2025 California Proposition 50


California Proposition 50, officially known as the Election Rigging Response Act, is an amendment to the constitution of the U.S. state of California, which was passed by voters in a special election ballot on November 4, 2025. At the urging of California governor Gavin Newsom, the proposition was put on the ballot by the Democratic-controlled California State Legislature. Approved by 64.4% of voters, the proposition redrew the state's congressional districts, replacing the ones drawn by the bipartisan California Citizens Redistricting Commission during the earlier 2020 redistricting cycle. The new districts will be used for the 2026 United States House of Representatives elections through the 2030 elections. Following the 2030 census, congressional redistricting authority will return to the independent commission under the normal decennial process.
The map defined in Proposition 50 is a Democratic gerrymander claimed to intend to offset the gerrymander by Texas Republicans, both of which are part of the broader 2025–2026 United States redistricting effort. It redraws several congressional districts to incorporate larger shares of urban and suburban Democratic voters, increasing Democratic registration advantages in competitive districts and converting several Republican-leaning seats into Democratic-leaning ones. Republicans have responded to Proposition 50 with legislation, their own propositions, and litigation.

Background

In June 2025, Republican lawmakers in Texas first proposed gerrymandering the state's congressional district lines to favor Republicans. In July, Greg Abbott, the Governor of Texas, called a special session of the Texas Legislature to discuss redistricting. Texas Democrats in the state House of Representatives fled the state in an effort to break quorum and stall the redistricting effort.
Gavin Newsom, the Governor of California, first proposed that California could gerrymander its own congressional district maps to favor Democrats in an effort to offset potential gains from Texas's gerrymandering. The California Citizens Redistricting Commission is an independent bipartisan body that currently handles redistricting in the state. The commission was first established in 2008 by Proposition 11 with a mandate for drawing districts for the State Legislature and the Board of Equalization.
With the passage of Proposition 20, the commission's power was expanded in 2010 to also draw congressional districts. Newsom proposed that a special election be called to temporarily pause the commission and return redistricting power to the California Legislature until the end of the decade. Because both Propositions 11 and 20 were voter-approved amendments to the state constitution, any such changes to the redistricting power would also require a voter-approved constitutional amendment.
On August 11, 2025, Newsom sent a letter to Donald Trump, stating that California would pause any mid-decade redistricting effort if other states called off their efforts. Two days later, Newsom announced that the deadline had passed and he would move forward with his own redistricting effort.

Passed map

The new map was drawn by Democratic redistricting expert Paul Mitchell, and formally submitted to the legislature by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Proponents of the maps argued that the map was more compact than the previous map, with fewer city and county splits, and with the majority of districts changed by less than 10%, although certain cities, such as Lodi, will be newly split. Non-partisan observers saw it as a gerrymandering; for example, analyst Nathaniel Rakich described the maps as an "aggressive Democratic gerrymander" that will more than double the bias in the current map as a result of simultaneously cracking Republican districts and unpacking extremely Democratic districts through absorbing more-Republican areas.
It targets five seats currently held by Republicans:
The new map will also decrease the competitiveness of several swing districts held by Democrats:
  • CA-09 : The district gains more East Bay cities. Based on votes cast in the 2024 presidential election, the Democratic advantage will increase by 13.1 percentage points.
  • CA-13 : The district takes in a large portion of strongly Democratic areas in Stockton, while losing more conservative areas in Fresno County. Resultantly, the Republican advantage will decrease by 5.5 percentage points, effectively being eliminated.
  • CA-21 : The district gains more areas of Fresno proper and Clovis, and loses Republican-leaning towns such as Exeter. The Democratic advantage will increase by 2.2 percentage points.
  • CA-27 : The district gains areas Democratic-leaning areas in the San Fernando Valley while losing Republican-leaning areas in the Antelope Valley. The Democratic advantage increases by 5.5 percentage points.
  • CA-45 : The district gains parts of cities such as Norwalk and Santa Ana, while losing cities such as Brea and Placentia. The Democratic advantage will increase from 1.5 to 4 percentage points.
  • CA-47 : The district gains Democratic-leaning cities such as Tustin and Aliso Viejo and loses conservative cities such as Huntington Beach and Newport Beach The Democratic advantage will increase from 4 to 10 percentage points.
  • CA-49 : The district takes in parts of northern San Diego and loses South Orange County cities such as Dana Point which lean Republican. The Democratic advantage will increase by 4 percentage points.
As a result of cracking Republican votes, many districts will become less Democratic-leaning. In six districts, the Democratic voter registration advantage will decrease by a margin of more than 10 percentage points:
However, all six districts will still favor the Democrats.
The new map is expected to help one Republican who represents a swing district:
  • Young Kim. The district will lose many cities in Orange County, while gaining many Republican-leaning areas of Riverside County from the current 41st and 48th districts. As a result, the Republican advantage will increase by 9.7 percentage points, effectively being repurposed into a Republican pack.
In 23 districts, the change will be 2 percentage points or less.
In terms of the impact of the new maps on protected groups under the federal Voting Rights Act, a study from Caltech and Cal Poly Pomona found that the number of Latino majority districts will stay the same and two additional districts where Latinos make up 30–50% of the citizen voting age population will be added. The UCLA Asian American Studies Center found that the number of Asian American/Pacific Islander plurality districts will increase from three to five.

Legislative history

Three actions were necessary to place Proposition 50 on the ballot:
  1. Pass Assembly Constitutional Amendment 8, which is the amendment submitted for approval to California voters to redistrict the state
  2. Pass Senate Bill 280 to call the election, assign the proposition number, and prohibit any candidate from using the title "incumbent" in the June 2026 congressional election should the measure pass
  3. Pass Assembly Bill 604 to assign each census block within the counties to a congressional district.
SB 280 was introduced on August 18, and a legislative vote occurred in both chambers on August 21. A two-thirds supermajority was needed to place the measure on the ballot. The California State Assembly surpassed the 54 votes needed for a supermajority by passing the bill on a 57 to 20 vote. Hours later, the California State Senate surpassed the 27 votes needed for a supermajority by approving the bill on a 30 to 8 vote. Governor Newsom signed it into law later in the day. ACA 8 also passed by that same vote tally, although as a legislative constitutional amendment it did not need the governor's signature. ACA 8 was chaptered by the Secretary of State on August 21, 2025, at Resolution Chapter 156, Statues of 2025. AB 604, which set the boundaries of the districts, passed 56 to 20 in the Assembly and 30 to 9 in the Senate.

Republican response

Legislation

California State Assembly minority leader James Gallagher, along with a few other Republican cosponsors, introduced a joint resolution to split California into two states.

Counter-propositions

A couple of different attempts were made to put propositions on the 2026 general election ballot for amendments to the state's constitution in response to Proposition 50. To put a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot requires gathering signatures of voters, with the minimum number set at 8% of the number of valid votes cast in the previous gubernatorial election. The signatures must be collected within 180 days, but turned in no later than 131 days before election day.
  • On October 22, 2025, the Secretary of State authorized Republican Assemblyman Carl DeMaio to begin gathering signatures for a proposed proposition of a constitutional amendment to target state lawmakers who supported the proposition. Titled "Penalize Politicians Who Manipulate Their Own Districts Initiative," DeMaio's proposal would bar any state lawmaker who voted in favor of Proposition 50 from running for office for ten years. DeMaio's deadline to gather the 874,641 signatures needed to place the proposition on the ballot is April 20, 2026.
  • The day after the Proposition 50 passed, Republican activist and attorney James V. Lacy filed paperwork for a constitutional amendment to undo Proposition 50 and revert for the 2028 and 2030 congressional elections to the district lines that were drawn in 2021 by the Citizens Redistricting Commission.