Borenstein: Proposition 50 provides California’s only hope to rein in Trump

Proposition the measure redrawing California s congressional lines that s at the center of the Nov statewide special ballot has been attacked by opponents as a power grab That flips the responsibility for the nation s redistricting debacle on its head Proposition isn t an offensive move to usurp power It s a defensive counter to try to protect our state from political emasculation Californians have no other good options It wasn t California that started this It was President Trump and Texas Republican lawmakers who launched a redistricting plan to ensure GOP control of the U S House of Representatives Talk about trying to steal an ballot What s at stake in this electoral process is any hope of a check on the Trump administration No pushback We have watched this year as the president and his administration have militarized our cities used masked officers to round up both immigrants and U S citizens indiscriminately on our streets and in our courts sent people to prisons in foreign countries without a semblance of due process and threatened to revoke the citizenship of people born here Related Articles This California city banned the Pride flag Newsom s maps would give them a progressive gay congressman A California voter registration deadline is fast approaching Editorial The reason to vote no on Santa Clara County Measure A Letters Proposition is unfair and unnecessary States are redistricting to help one party but sometimes the move can backfire We have seen the administration weaponize the Justice Department to go after Trump s perceived enemies use regulatory agencies federal funding and content mining to try to stifle dissent and dismantle key parts of the national regime as it unravels years of progress on atmosphere change undermines the credibility of our federal population wellbeing systems and guts the foreign aid that made this country a respected world leader Under Trump s direction the U S has bombed vessels in international waters in defiance of international law threatened war against a South American nation upended the world economic activity with tariffs that globally isolate our nation and alienated several of our closest allies The pain has been felt here in California and the Bay Area as the administration splits up immigrant families targets academic freedom at our cherished universities unilaterally cuts off key funding for scientific research and our state and local governments and threatens to militarize our cities And yet there has been no pushback in Washington With Republican control however slim of the Senate and the House where there is near-complete deference to the whims of the president and with the enabling by the Supreme Court Trump has broken this nation s norms laws and the constitutional balance of powers without questioning or oversight The alignment of the Supreme Court is locked in for decades to come Republicans are almost certain to maintain control of the Senate in the electoral process The only check on Trump s escalating power would be Democrats winning control of the narrowly divided House Which is why our elections are so critical and why Trump s attempt to put his fingers on the electoral scale is so alarming And that s why Proposition is so crucial The president sees the threat to his unchecked rule That prompted him to goad Texas Republicans into redrawing their House seat boundaries a process usually done every years after the national census not in the middle of a decade to give the GOP five additional favorable districts Missouri soon followed with new maps designed to give Republicans an additional seat North Carolina did the same this week The red states of Kansas Louisiana Indiana and Florida are expected to do the same California s response Proposition is Gov Gavin Newsom s response But unlike those Republican states California doesn t leave it to its legislators to draw political boundaries In voters approved an initiative that created the state s independent redistricting commission and tasked it with drawing the district boundaries for the state Legislature and Board of Equalization The establishment of the commission was a wise move designed to take partisanship out of the drawing of boundaries for governmental bodies within the state And nothing in Proposition would affect that Contrary to insists about the measure Proposition does not dismantle the redistricting commission nor does it affect the drawing of boundaries for state legislative districts Then in voters approved another initiative expanding the commission s responsibilities to include drawing congressional districts It seemed like a good idea that would set an example for other states to follow But it hasn t worked out that way For the redistricting after the census only eight states including significantly California Washington New York and Michigan used independent redistricting commissions Applied across the nation the commission process has turned into unilateral political disarmament Those states that did the right thing now find themselves vulnerable to the GOP s systematic and partisan manipulation in other states Despite that Proposition would not even abandon the congressional redistricting approved by voters in Rather it suspends it temporarily to counter the unprecedented Trump-led manipulation by redrawing the state s congressional lines to increase the number of blue seats California would return congressional redistricting to the independent commission after the census In fact that might be the one mistake of Proposition that it doesn t go far enough There s little to no hope that red states are going to lay down their political arms before the next decennial line-drawing If we ve learned anything from this experience it s that California shouldn t either But there will be time before then to revisit the issue In the meantime California must protect its interests it must defend to the extent attainable against the Trump assault on norms of national redistricting That is the only hope for returning specific semblance of congressional oversight and the constitutionally mandated balance of powers to Washington That s why I voted for Proposition Reach Editorial Page Editor Daniel Borenstein at dborenstein bayareanewsgroup com