Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) pushed back against redistricting efforts across the country, characterizing red states removing black majority districts as “racism.”
“This is Jim Crow 2.0,” Newsom said at a news conference Thursday. “It’s sick. Stone cold racism at a scale I never thought I would see in my life — Never have seen in my lifetime. It’s all bringing us back to pre-1960s world. It’s jaw-dropping what is happening.”
Newsom’s comments come in response to red states across the country moving to change their congressional maps after the Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais.
The decision moved the redistricting battle into a new phase, as the ruling found that a Louisiana congressional map was unconstitutional for creating race-based districts, weakening the Voting Rights Act and reinvigorating other red states to redistrict.
Gov. Jeff Landry (R-LA) moved to suspend the state’s House primary elections following the decision, days before voters were set to go to the polls.
But the suspension confirmed so close to the primary election rendered 45,000 early voting ballots in the state null. When pressed on this in a 60 Minutes interview, Landry said, “It’s not my fault.”
Newsom slammed Landry for the decision, accusing the Louisiana governor of canceling the election to “eliminate black representation.”
“I can’t believe this is happening,” Newsom said. “My parents talked to me about this and I said, ‘Well, thank God this is not going to happen in my lifetime,’ and it’s happening in real time.”
The California governor continued to push back on the efforts, categorizing moves to eliminate black majority districts as “anti-black.”
“Anti-woke is anti-black. All these attacks on DEI is anti-black,” he said. “[The] level of racism is sick. Rewriting history is censoring a historical fact. [The] number of African Americans being eliminated from key positions and posts, the Pentagon and elsewhere is sick.
“It’s happening in the United States of America in the open and it needs to be called out.”
Newsom’s comments echoed those of other Democrats who continue to push back on Republicans’ redistricting efforts, including Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), whose seat is 1 of 3 in which black Democrats might be eliminated.
“You’ve got a president that’s taken black folks out of everything,” Clyburn told NBC News. “So I don’t want us to just look at this voting case in isolation. No, this is a comprehensive attempt on the part of this administration to redeem Jim Crow. … He’s trying to turn the clock back.”
Newsom, who has expressed interest in running for president in 2028, said he feels a “deep responsibility” to respond to the situation not as a governor, but as a “human being.”
“This is not why our founding fathers lived and died,” Newsom said. “It was about the expansion of liberty, the expansion of freedom, including more and more people, and we’re seeing exactly the opposite of that take shape under this administration.”
Newsom’s comments come months after he successfully passed a new congressional map in California that could help Democrats win more seats in the midterm elections.
NEWSOM’S LEGACY ON THE LINE WHEN HE UNVEILS REVISED BUDGET PROPOSAL
In November, Californians overwhelmingly voted in favor of Proposition 50, a referendum temporarily creating a new congressional map in the Golden State that could favor Democrats.
California’s new congressional map, which a federal court ruled could proceed in a 2-1 decision, was created to possibly neutralize the anticipated seats Republicans would gain in Texas after the Lone Star State redrew its map to help the GOP in the midterm elections.