Californians Can Help Rescue Democracy

Californians have the opportunity to be heroes. Not just heroes to our own community and our own state, but to all the people living in our country.

That opportunity is Prop 50.

Donald Trump doesn’t intend to play fair in next year’s midterms. He has reason for concern: polls show that he is poised to lose control of Congress in 2026 as Democrats are expected to take the majority in the House. District-by-District polling indicates he will fall five seats shy of his needed majority.

Given that knowledge, he should be stumping in those Districts. He should be campaigning hard. Or he should shift to policies and behavior that would prove to be more acceptable to voters.

Instead, he decided to take a different approach. He decided to try to fix the results ahead of time in his favor. And that is precisely what Prop 50 which we will be voting on is all about. It is an attempt to head him off at the pass, to counter his moving his Bishop by us blocking the move with our Queen.

Reminiscent of 2020 when election night projections showed Trump lost the electoral college, prompting Trump to call the Trump-supporting Georgia official in charge of that state’s balloting to request he somehow "find me 11,780 votes" which would then turn the outcome in Georgia inside out, give Trump Georgia's electoral votes and help him be re-elected. Fortunately, this Republican official realized that what Trump was asking him to do was illegal, prudently taped the conversation, and refused to cooperate.

This time Trump called on a more reliable supporter, Texas Governor Greg Abbott. He instructed Abbott to gerrymander Texas' districts in a manner that would cost five currently elected Democrats their seats and turn those seats into safe Republican seats. Abbott agreed.

We can sit back, do nothing and allow this dishonest fixing of the midterms to take place, or we can counter it. Governor Newsom chose to attempt to counter it. He warned Texas that should they proceed with their plan, he will counter by doing the same in California to maintain the rightful balance. Texas proceeded. Newsom responded with Prop 50.

Unlike Texas, here voters will decide if we should change the districts, not the politicians. The legislature drew up the proposed districts, but it is up to us voters to approve them. California voters, then, are ultimately the decision makers, not the politicians. The bipartisan Redistricting Committee is not terminated. Prop 50 decrees this to be a temporary redistricting. In five years, the Redistricting Committee will again address our shift in population and demographics to objectively draw up our districts.

Gerrymandering districts is something all who believe in ethics and democracy wish to avoid. Trump attempting to steer the course away from defeat in an underhanded way such as this is no less undemocratic than when his campaign attempted to send fake electors into seven State Houses after he had lost the popular vote in those seven states. Just as those 84 fake electors were blocked from entering their respective State Houses to preserve the democratic integrity of the people’s will, we in California now have an opportunity to block Trump’s latest illicit maneuver. And if the only possible tools available to us is to literally fight fire with fire – to fight gerrymandering with gerrymandering – we have to rely on that option barring no others.

If you have been concerned, frustrated and upset with the direction politics and authority has taken in America; if you have wanted to contribute to finding a means to curb the undermining of our democratic processes, you have that opportunity November 4^th by casting a Yes vote on Prop 50.