Short shrift for some in redistricting fight

What do candidates for governor who back Prop. 50 have to say to GOP voters?

- MARK Z.BARABAK COLUMNIST

PROPOSITION 50 could disenfranchise millions of conservative Californians.

We now have an estimated price tag for California’s special election and Gov. Gavin Newsom’s presidential rollout: $282.6 million.

The Nov. 4 vote involves Proposition 50, which would gerrymander the state to raise Democratic chances of winning as many as five added House seats in the 2026 midterm election. The intent is to partially compensate for Republican gerrymanders in Texas and other states.

The ballot measure has already done wonders to boost Newsom's early standing in the 2028 presidential contest — emphasis onthe word early. After alienating many in his party by playing footsie with the likes of Steve Bannon and the late Charlie Kirk, Newsom has set hearts aflutter among those yearning for Democrats to “fight back against Trump,” to cite what has become the party’s chief animating principle and cri de ceeur.

One could ask whether the not-insignificant cost of the special electionis the best use of taxpayer dollars, or ifthe sum would be better spent, as veteran GOP strategist Ken Khachigian suggested in arecent Wall Street Journal opinion piece, “on firefighters, police officers, schoolteachers and road repairs.”

Newsom, in full barricade-manning mode, has said protecting our precious democracy is “priceless.”

The chairman of California’s Democratic Party, Rusty Hicks, placeda more concrete price tag on the virtues of Proposition 50, suggesting to the Bay Area News Group that money spent onthe special election would be offset — and then some — by the billions California would otherwise lose under President Trump’s hostile regime.

There is, however, an added, ifintangible, cost to Proposition 50: Effectively disenfranchising millions of conservative and Republican-leaning Californians, who already feelas though they're ignored and politically impotent.