California Moves Forward on Redistricting in Retaliation Against Texas

The redistricting battle comes ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, which will determine whether Republicans maintain control of the House.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks about the “Election Rigging Response Act” at a press conference at the Democracy Center, Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, on Aug. 14, 2025. Mario Tama /Getty Images

California has signed an order to redraw its election boundaries to favor Democrats in a retaliatory act, ahead of a Texas Republican effort to do the same.

Californian Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the Election Rigging Response Act into law in rapid time following its vote by the state legislature, on Aug. 21.

“If Texas moves forward, we will be forced to do the same,” Democratic state Sen. Mike McGuire said on Aug. 14.

More than 50 Democrats left Texas in protest on Aug. 3 following a Republican attempt to pass a redistricting vote that would redraw the state’s election lines to favor Republicans.

They returned two weeks later on the condition that California was moving to redraw its electoral lines to offset the potential loss Democrats would receive in Texas.

The new Texas map has since passed through the state’s House and Senate and is awaiting Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s signature.

The map redrawing is occurring ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, which fall midway between a president’s four-year term and affect all of the House seats and one-third of the Senate seats.

The two main U.S. parties are the Republicans and the Democrats.

Republicans are typically more conservative and lean towards independent state governance, while Democrats tend to be more progressive, preferring more government involvement in social welfare programs, for example.

The House of Representatives and the Senate make up the Legislative branch known as Congress, which is one of the three branches of the U.S. government. The other two are the president, which is the executive branch, and the judiciary.

President Donald Trump heads up an all-Republican-controlled government known as a unified government or a trifecta after Republicans also won the majority in the House and Senate in the 2024 election.

The federal government has only had a trifecta 48 times since the modern two-party system began in 1857, 25 instances under Republican control, and 23 instances under Democratic control.

It happened during the first half of President Joe Biden’s term and during the first half of Trump’s first term.

In July, the Department of Justice identified 4 congressional districts in Texas as unconstitutional, due to being racially gerrymandered.

Gerrymandering, as it’s also known, is an attempt to redraw electoral districts in a way that can favor one political party.

It takes its name from a political cartoon in 1812 about Gov. Elbridge Gerry’s redrawing of the state of Massachusetts’s voting lines that resembled the shape of a salamander.

The redrawing of districts typically happens every 10 years following a U.S. Census Bureau population check, and is a common practice among Republicans and Democrats, but redistricting mid-decade isn’t so common, and neither party likes it when maps are redrawn against their favor.