As wildfire prevention and mental health care are slashed, Sacramento moves to rewrite the rules for political gain
SACRAMENTO — Governor Gavin Newsom’s plan to hold a November special election that would hand redistricting power back to politicians would cost California taxpayers at least $235.5 million, according to a new estimate from the Assembly Republican Caucus Office of Policy and Budget.
The special election would attempt to reverse a constitutional amendment passed by voters in 2010. That amendment stripped the Legislature of its power to draw congressional districts and gave that authority to the Citizens Redistricting Commission, an independent body created to stop politicians from rigging maps to protect themselves.
Former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who championed the original redistricting reform, has warned against dismantling it, saying gerrymandering is “evil no matter who does it” and condemning efforts to “take power from the people.”
The last statewide special election, the 2021 recall, cost $200.2 million — including $174.1 million in county expenses and $26.2 million in state costs. Since then, election costs have climbed sharply due to 16% inflation, up to 52.5% higher postage costs, and 843,742 more registered voters who must be mailed ballots and voter guides.
This new fiscal estimate arrives just weeks after Newsom signed a budget that slashed wildfire prevention, cut mental health care, reduced services for people with disabilities, and gutted support for crime victims — all while quietly planning to spend hundreds of millions on a political rewrite of California’s voting rules.
“We’re cutting essential services while Sacramento plans a $235 million election to give politicians more power,” said Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher. “Voters created the independent commission to block this kind of insider scheme. Newsom wants to tear it up to help his political allies rig the maps for the next decade.”
This isn’t reform — it’s rigging the rules.
Read the full fiscal estimate here.
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