Prop. 50 looks likely to face a barrage of legal challenges

If the measure passes, state's GOP House representation would be trimmed by five.

- JENNY JARVIE

Six years ago, when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld highly partisan state election maps in North Carolina and Maryland - ruling that federal courts cannot block states from drawing up maps that favor one party over the other one of the court's liberal justices issued a warning.

"If left unchecked, gerrymanders like the ones here may irreparably damage our system of government," Associate Justice Elena Kagan wrote in a dissent.

Kagan argued that Republicans in North Carolina and Democrats in Maryland - the two examples before the court had rigged elections in a way that "deprived citizens of the most fundamental of their constitutional rights," "debased and dishonored our democracy" and turned "upside-down the core American idea that all governmental power derives from the people."

"Ask yourself," Kagan said as she recounted what had happened in each state:

"Is this how American democracy is supposed to work?"

That's the question Californians are now weighing as they decide how, or whether, to vote on Proposition 50, Gov. Gavin Newsom's plan to scrap congressional maps drawn by the state's independent redistricting commission and replace them with maps drawn by legislators to favor Democrats through 2030.

Democrats don't deny that the measure is a deliberate attempt to dilute GOP voting power.

From the start, they've argued that the point of redistricting is to weaken Republicans' voting power in California-amove they justify on the grounds that it is a temporary fix to offset similar partisan gerrymandering by Texas Republicans.

This summer, President Trump upped the ante, pressing Texas to rejigger maps to shore up the GOP's narrow House majority ahead of the 2026 election.