A California Republican proposed an unlikely solution to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) redistricting plan: split the state in two.
Republican state Assemblyman James Gallagher said that rather than creating individual congressional districts, the state should be split into what he called a “two-state solution.”
“The people of inland California have been overlooked for too long,” Gallagher said in a news release. “It’s time for a two-state solution.”
Per the news release, he would divide the state into two, separating the Democratic-leaning coastal counties from the state’s more Republican-leaning inland areas.
Gallagher said the proposed new state would include over 10 million California residents, which would put it in the top 10 most populous U.S. states.
Newsom is moving forward with a push to redistrict the state in response to the Texas state legislature approving new congressional maps at the direction of President Donald Trump, which would favor the GOP even more.
The California Constitution requires a nonpartisan commission to draw its House seats, but Newsom has said he and state lawmakers would put a ballot question to voters in a Nov. 4 special election to amend the state constitution to suspend that requirement for the next three federal elections. The independent commission would return after the 2030 census.
Before his proposal, Gallagher and other prominent California Republicans had been focusing their campaign against redistricting on claims about “good government. They had characterized the question that would be put before voters as a backroom deal designed to weaken the state’s independent redistricting commission.
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“I don’t think Texas should do it. I don’t think any state should do it,” Gallagher said in an interview earlier Tuesday, before his announcement.
Republicans in the state have filed multiple lawsuits against the effort. The latest lawsuit asks the California Supreme Court to prohibit the state’s secretary of state from implementing a new map. This follows a similar suit filed last week in which the state Supreme Court rejected the Republican challenge to the redistricting push.