California Governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation Thursday approving a special election in November that will ask voters whether to waive an independent redistricting process to approve a new, partisan congressional map favoring Democrats. Newsom’s signature came just hours after lawmakers in Sacramento approved the measures. State Assembly speaker and Democrat Robert Rivas called the proposed map a direct response to a new congressional map approved by Texas’s Republican-controlled House this week, at the behest of President Trump, that’s designed to flip five House seats in the 2026 midterm elections.

Robert Rivas: “We will not let our political system be hijacked by authoritarianism. And today, we give every Californian the power to say no, to say no to Donald Trump’s power grab, and yes to our people, to our state and to our democracy.”