California Proposition 50 of 2025

The “Yes on 50” campaign claims that Trump and the Texas Republicans are trying “to steal congressional seats and rig the 2026 election.”²⁵

“Steal” and “rig” imply illegality. Although the 2025 Texas redistricting could reasonably be called unfair and manipulative (or defended as aggressive politics), it is legal.²⁶

The “Yes on 50” campaign says Prop 50 is “defending democracy.”²⁷ The “No on 50” campaign says Prop 50 “does not defend our democracy.”²⁸

These statements only make sense within their own framings:

• Prop 50 can be said to defend democracy by leveling the playing field for the 2026 U.S. House elections.

• Prop 50 can also be said to undermine democracy by making California’s own elections less fair.

Because of the confusion around this point, we’ve stated claims about defending democracy in other, more specific ways.

The “Yes on 50” campaign claims, “Prop. 50 draws fair maps that represent California’s diverse communities and ensure our voices aren’t silenced by partisan gerrymandering in other states.”²⁹

The Prop 50 maps are purposely meant to be unfair to voters in Republican-leaning areas. As an independent election analyst put it in a detailed analysis, “Make no mistake about it: The proposed map is an aggressive Democratic gerrymander.”³⁰

The “No on 50 campaign claims, “Make no mistake: Prop. 50 is not temporary.”³¹

It is temporary.³² After the above claim, the “No on 50” campaign goes on to make the “precedent” argument,³³ which we use in the main arguments above and which assumes Prop 50 is temporary.

The “No on 50” campaign also criticizes Prop 50 for imposing its maps “for over half a decade,”³⁴ presumably because the claimed emergency is for the 2026 election only. This point is valid but largely neutralized by the fact that the Prop 50 maps will be in effect for the same amount of time as the 2025 Texas maps.

The “Yes on 50” campaign claims Prop. 50 keeps “MORE cities and counties combined, and communities together than California’s existing maps.”³⁵

The “No on 50” campaign claims “Prop. 50 divides communities to benefit politicians, splitting counties 114 times and cities 141 times—far more than the citizen-drawn maps.”³⁶

This sounds like a contradiction, but they are counting different things:

• Number of counties and cities split (“Yes on 50”) only counts a place one time regardless of how many times it is split. If a county or city is split three ways, it counts as one.

• Total splits (“No on 50”) counts the total number of splits of counties and cities. If a county or city is split three ways, it counts as three.

The upshot: Prop 50’s maps keep about the same share of cities and counties intact as the commission’s maps. But when Prop 50 splits a place, it more often splits it into additional districts, increasing the total number of splits overall.³⁷

Ultimately, we concluded that this sub-issue was secondary to the larger point in Factor 3, which focuses on who was affected by the extra splits—predominantly rural, Republican-leaning communities.

Supporters note that Prop 50 includes a provision formally expressing California’s support for a U.S. constitutional amendment requiring all states to use independent commissions for redistricting.³⁸ This would have prevented Trump’s move in Texas and thus prevented the need for California to respond. However, we did not see it as a primary factor because a constitutional amendment requires two-thirds approval in both houses of Congress and ratification by three-quarters of states. This does not seem plausible in the foreseeable future.

Opponents are in favor of reforms that prevent gerrymandering wherever it is. However, they point out that this “call” has no power over other states.

The “No on 50” campaign claims that the special election for Prop 50 will waste $200 million in taxpayer dollars.³⁹

Later cost estimates have ended up at $282 million.⁴⁰ It’s a large number, but calling it “waste” presumes the answer to the very question the election asks voters to decide.

As a point of comparison, Governor Newsom’s office estimated billions of dollars at risk to Californians from Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025.⁴¹

The “No on 50” campaign claims Prop 50 will be “ineffective against any overreach of presidential power.”⁴²

Assuming that “overreach of presidential power” could reasonably include orchestrating the 2025 Texas gerrymander, then Prop 50 would be effective in at least that regard.

Where the “No” campaign has a point is, many of the “Yes” campaign’s examples against Trump are executive actions taken without Congress’ involvement—for example, “Trump has recklessly imposed tariffs and hurt California families, denied disaster assistance to fire victims, and ordered mass arrests without warrants.”⁴³ Because a Democratic House majority would not necessarily affect executive actions, we did not mention them in the arguments. What could be blocked is legislation, such as future equivalents to Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025.

The “No on 50” campaign claims that, since the commission started drawing maps, “Women in the Legislature doubled, Asian representation tripled, Black representation nearly doubled, and Latino seats grew by 8%.”⁴⁴

Although the numbers appear to be accurate,⁴⁵ they are for California’s state legislature, not for its U.S. House delegation. Because Prop 50 does not affect the state legislature, the claim is misleading.

We could not find equivalent numbers for California’s U.S. House delegation, which is what Prop 50 affects. However, general articles on the topic suggest that the delegation has gotten more diverse as a result of the commission’s role in redistricting.⁴⁶

Some opponents argue that Prop 50 was created not to defend democratic principles but to bolster California Governor Newsom’s national political ambitions.⁴⁷ Newsom has made himself the figurehead of the “Yes on 50” campaign, which includes among its messaging points, “Protect democracy in all 50 states.”⁴⁸ As of early October, nearly half of the campaign’s donations came from out of state.⁴⁹ Newsom’s term-limited tenure as governor will end in early 2027; he is widely expected to run for president in 2028.⁵⁰

Clearly, there is something to the claim that Newsom is aligning his role in the Prop 50 campaign with his national ambitions. But it is also clear that Newsom would be a strong supporter of Prop 50—as is virtually every other prominent California Democratic politician—regardless of his personal future ambitions. So the idea that Prop 50 is primarily about Newsom’s ambitions seems less persuasive than the idea that Prop 50 is primarily about what it says it’s about (countering Trump’s and the Texas Republicans’ 2025 redistricting) and that Newsom is out front because he senses it will be good politics for him. More fundamentally, even if Newsom does benefit politically from his role, voters can still evaluate Prop 50 on its substantive merits regarding redistricting policy.

The “Yes on 50” campaign claims, “No on 50 is backed by Trump extremists.” It highlights “an anti-choice mega-millionaire named Charles Munger Jr. who wants to help Donald Trump and Red State Republicans rig the 2026 elections and hand Trump unchecked power for two more years.”⁵¹

This omits the most relevant fact about Munger and Prop 50: that he was the primary backer of the campaigns that originally established the California Citizens Redistricting Commission.⁵² In a state where Democrats typically control both the legislature and governorship, the commission prevents the majority party from drawing maps to maximize their advantage—meaning Republicans benefit from not being gerrymandered against. But as is now acknowledged by both sides of the Prop 50 debate, the commission has become a widely praised institution for California.⁵³

Munger has no particular connection with Trump.⁵⁴ The “extremist” label appears to reference Munger's donations to anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ organizations—contributions that totaled around $158,000 over 25 years.⁵⁵ By contrast, he has spent over $44 million on redistricting reform going back to 2005.⁵⁶

This appendix has addressed the most significant claims we excluded. But the list could have gone on. From the largest points to individual word choices, campaign rhetoric exists to persuade, not to inform fairly. So it should always be read critically—as should our attempts to render it in an accurate, fair-minded way.