Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to counter President Donald Trump’s election gerrymander in Texas with his own redistricting play in California is on its way to voters.

The California Legislature today approved his proposal calling for a special election on a ballot measure that would suspend the state’s current congressional districts, which were drawn by an independent commission, and replace them with a map intended to favor Democrats.

The Assembly passed the measure 57 to 20, called the Election Rigging Response Act, and lawmakers on the floor erupted in applause even before they closed the vote. The Senate passed it hours later on a party-line vote, 30-8. Newsom declared a Nov. 4 special election shortly afterward.

Democrats today hold 43 of the state’s 52 congressional seats. The Newsom-backed maps transform five Republican seats into districts that heavily favor Democrats. By ousting those incumbents, Newsom would effectively essentially cancel out Trump’s effort in Texas.

The maps also strengthen Democrats’ hold on five other competitive California districts, making it harder for the GOP to flip them next year.

The proposed redistricting would make minor changes in a half dozen Bay Area congressional districts – Districts 4, 7, 8, 10,13, 14 and 18 – and expand the 9th Congressional District westward toward the East Bay to bolster potential support for incumbent Democrat Rep. Josh Harder.

There would be no changes in congressional districts in San Francisco and San Mateo counties, the coastal districts or most of San Jose: Districts 11, 15, 16, 17, and 19.

At a press conference on Thursday to promote the upcoming campaign for what will appear on the ballot as Proposition 50, the governor said it was time for Democrats to “play hardball” in response to the Trump administration’s moves to “advance their power.”

“We tried to hold hands and talk about the way the world should be,” he said. “We can’t just think differently, we have to act differently.”

California voters in a 2010 ballot measure backed independent redistricting for congressional districts, a process meant to cultivate fair, competitive elections. Democrats say they’re reluctant to give up that system, even temporarily, but believe they have to in order to counter Trump’s bid to retain control of Congress after 2026.

“If unaddressed, Texas’ actions – which occur without the vote of the populace – will disenfranchise California,” said Assemblymember Josh Lowenthal, a Long Beach Democrat whose father had pushed for nonpartisan redistricting as a state lawmaker and Congressman.

“It’s imperative that Californians have a voice in selecting the political party that controls Congress in 2026,” said Lowenthal in an emotional speech from the floor before the vote. “So today, I proudly join with my father, the architect of this commission, in urging its temporary suspension.”

Republicans before the vote pleaded with their colleagues to resist following Texas in the race to the gerrymandering bottom.

“There’s really only one way to stop – someone has to refrain from striking back, and show a better way,” said Assemblymember James Gallagher, Republican of Chico and the minority leader.

Lawmakers on Thursday also passed a bill containing the new congressional map voters will be asked to approve, sending it to Newsom’s desk, and an additional bill that will facilitate and fund the special election. Newsom signed both of them the same day.

The change is intended to be temporary; the measure that will go before voters requires the state to return to nonpartisan map-drawing after the 2030 census.

Newsom wanted to counter Texas

Newsom kicked off the special election scramble after Trump declared that he was “entitled” to five more GOP congressional seats in Texas. He demanded that Lone Star State lawmakers shore up Republicans’ razor thin, three-seat House majority by redrawing their congressional maps mid-decade. When Gov. Greg Abbott indicated Texas would redistrict, Newsom said California would retaliate.

Democrats today hold 43 of the state’s 52 congressional seats. The Newsom-backed maps transform five Republican seats into districts that heavily favor Democrats. By ousting those incumbents, Newsom would effectively essentially cancel out Trump’s effort in Texas.

The maps also strengthen Democrats’ hold on five other competitive California districts, making it harder for the GOP to flip them next year.

California Republican lawmakers spent the week throwing up a variety of procedural blocks to try to stop the bills’ fast-tracked progress through the legislature, including by asking the California Supreme Court to weigh in on their challenge to the short time between the legislation’s public release on Monday and their final vote on the Assembly and Senate floors on Thursday.

They demanded an end to the redistricting arms race nationwide, with some willing to condemn Texas and other red states that Trump has urged to redraw their maps.

They argued that Newsom’s maps unfairly split some communities into multiple congressional districts, and that some Democratic lawmakers were biased given their reported personal interest in running for Congress.

In particularly acrimonious spells on the Senate and Assembly floors, the two parties sparred over who had started the fight. Republicans, accused of insufficient opposition to the Trump administration, in turn argued Democratic lawmakers were overly loyal to Newsom.

GOP couldn’t stall measure

But Republican efforts to derail the measure ran up against both political numbers and longtime legislative practice in California.

Polling shows most Democratic voters want the party to do more to fight the Trump administration. In the past few weeks, Democratic lawmakers, who command a three-quarters supermajority in both chambers, have overwhelmingly fallen in line behind Newsom on the redistricting effort.

Every year, lawmakers regularly reveal last-minute deals that they fast-track for passage 72 hours later, in a way that nominally complies with state constitutional requirements.

The timing of the votes may be litigated, but California Republicans have already lost in court once. The state Supreme Court on Wednesday night declined to take up the GOP’s timing-based challenge to the map-drawing effort.

GOP lawmakers acknowledged they’ll likely have to fight the issue at the polls.

“We will defeat this, if it’s not here in the Capitol, it will be in a courtroom or it will be at the ballot box,” GOP Assemblymember Alexandra Macedo said this week.

Here are more highlights

In the 9th District, Harder, a Stockton Democrat, was swept into Congress during the 2018 Democratic wave and he has held onto his Stockton-based seat despite being a perpetual Republican target. But the elections have been getting closer; he won last November by fewer than four percentage points. The new map shores up his Democratic base by adding an arm that juts toward the East Bay.

The 13th Congressional District was the closest House race in the entire country during the last election took place in this district in the northern Central Valley.

Rep. Adam Gray, a Turlock Democrat, defeated the Republican incumbent by only 187 votes. Adding in more Democratic voters from a slice of Stockton will make it much easier for Gray to keep the seat next year.

The 1st Congressional District seat in the northeastern corner of California has been comfortably held by Rep. Doug LaMalfa, a Chico Republican, for more than a decade. He won again last November with nearly two-thirds of the vote. But the new map splits his district in half and creates two Democratic seats instead: one cutting from Santa Rosa through Chico to the Nevada border, represented by six-term Democrat Jared Huffman,  the other running up the coast from Marin County and across the state along the Oregon border.

In the 3rd Congressional District east of Sacramento, Rep. Kevin Kiley, a Rocklin Republican, has represented this sprawling district along the eastern border of California since it was created in 2022. He faces an uphill battle to hold onto the new elephant-shaped seat, which lops off the conservative-leaning Eastern Sierra and pulls in Democratic voters from Sacramento. Kiley, a frequent critic of Newsom, has been particularly outspoken against the redistricting plan, even introducing a bill in Congress that would block states from redrawing their maps mid-cycle.

Winning the 22nd District Congressional seat in the southern Central Valley is an elusive longtime goal for Democrats. It already has a Democratic voter registration advantage, but often leans conservative; President Donald Trump won it last November, and Rep. David Valadao, a Hanford Republican, has held on comfortably in recent elections.

The new map adds a section from Fresno County, tweaking the voter registration advantage slightly further Democratic in an attempt to finally take Valadao out.

In the 27th Congressional District in Southern California, Rep. George Whitesides, a Santa Clarita Democrat, was one of three Democratic challengers who defeated Republican incumbents in California House races last year.

He represents northern Los Angeles suburbs that have grown gradually more liberal as people move there to find cheaper housing. His new seat brings in more Democratic voters by swapping a swath in the high desert for a chunk of the San Fernando Valley.

The 41st Congressional District in western Riverside County, once safely Republican, already got swingier after the last round of redistricting, when it was extended into the liberal Coachella Valley. But Rep. Ken Calvert, a Corona Republican who has been in Congress for more than three decades, squeaked through several serious challenges, winning last November by fewer than four percentage points. His long tenure may finally be over.

The new map would break apart Calvert’s district and redistribute the voters, while adding back a historic Democratic seat in southeast Los Angeles County.

It took weeks to determine the outcome of the last election in tht 45th Congressional District in heavily Asian American district along the border of Los Angeles and Orange counties.

Rep. Derek Tran, a Cypress Democrat, ultimately defeated the Republican incumbent by 653 votes. He should have an easier time defending his new seat, which grabs an additional section of Los Angeles County, around Norwalk.

Democrats have managed to narrowly hang on to the 47th Congressional District coastal Orange County seat for several elections in a row. Rep. Dave Min, a Costa Mesa Democrat, won last November by fewer than three percentage points. The new map tilts the district further in his favor by including part of Long Beach.

The top prize in the redistricting would be the 48th Congressional District, perhaps the biggest reach for Democrats in the new map. By moving voters from the Coachella Valley into the eastern San Diego County district, it goes from safely Republican to a slight Democratic registration advantage.

That could allow them to take out the veteran Rep. Darrell Issa, an Escondido Republican.

Maya C. Miller and Jeanne Kuang are reporters with CalMatters.