Newsom Warns that Texas Would Regret
Summer Remap that California Will Counter
Capitol Inside
July 14, 2025
Governor Greg Abbott started an arms race that his California counterpart says Texas cannot win when he added the redrawing of U.S. House maps to the agenda for a summer special session in a capitulation to Republicans in Washington D.C. in a highly-risky power grab that's loaded with the potential to backfire.
California Governor Gavin Newsom is warning that Democrats in the nation's largest state would retaliate with a redistricting plan of its own if Abbott and the Republicans in Texas approve a new map that would boost the number of GOP seats in Congress when the Legislature meets in a special session that starts early next week.
"These guys, they're not fucking around," Newsom said in a reference to the Texas Republicans in an interview late last week. "They're playing by a totally different set of rules."
Newsom contended on Thursday in a social media post that Abbott and GOP lawmakers in Texas are here are trying to "cheat their way into more Congressional seats" in a special session that has emergency disaster preparedness and relief as the central mission ostensibly.
The California governor told the Tennessee Holler on the same day that Abbott's plans for a midterm remap would force him to counter by having U.S. House districts in the Golden State reshaped in ways that would more than offset gains for the GOP in Texas.
"In a state that, I assure you, with two-thirds of the majority in the Legislature, can gerrymander like no other state," Newsom said.
Newsom pointed out that California has been relying on an independent commission to produce the boundaries for voting districts there in a fashion that's fair and bipartisan. But Newsom said Texas Republicans would do everything in their power to keep from losing it regardless of the cost.
"These guys have no shame - and no limits - unless we the people stand up," Newsom added.
Newsom promised in a post on X that the eyes of his state are on the Texas special session and that he will do what it takes to stop the alleged steal in the summer session here. "These guys have no shame - and no limits - unless we the people stand up," Newsom asserted.
The feuding over congressional maps that are typically only revised once every 10 years could be a preview of a potential general election in 2028 with the governors of the two largest states as possible contenders for the presidency that year.
Abbott's visions of a White House run could be setback substantially if Democrats reclaimed the U.S. House majority as a consequence of the Republican redistricting effort in Texas this summer.
more to come ...
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