{"id":12486,"date":"2025-08-20T20:31:38","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T20:31:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/obama-backs-california-effort-to-redraw-districts-in-response-to-texas\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T20:31:38","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T20:31:38","slug":"obama-backs-california-effort-to-redraw-districts-in-response-to-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/obama-backs-california-effort-to-redraw-districts-in-response-to-texas\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama backs California effort to redraw districts in response to Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Former President Barack Obama is supporting California\u2019s mid-cycle redistricting effort as a \u201cresponsible approach\u201d to Republicans drawing new maps in Texas.<\/p>\n

Obama praised California Gov. Gavin Newsom\u2019s ballot measure proposal to redraw congressional districts and tilt at least five congressional districts in the state towards Democrats at a fundraiser on Tuesday for the National Democratic Redistricting Committee.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe that Governor Newsom\u2019s approach is a responsible approach,\u201d he said, according to excerpts obtained by Blue Light News. \u201cI think that approach is a smart, measured approach, designed to address a very particular problem in a very particular moment in time.\u201d<\/p>\n

California Democrats are expected this week to allow voters to bypass an independent commission established by voters and decide whether to approve the new partisan maps for the next three election cycles in response to the Republican\u2019s move in Texas.<\/p>\n

Obama\u2019s remarks comes as both parties in California gear up for what is expected to be a hard-fought campaign over the ballot initiative to redraw political boundaries in the state in response to President Donald Trump\u2019s efforts to keep the House in Republican hands in the 2026 midterms.<\/p>\n

The former president said redrawing the lines is \u201cnot my preference,\u201d but that the Democratic-led effort in California is \u201cresponsible\u201d in this context.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot unilaterally allow one of the two major parties to rig the game,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd California is one of the states that has the capacity to offset a large state like Texas.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Associated Press first reported Obama\u2019s remarks.<\/p>\n

Obama said he hopes that the NDRC and national Democrats will work to eliminate partisan gerrymandering as a \u201clong-term goal,\u201d but applauded Newsom\u2019s response to the new Texas maps and Trump\u2019s broader campaign to push other red states to draw new, more favorable maps.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven that Texas is taking direction from a partisan White House that is effectively saying: gerrymander for partisan purposes so we can maintain the House despite our unpopular policies, redistrict right in the middle of a decade between censuses \u2014 which is not how the system was designed; I have tremendous respect for how Governor Newsom has approached this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Newsom thanked Obama for his support in a social media post<\/a> and promised that California\u2019s redistricting proposal will \u201cneutralize any attempts Donald Trump makes to steal Congressional seats.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former President Barack Obama is supporting California\u2019s mid-cycle redistricting effort as a \u201cresponsible approach\u201d to Republicans drawing new maps in Texas. Obama praised California Gov. Gavin Newsom\u2019s ballot measure proposal to redraw congressional districts and tilt at least five congressional districts in the state towards Democrats at a fundraiser on Tuesday for the National Democratic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12486\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}