How Democrats pulled off Prop 50: New court records shed light on CA’s redistricting push
A recent court deposition sheds more light on the drafting of Proposition 50 and how a political redistricting expert and leading Democrats pulled off a 75-day sprint to craft a successful ballot measure that may flip five House seats and help the party take control of Congress in next year’s midterms.
Attorneys for the state Republican Party questioned Sacramento political data consultant Paul Mitchell for 8 hours earlier this month about his map-making process and interactions with state and congressional Democrats, who pushed voters to pass Prop. 50 as a check on the White House’s push to flip five House seats in Texas for Republicans.
The race to pass the initiative turned into one of the most expensive ballot campaigns in state history, and Prop. 50’s decisive victory helped launch Gov. Gavin Newsom to the front of the pack among potential Democratic presidential contenders in 2028.
The day after its passage, the California GOP challenged Prop. 50 in federal court on the basis that the maps violated federal law by illegally using race to gerrymander the new district lines, giving disproportionate influence to Latino voters.
The Department of Justice has since joined the lawsuit, which names Newsom and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee among the defendants. Earlier this week, lawyers for the two parties met in a Los Angeles federal courtroom to argue whether the court should temporarily block the redrawn map from being enacted.
Closing arguments wrapped on Wednesday, and the Central District of California is now considering a motion for a temporary injunction. The state GOP is arguing that Mitchell admitted to racial gerrymandering in a podcast interview, where he said his first priority was to draw “a replacement Latino majority/minority district in the middle of Los Angeles” after the 2021 redistricting process split then-Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard’s district, which had the most Latino voters of any in the country.
Per his deposition, Mitchell spoke to a number of legislative Democrats, from Assembly Majority Leader Cecilia Aguiar-Curry to Senate Majority Leader Sabrina Cervantes, members of Newsom’s office and political team, and congressional Democrats for their insight, but he did not offer details about their conversations.
Mitchell declined to comment to the Sacramento Bee, citing the ongoing litigation. His attorneys objected over 100 times in the deposition, claiming legislative privilege, which protects private deliberations during the lawmaking process.
Democrats have maintained that the maps are temporary and will only be in effect for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections, after which redistricting power will revert to the nonpartisan state Citizens Redistricting Commission.
In a statement, state GOP chair Corrin Rankin said Prop. 50 “sacrificed its goal of partisan advantage,” pointing to Mitchell’s statements about shoring up Latino representation, which she said amounted to illegal racial gerrymandering.
“The court therefore rightfully admonished Mitchell for his ‘outrageous’ refusal to answer 100+ deposition questions about his work under an absurd claim of legislative privilege and for initially refusing to produce any documents,” Rankin said. “If not stopped, Mitchell and legislative Democrats may have just created a terrifying recipe for racial gerrymandering.”
Prop. 50 agreement reached on a bike path
The agreement for Mitchell to draft the maps was reached on a bike path in early July.
On July 2, Mitchell said in his deposition, he met up with Steve O’Mara, the chief of staff for Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, for a bike ride, after which they met up with Rivas. The three then reached “an understanding” for Mitchell to take on the task of redrawing California’s 52 congressional districts, for which his firm was paid $325,000. Abound $108,000 of that came from the House Majority PAC.
After contracting with the DCCC on July 15 to produce the maps, Mitchell said he spoke to a handful of California lawmakers including Reps. Zoe Lofgren, Pete Aguilar, Brad Sherman, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, who behind the scenes was quietly consolidating donor support and leaning on reticent Democrats to get on board with a ballot initiative to redraw the state’s congressional boundaries.
Newsom also began publicly mulling the idea of calling a special election to offset a similar effort in Texas that saw state Democrats flee the state in a dramatic, but ultimately failed, effort to stop redistricting there.
During that time, the Legislature adjourned for a summer break. Rivas publicly said the Assembly was “exploring every option” of redistricting.
The maps targeted five districts currently represented by Republicans: David Valadao in the Central Valley; Ken Calvert and Darrell Issa in Southern California; and Kevin Kiley and Doug LaMalfa in the North State. Since the maps passed, their districts have been redrawn to draw in more liberal voters from the coast and Sacramento suburbs.
KCRA reported that around that time that Rivas was considering a run for Congress if Lofgren retires. Then-Senate President pro Tem Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, agreed to support the maps after LaMalfa’s district was redrawn to include parts of the North Bay. McGuire has since launched a campaign challenging LaMalfa in the November 2026 election.
Mitchell said he created the new districts with input from redistricting experts Evan McLaughlin, Joe Armenta, Jacob Thompson-Fisher, and Daniel Lopez, and drew upon Census data and other state voter data and his years of experience in past redistricting processes. USC political professor Christian Grose, a redistricting expert, also offered insight.
McLaughlin, a former redistricting data consultant, and Armenta, are the political director and deputy political director, respectively, for the California Professional Firefighters union. Thompson-Fisher is chief of data operations for Redistricting Partners, and Lopez is a senior adviser to Los Angeles city councilmember Adrin Nazarian.
A month later, on Aug. 3, Mitchell said he submitted a rough draft to the DCCC and a final version to the state Legislature on Aug. 14, the same day Newsom officially launched the Yes on 50 campaign in Los Angeles. The next day, the maps leaked to the press ahead of their official release, and Republicans attempted to block the redistricting in court — a challenge the California Supreme Court quashed days later.
‘First state in U.S. history’ to put maps to voters
That Monday, Aug. 18, Democrats officially unveiled the maps and kickstarted a four-day rush to approve the maps by Friday, the deadline for when the resolution would need to pass to appear on the Nov. 4 ballot.
Because it was a constitutional amendment, the vote required a two-thirds vote of the Legislature. That Thursday, both chambers passed the legislation on party lines. Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains, D-Bakersfield, crossed the aisle to vote against it, and Assemblymember Alex Lee, D-San Jose, abstained.
“We will be the first state in US history to, in the most democratic way, submit to the people of our state the ability to determine their own maps that simply has not been done,” Newsom told reporters before signing the package.
Three months later, voters overwhelmingly approved them and solidified Newsom’s image on the national stage as the Democrats’ leading Trump antagonist.
After Prop. 50 was pitched as a retaliatory measure against the White House, the appetite for redistricting among red states appears to have waned. Indiana declined to redistrict despite Trump’s pressure, and other states like Florida and Missouri have been slow to act despite initial enthusiasm.
Texas, meanwhile, has forged ahead with its own new maps for 2026 after the Supreme Court overturned a lower court ruling that had blocked them on the basis that they unfairly racially gerrymandered.
The Supreme Court is also currently considering a Louisiana case that could gut parts of the Voting Rights Act after a group of voters in that state claimed the state’s redistricting process disenfranchises “non-African American voters.”
That makes it less likely that the California GOP will prevail in court, though leaders remain optimistic. Newsom on the other hand, sees it as the future of his party as the Democrats plot a comeback next year.
“We had to fight fire with fire,” he said during the New York Times Dealbook summit earlier this month. “These guys (Republicans) are consolidating power.”
This story was originally published December 19, 2025 at 1:37 PM.
