PREVIOUSLY:

###

You could say California’s Nov. 4 special election is just around the corner, or you could say it’s already here. Ballots are being mailed out to every voter in the state today, as we do since the pandemic, so some people will start casting their ballots this week.

To recap, quickly: A few years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it’s not unconstitutional for states to gerrymander their congressional districts for political purpose. That led, this year, to the state of Texas — under apparent pressure from the Trump Administration — to redraw its lines in the middle of the usual 10-year cycle, so as to deliver more Republicans to Congress than it otherwise would have done.

This, in turn, led to Gov. Gavin Newsom proposing that California should do the same in reverse — to gerrymander the state for maximum Democratic gains, to offset Texas’s move. Thus, Proposition 50 and the current special election were born. The California gerrymander would undo, temporarily, the lines drawn at the beginning of this decade by the independent Citizens’ Redistricting Commission. If it passes, five Republicans in California’s Congressional caucus are projected to lose their seats, including Rep. Doug La Malfa to our east.

Proposition 50 proponents have raised nearly double the amount of money that its opponents have, and from far more sources. Calmatters currently estimates that nearly 1/3 of the $151 million dollars in the pro- camp’s war chest was raised from small donations, while opponents raised only $8,400 of its $77 million from such sources.

The most recent polling shows that the “Yes” side has a significant lead.

A couple of things to note:

1. Big change this year: If you’re going to mail in your ballot, you would be wise to do that before Election Day — not on the day of. New postal service practices mean that your ballot won’t be postmarked on Election Day, in such cases, but rather the day after, and therefore won’t count. If you white-knuckle it up to the deadline, you’ll want to instead drop your ballot off in one of the county’s drop box locations. (See press release from Attorney General Rob Bonta here.)

2. If you’re looking for more resources about this election, our friends at Calmatters have an ever-updating voting guide here.

If you’re curious about what Prop. 50 does to our Congressional district in particular — California’s Second District — check the map below. The areas that would be removed from our district are in red, and the areas that would be added to it are in blue. Feel free to zoom and pan around, if you like, and you can turn layers off and on with the buttons in the upper right.

It’s still considered a safe Democratic seat.