California Democrats are once again trying to rig the system, overturn elections and steal congressional seats from Republicans. Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta are planning to redraw California’s congressional maps in 2025 or 2026, halfway through the decade and years before the next census. This isn’t about “fairness” or “democracy.” It’s a blatant, unconstitutional power grab designed to silence millions of voters and cement one-party rule in California.
Democrats are already trying to rewrite the history of this redistricting fight, claiming it’s just retaliation for Republican maps in Texas. But let’s be clear: California started this.
The last redistricting cycle was corrupted by partisan operatives who rigged California’s so-called “independent” Citizens Redistricting Commission to deliver a gerrymandered map. Republicans received 40% of the vote for Congress in 2022 but just 17% of the seats. Now, rather than wait for the next census as required by law, Newsom and Bonta are pushing to redraw the maps mid-decade to squeeze out even more unfair representation for their party.
I’m not going to let it happen. I will fight this in the courts and in the court of public opinion because California belongs to all of us, not just the Democrat elites trying to cling to power.
It’s obviously wrong to redraw maps without another population count. Since the last census, millions have fled California, driven out by COVID lockdowns, high taxes, and unaffordable housing. Add to that the devastation of wildfires like the 2025 Los Angeles inferno that destroyed entire communities. Where did all those people go? Gavin Newsom doesn’t know and doesn’t care. He wants to redraw the maps anyway.
California lost a congressional seat in 2020 for the first time in our history and we’ve seen a further net population loss of nearly 500,000 more since then. Redistricting must reflect these realities. That’s just common sense.
But it’s not just obviously wrong to redraw maps without a census, it’s illegal.
Article 21 of the California Constitution is crystal clear: redistricting happens once per decade, in the year after the national census. That was the law before voters approved the Citizens Redistricting Commission, and it was re-stated afterwards. In fact, the California Supreme Court already ruled on this exact issue. In Legislature v. Deukmejian, the Court said redistricting is a once-a-decade process, tied directly to the census. A rushed redistricting scheme, five years after the last census, would blatantly violate the state Constitution. You can’t just ignore the rules when they don’t benefit your party.
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Newsom and Bonta have an answer to that: their power-grab scheme includes a rushed “special election” to overturn Article 21 of the state constitution, seize power from the Citizens Redistricting Commission, and redraw maps to steal five congressional seats from Republicans.
But here’s the flaw in their plan. It’s not just Article 21 of the state constitution they would be violating. In fact it’s not even just California’s Constitution.
The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees every citizen equal protection under the law, including equal representation.That principle was reaffirmed in Reynolds v. Sims, a landmark Supreme Court case that held all legislative districts must have roughly equal populations. The federal equal protection clause is also mirrored in California’s state constitution, in Article 1.
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Without a new census, there’s no way to ensure that the equal protection standard — that legislative districts must have roughly equal populations — is met. Any redistricting done now would be based on guesswork, not facts.
So here’s what I will do. If Newsom and Bonta move forward with their illegal scheme, I will mount a two-pronged legal challenge. First, we will file a case in state court to stop the plan under California’s constitution and long-standing legal precedent. At the same time, we’ll take the fight to federal court, arguing that their actions violate the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution and Supreme Court precedent. We’ll use every legal tool available to stop this outrageous attempt to gerrymander California still further in Democrats’ favor.
For all their endless lectures on “protecting our democracy,” Democrats really only care about preserving their power. The last round of redistricting in California was supposed to be nonpartisan, handled by the Citizens Redistricting Commission. But left-wing pressure groups hijacked the process, pushing vague standards like “communities of interest” to justify partisan gerrymandering. That’s why Republicans have just 17% of House districts for roughly 40% of the statewide vote.
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Now they want to take it even further, cutting Republican congressional representation to just 7% even though millions of Californians vote Republican. That’s not “democracy.” That’s rigging the system.
If we had fair representation in California, Republicans would have an additional 12 House seats. And the Democrat “super-majority” in the state legislature — which has enabled them to pass ultra-left extreme legislation for over a decade — would disappear.
We don’t have to put up with these Democrat assaults on our democracy. I’ve already proposed reforms to make redistricting truly fair and nonpartisan. That includes using artificial intelligence to draw maps based on neutral criteria like compactness and city and county boundaries instead of vague standards that enable gerrymandering.
I will not let Newsom and Bonta silence the voices of millions of Californians for their own partisan and personal ends.
I will fight this every step of the way with action, with urgency, and with the full force of the law behind us. And when I’m governor, I will reverse the Democrat gerrymander and ensure fair representation for everyone in California.
Republican Steve Hilton is a candidate for governor of California. He previously served as senior policy and strategy advisor to former U.K. prime minister David Cameron. He is a former host of “The Next Revolution” on Fox News.
