Mailers flood Bay Area homes, kicking off California redistricting battles

Even before Democrats finalized their plans to gerrymander California anti-redistricting mailers were already landing in droves in Bay Area mailboxes The plan pushed by Gov Gavin Newsom and his allies according to one mailer distributed widely last week would strip away California s constitutional voting protections and set a dangerous precedent by temporarily pausing the state s independent process of drawing district lines for seats in Congress We cannot save democracy by burning it down in California reads the message The sender A political committee led by a billionaire s son Charles Munger Jr who once led the Santa Clara County Republican Party Since then Newsom has unleashed a torrent of emails seeking donations for the redistricting brawl And God help us if we re not accomplished the governor mentioned in one such appeal on Tuesday We may have enjoyed our last free and fair polling Voters can expect to be bombarded by political advertising and messages like these for the next two months On Nov California voters will consider Proposition which would temporarily replace congressional district maps drawn by the state s Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission with partisan maps drawn by Democrats with the explicit goal of flipping five GOP seats in the U S House of Representatives Newsom and his party did so to counter Texas Republicans mid-cycle gerrymandering campaign there Because California s competitive seats are key to control of the House the fate of Prop could prove consequential for Republicans and President Donald Trump in the second half of his term after the midterm elections A constellation of interest groups will be campaigning fiercely to influence voters and analysts expect money to pour in with cost estimates between million and million While expensive that still would fall far short of the priciest ballot measure battle California has seen to date the million fight over dueling measures to legalize sports betting in So far the Yes on Prop campaign has raised more than million in large donations since mid-July campaign finance filings show A spokesperson for the committee Hannah Milgrom explained it has raked in another million in small donations from about people Those donations aren t yet reflected in filings Committees fighting to quash the ballot measure have raised a combined million almost exclusively from Munger The battle lines are drawn Newsom will be leading the campaign for the ballot measure with the state and national Democratic Party behind him as well as the California Federation of Labor Unions SEIU Planned Parenthood and other allied groups Their pitch to voters Prop is the country s best hope to counter Trump s Texas power grab and ensure a fair national midterm poll and Americans who love democracy are counting on California to act Milgrom noted in an email The campaign has stated that small donations have flooded in from across the U S Newsom had used the ballot measure committee to stump for measures in previous years including s Prop a bond for behavioral robustness healing centers As of late June Newsom held million in the committee giving Democrats a sizable head start in fundraising Central to their argument is Trump himself whose office engineered the Texas gerrymandering strategy to buoy the GOP in the midterm elections Trump s ability to execute his agenda will in large part depend on his party maintaining control of Congress after I think both sides have their challenges disclosed UC San Diego political scientist Thad Kousser but the hardest sell in California is constantly defending Donald Trump s actions The Yes on campaign wants to make this the bulk of all a referendum on Donald Trump and his attacks on democracy through other states redistricting On the other side two separate campaigns led by Republicans will try to thwart the Democrats So far the better-funded of the two is Munger s committee Munger is a physicist and the son of a billionaire Berkshire Hathaway executive He played a key role in the establishment of California s independent redistricting commission more than a decade ago This week Munger dumped more than million into a political committee and had already begun papering the homes of voters throughout the state with anti-gerrymandering mailers Committee spokesperson Amy Thoma Tan stated they ll maintain their focus on the value of independent redistricting and the pitfalls of gerrymandering So far that pitch is rooted more in civics than partisan battles between Democrats and Republicans We re going to be communicating with voters about the value of California s citizen-led redistricting process Tan noted We believe that people not politicians should be drawing the lines Tan mentioned good-governance groups will play a role in their committee but she declined to say which groups Prop has proved controversial for the California branches of two such groups Common Cause and the League of Women Voters which generally assistance independent redistricting A spokesperson for Common Cause California revealed the group supports Prop and the local branch of the League of Women Voters informed Wednesday it will be neutral and stay on the sidelines However mailers sent by Munger s committee prominently feature a comment by the League s president Gloria Chun Hoo urging voters to reject the dangerous idea of mid-cycle redistricting The organization has since distanced itself from Munger The other Republican committee is led by former state GOP chairwoman Jessica Millan Patterson and former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy In an interview with Bay Area News Group Patterson projected confidence and noted that voters twice supported independent redistricting in and As of Wednesday afternoon the committee had announced about in contributions The good news is we don t have to do a whole lot of convincing Patterson explained She noted the committee will take aim at Newsom and state Democrats arguing that Prop is a power grab that would destroy fairness in congressional elections The former chairwoman didn t directly answer when demanded if the White House would be involved in the opposition campaign I think that there s a lot of conversations that are happening Patterson disclosed