Christine Mai-Duc
Abortion rights teams are backing California Democrats within the escalating battle to redraw congressional maps, warning that Republicans are rigging seats on the heels of deeply unpopular cuts to security internet well being applications and restrictions on reproductive care.
And they fear there’s extra to come back, together with a national abortion ban.
“You take away our freedoms, we’ll take away your seats,” mentioned Jodi Hicks, CEO of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, throughout Gov. Gavin Newsom’s pitch to undertake Democratic-leaning maps to offset President Donald Trump’s try and bolster GOP seats in Texas.
“We can’t sit idly by while the Trump administration, while their backers in Congress, pursue every avenue to strip blue states of their autonomy.”
California legislators this week are debating the brand new congressional maps, drawn by Newsom allies, which might briefly exchange these drawn by the state’s impartial redistricting fee. If they’re accepted, voters would have the ultimate say in a November particular election.
The mobilization comes as Planned Parenthood, one of many nation’s main reproductive rights teams, tries to stop additional political and funding losses. Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, conservative states, together with Texas, have carried out legal guidelines banning abortion nearly fully. And Republicans handed Trump’s tax-and-spending invoice with massive cuts to Medicaid, which retains security internet suppliers like Planned Parenthood afloat.
The Trump administration additionally not too long ago barred the group and its associates from receiving reimbursement for nonabortion providers comparable to most cancers screenings and contraception, although a federal decide has briefly paused enforcement pending a authorized problem.
John Seago, president of Texas Right to Life, mentioned the anti-abortion group is just not taking a place on both state’s redistricting proposals. But, he mentioned, Democrats’ rhetoric about defending democracy rings hole when blue states like California go “shield laws” that defend sufferers looking for abortions and their well being care suppliers from going through penalties and make it tougher for states like Texas to implement their legal guidelines.
Hicks, whose group represents about 1 in 5 Planned Parenthood clinics nationwide, promised to “go all in” on Newsom’s poll measure. She declined to say how a lot cash the group would spend on the marketing campaign.
She added that she wouldn’t be shocked to see extra well being care teams — lots of which opposed the recent Medicaid cuts — bounce into electoral politics following the passage of Trump’s signature legislation. “Health care organizations that, maybe, don’t get involved in those particular races are looking at things differently,” she mentioned.
So far, well being trade assist has been restricted to abortion rights advocates. Reproductive Freedom for All, the nationwide abortion rights group previously often called NARAL, additionally lauded Newsom for “holding Republicans accountable for trying to steal votes.”
Planned Parenthood Texas Votes, the advocacy arm of the state’s associates, has urged supporters to testify at particular session conferences and held a webinar to “stop the redistricting power grab.” And the nationwide Planned Parenthood Action Fund inspired leaders in Democratic states to make use of “all tools in their power to push back, level the national playing field, and stop the slide into authoritarianism.”
Hicks and her group aren’t any strangers to big political fights — even in opposition to Newsom. Last yr, she and different well being leaders led a $56 million marketing campaign to go a revised state well being care tax in November over the governor’s issues.
Newsom, who’s attempting to construct a nationwide profile forward of a potential 2028 presidential bid, mentioned the trouble would “neutralize” Republican gerrymandering in Texas to pad their celebration’s fragile five-seat benefit within the U.S. House. The celebration within the White House has usually misplaced congressional seats within the midterm elections, and political analysts say the pattern seems more likely to proceed in 2026.
Newsom additionally referred to as on lawmakers in other Democratic states to observe swimsuit if GOP states transfer forward with redistricting plans. Leaders in Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, New York, and Ohio have urged they may discover comparable actions, creating a possible cascade that political specialists have mentioned might sow chaos in subsequent yr’s midterm elections and set a harmful precedent.
California Republican Party chair Corrin Rankin, whose celebration stands to lose 5 of the 9 House seats it at the moment holds, called Newsom’s proposal a “calculated power grab that dismantles the very safeguards voters put in place” once they passed congressional redistricting reform in 2010.
Democratic leaders have forged the transfer as essential to fight an existential risk to democracy. And they’ve criticized Republicans for attempting to make an finish run round voter anger towards their insurance policies, notably round well being care. Nearly half of adults suppose the Republican-passed tax-and-spending legislation will damage them, in keeping with a July survey by KFF. More than half consider abortion ought to be authorized, a minimum of underneath some circumstances, per a Gallup ballot in May.
The Republican-passed megabill is projected to slash Medicaid, the federal well being care program that covers low-income Americans, by almost $1 trillion over 10 years. And the Trump administration has cut funding to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health, together with clawing again medical and scientific analysis funds from universities.
“They know that voters will hold them accountable for the cuts they rammed through Congress that will strip health care away from millions of people,” mentioned Democratic state lawmaker Sabrina Cervantes, chair of the Senate Elections and Constitutional Amendments Committee. “Because they know they cannot win fair elections, they are changing the rules in the middle of the game.”
Republican incumbents who may very well be redistricted into oblivion are crying foul.
“Mid-Decade redistricting is wrong, no matter where it’s being done,” Rep. Doug LaMalfa wrote on the social platform X. Last week, the seven-term Republican endured a hostile city corridor in his rural Northern California district, defending his vote for the brand new legislation by saying it “doesn’t cut a single dollar from people who qualify” for Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program.
If accepted by voters, proponents mentioned, California’s 52 new House districts would additionally bolster susceptible congressional Democrats and be in impact for the 2026, 2028, and 2030 elections. The map wouldn’t go into impact except one other state accepted its personal gerrymandering effort. After the 2030 census, the state fee would regain management of the method.
Paul Mitchell, a redistricting skilled who helped draft the Democrats’ map, mentioned his staff used the fee’s district boundaries as a place to begin and, for greater than half the districts, moved fewer than 10% of voters.
“This is not a Twitter hack job,” mentioned Mitchell, a Democrat who’s married to Hicks and has lengthy supported the impartial fee’s work. “I want to get back to nonpartisan redistricting, but right now we’re in a crisis.”
National polls present voters oppose partisan redistricting. And California voters nonetheless overwhelmingly assist the state’s impartial redistricting system, mentioned veteran GOP strategist Rob Stutzman, who added that passing such sophisticated poll language in an off-year election could be no simple feat.
“You’re asking voters to make an unprincipled decision. You’re asking them to rig an election because allegedly Texas is rigging an election,” Stutzman mentioned. “‘No’ votes are so much easier when it’s confusing, and this is extremely confusing.”
Dave Wasserman, senior editor and elections analyst for the Cook Political Report, mentioned Texas and California have the potential to set off a “redistricting apocalypse” that can have main implications within the struggle to manage Congress.
“If Democrats fail to pass a ballot initiative to offset Texas, then Republicans would go from having a very narrow chance to hold the House to, perhaps, an even chance,” he mentioned. But, he added, public opinion on well being care cuts stays the largest impediment within the celebration’s path.
This article was produced by KFF Health News, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially impartial service of the California Health Care Foundation.
KFF Health News is a nationwide newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about well being points and is without doubt one of the core working applications at KFF—an impartial supply of well being coverage analysis, polling, and journalism. Learn extra about KFF.
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