Obama applauds Newsom's California redistricting plan as 'responsible'
as Texas GOP pushes new maps
[August 21, 2025]
By MEG KINNARD
Former President Barack Obama has waded into states' efforts at rare
mid-decade redistricting efforts, saying he agrees with California Gov.
Gavin Newsom's response to alter his state's congressional maps, in the
way of Texas redistricting efforts promoted by President Donald Trump
aimed at shoring up Republicans' position in next year's elections.
“I believe that Gov. Newsom’s approach is a responsible approach. He
said this is going to be responsible. We’re not going to try to
completely maximize it,” Obama said at a Tuesday fundraiser on Martha's
Vineyard in Massachusetts, according to excerpts obtained by The
Associated Press. “We’re only going to do it if and when Texas and/or
other Republican states begin to pull these maneuvers. Otherwise, this
doesn’t go into effect.”
While noting that “political gerrymandering” is not his “preference,”
Obama said that, if Democrats “don’t respond effectively, then this
White House and Republican-controlled state governments all across the
country, they will not stop, because they do not appear to believe in
this idea of an inclusive, expansive democracy.”
According to organizers, the event raised $2 million for the National
Democratic Redistricting Committee and its affiliates, one of which has
filed and supported litigation in several states over GOP-drawn
districts. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Eric Holder, who served
as Obama’s attorney general and heads up the group, also appeared.
The former president's comments come as Texas lawmakers return to Austin
this week, renewing a heated debate over a new congressional map
creating five new potential GOP seats. The plan is the result of
prodding by President Donald Trump, eager to stave off a midterm defeat
that would deprive his party of control of the House of Representatives.
Texas Democratic lawmakers delayed a vote for 15 days by leaving the
state in protest, depriving the House of enough members to do business.
Spurred on by the Texas situation, Democratic governors including Newsom
have pondered ways to possibly strengthen their party's position by way
of redrawing U.S. House district lines, five years out from the Census
count that typically leads into such procedures.
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Former President Barack Obama speaks at the Obama Foundation
Democracy Forum, Dec. 5, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley,
File)
In California — where voters in 2010 gave the power to draw
congressional maps to an independent commission, with the goal of
making the process less partisan — Democrats have unveiled a
proposal that could give that state’s dominant political party an
additional five U.S. House seats in a bid to win the fight to
control of Congress next year. If approved by voters in November,
the blueprint could nearly erase Republican House members in the
nation’s most populous state, with Democrats intending to win the
party 48 of its 52 U.S. House seats, up from 43.
A hearing over that measure devolved into a shouting match Tuesday
as a Republican lawmaker clashed with Democrats, and a committee
voted along party lines to advance the new congressional map.
California Democrats do not need any Republican votes to move ahead,
and legislators are expected to approve a proposed congressional map
and declare a Nov. 4 special election by Thursday to get required
voter approval.
Newsom and Democratic leaders say they’ll ask voters to approve
their new maps only for the next few elections, returning
map-drawing power to the commission following the 2030 census — and
only if a Republican state moves forward with new maps. Obama
applauded that temporary timeline.
“And we’re going to do it in a temporary basis because we’re keeping
our eye on where we want to be long term,” Obama said, referencing
Newsom's take on the California plan. “I think that approach is a
smart, measured approach, designed to address a very particular
problem in a very particular moment in time.”
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