Will Prop. 50 really be temporary? Beware, pols loathe unemployment | Opinion
Proposition 50, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s controversial ballot measure to redraw California’s congressional districts that favor Democrats if approved by voters in November, is being sold as a temporary measure. It’s supposedly only needed now to fight a rogue president forcing red states to gerrymander districts that favor Republicans. In a few years, Newsom and other Prop. 50 advocates say, California will scrap cheating and return to citizen commissions drawing congressional districts.
Don’t count on it.
California is projected to lose up to four to five congressional seats after the 2030 Census due to population losses. which makes it beyond likely that Democrats will contemplate another extension of this partisan map-making come 2032, when Prop. 50 is set to expire, and independent map-making is to resume. California Democrats could lose nearly a fifth of the state delegation in Congress, potentially tipping it back into Republican hands. The temptation would be strong for them to continue their unfair political process, and conveniently forget the current narrative of a “temporary” need for the odious Prop. 50
In short, California is poised to create a cadre of Democrats in Congress who will be uniquely vulnerable to unemployment in seven short years. How often do you see that many powerful leaders of any party willingly lose their jobs?
“If Prop. 50 passes, and I think it will, then the five new Democrats in Congress from California will be the first ones to advocate for sticking with the political gerrymandered map,” said Matt Rexroad, a long-time political consultant for Republican candidates.
Why Newsom owns this coming crisis for Democrats
Newsom, meeting recently with the McClatchy California Editorial Board, said he would not support extending Prop. 50 come 2032. “No, I’m firm in that resolve,” he said.
Yet Newsom is partially responsible for creating this political predicament that his fellow Democrats may have to contend with in 2032. As governor, he has basically flunked when it came to dramatically increasing the state’s housing stock. And California will soon pay a severe political price.
As a candidate, Newsom vowed to construct 3.5 million new housing units by this year. He then reduced his own goal down to 2.5 million new units. The state won’t build a million units in that timespan. Meanwhile, our governor has been outdone by Republican peers in states like Florida and Texas who have been far more successful in removing barriers to build new apartments, townhouses and single-family homes. They have been attracting residents from other states while California for years has been losing them.
It is a mathematical certainty that the 2030 census will reveal that California has a smaller percentage of Americans living within the Golden State. As a result, experts predict the state will lose up to five of its 52 House seats, largely to Republican-leaning states.
Prop. 50 was mapped to divide Democrat-dominant cities like Sacramento, Fresno, Santa Rosa and Stockton to sufficiently reduce the percentage of Republicans in five seats statewide. That would bring the California Democrats in Congress up from 43 to 48.
So if California were to return to politically neutral maps come the 2032 election as the state loses seats to states like Florida, Texas and North Carolina, as many as 10 congressional Democrats could be out of a job.
The only way for Democrats to stop all the political bleeding would be for California to maintain its gerrymandering ways. All this is foreseeable now. Proponents of Prop. 50 like Newsom just don’t want to talk about it.
Neither party really wants fairness
California has been electing representatives to Congress for about 175 years. Of those, only 12 of those years have been as fair as possible, with congressional maps drawn by an independent commission from 2012 through 2024. This may be our only Golden era of democracy for some time.
That every state now gets to decide whether to run truly fair elections, and most states don’t, is a reflection of how undemocratic a foundation of our democracy is.
It’s fully in the power of Congress and the president to impose California-style independent redistricting on every state. In the short run, being fair would likely favor Democrats over Republicans, which is why there is no rush to fairer elections coming out of Washington. And now that states throughout the country are looking to gerrymander in favor of one party or another, this is going to be a pattern of political behavior that will be hard to break.
This battle over drawing the nation’s congressional maps doesn’t end with Prop. 50 this November. It feels like it is just the beginning.
This story was originally published October 13, 2025 at 5:00 AM.