Gain power, give it away
In the Sacramento Bee, Robin Epley has perhaps the most triumphalist of the immediate post-Prop. 50 commentaries I could find, but I wouldn’t call her piece partisan. Epley acknowledges the political realities of the moment: President Trump demanded that states governed by Republicans re-draw their congressional districts to preserve their party’s tenuous grip on the U.S. House in the 2026 midterm elections, and California voters responded in kind by re-drawing their district maps to flip up to five GOP-held seats. Plus, Epley writes, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s national profile gets a major boost ahead of a possible 2028 presidential run.
Newsom-Schmewsom
From the irreverent corner of the commentary world, the staff of Coyote Media Collective wrote what many Bay Area progressive Democrats may be wondering: Does Mamdani’s win in New York City mean they don’t have to settle for bland presidential candidates like Gavin Newsom? ”This should be a wake-up call to moderates and think tanks who’ve shoved spineless candidates down our throats for decades.”
Dems still in the mud
Also in the Bee, Tom Philp bursts the Democrats’ post-election bubble. The party remains as unpopular as ever because voters don’t see it as standing for anything, and Prop. 50 represents only what the party stands against.
California democracy muddy too
In the Los Angeles Times, columnist Mark Z. Barabak takes a similarly dim view of Prop. 50, worrying that it will undermine what little confidence voters have in government. He understands the rationalization for it, but worries about disenfranchising state Republicans who now have more reason to feel ignored and irrelevant.
Both-sidesism? Really?
In the Southern California News Group papers — which include the L.A. Daily News, Orange County Register and nine other dailies — opinion editor Sal Rodriguez says Republicans have no one to blame but themselves and their party’s miscues for Prop. 50’s passage. OK, fine, but does that include the immigration raids and militarization of cities that terrorized immigrant communities and perhaps made weakening this administration the biggest motivator for voters (like me) who otherwise find partisan redistricting abhorrent? Far from it: Rodriguez ends his piece with a cynical both-sides-do-it kicker (“all I see are two parties in a race down the drain solely concerned with short-term wins”) that’s stunningly oblivious to reality in Southern California.
Gain power, give it away
Writing in the San Francisco Chronicle, UCLA law professor Joseph Fishkin calls for a “new federal statute of mutual disarmament — ideally before we reach the point where there are zero California Republicans and zero Texas Democrats.” The best way to enact national redistricting reform for now, he says, is to elect Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress and a Democrat as president who quickly get to work undermining their own partisan interests.
Prop. 50 and our 48th president?
CalMatters columnist Dan Walters argues the Prop. 50 victory will have more bearing on Newsom’s political ambitions than which party actually controls Congress. “Newsom emerges as the de facto leader of a political party that is trying to find a way forward after last year’s embarrassing loss,” Walters writes.
