclear deterrence” designed to shield democracy until badly needed reforms can be instituted nationwide.