No on 50

 California Voters

The share of registered voters who are Democrats (45.3%) has decreased slightly since 2021 (46.2%), the year before the last gubernatorial election. The share who are Republicans (GOP) (25.2%) has seen a small uptick (24.1% in 2021). The senate vote was 37.7% Republican and 62.3% Democrat. The Assembly vote was 40.6% republican and 57.8% Democrat. Clearly registered voter rolls differ a bit from how the state actually votes.

About two in ten voters (22.3%) are independents (also known as “decline to state” or “no party preference” voters); this share has declined somewhat since 2021 (23.7%). Meanwhile, the share registering with a minor political party has increased from 6.0% in 2021 to 7.2% today.

California Legislature

The Democratic Party currently holds veto-proof supermajorities in both houses of the California State Legislature. The Assembly consists of 60 Democrats and 20 Republicans, while the Senate is composed of 30 Democrats and 10 Republicans. A 3:1

To summarize what is going on in the State legislature, Democrats represent a much higher percentage of the seats than votes actually cast for the party, and the opposite is true for Republicans despite a downward trend in Democratic votes and small 'uptick' in GOP votes. This can be partly explained by higher voter turnout in Republican districts and low turnout in Democratic districts, but there's much more to it. The voter split is 40/60, the representative split is 25/75, seems like the GOP is under-represented.

California Congressional Districts 

As of the 2024 election California is represented in congress by 43 Democrat, 9 Republican. 82.7% Democrat and 17.3% republican. Seems like the congressional districts already favor Democrats. If 50 passes the estimate is that republicans will lose 5 seats, thus 48:4 or a split of 92.3%: 7.7% meaning that republicans would be underrepresented in congress by a factor of 5x (39% vote GOP versus 7.7% representative) for the state of California. In 2024 the democrats picked up 3 of these seats from the previous 40:12 split

We've talked about the registered voter split, but what about how voters in CA are actually voting?

For congressional races the vote split was 39.2% Republican and 60.5% Democrat. Pretty again close to a 40/60 split, but districts are close to 17/83? The only thing that can explain this is that the district map is already set in favor of Democrats. Doesn't seem very 'democratic' does it. Scratching my head at how the Dems picked up 3 seats. I figured that it had to be that Republican voters left the state and had lower turnout, but the opposite was true. Republican votes increase by 3% and Democratic votes dropped by nearly the same (2.8%). Highly sus.

To summarize, republican votes increased by 3% representing a total of 39.2% of Californian voters (that voted) but Republicans lost 3 of their 12 seats in the US Congress and have just 17.3% of the seats. Moreover the State Senate and Assembly Republican make-up is 25%, which while better than the congressional districting still exhibits a large gap.. CA enjoys an over-representation of Democrats and both the State and Federal level already, but TX went and added some Congressional seats giving that party more power in Congress. In response Gavin Newsom effectively said, "Hold my beer!"

The congressional split favors Democrats by a 22% deviation from votes case (82.7% representation minus 60.5% vote). Prop50 would increase this from 22% to 30%. How is this not jerrymandering?

Texas

Texas recently changed their districts, picking up seats in US House for Republicans. They don't have an "independent" districting committee like CA, so their State Legislature can legally do what they just did, which I disagreed with, and which is what CA democrats want in prop50. But I haven't really investigated what TX has done, so best take a look.

2024 Congressional Election, Texas

The Republican/Democrat seat split was 25/13 prior to 2024 and remained so after. The percentage of popular vote was 58.4%/40.4%. The split favors the congressional districts (district split 65.8%/34.2%) by 6-7% towards GOP, much less than the Democrat bias CA gets. The change TX recently made is in part a response to CA GOP losing 3 seats despite the increase in GOP votes, and that CA and other states already have what appears to be an unfair districting structure in place.

How did the TX change impact GOP representation in congress? Estimates give republicans advantage in 5 districts, potentially changing the split to 30/8... or 79%/21% favoring GOP above popular vote split by almost 21%, or close to where California currently is.

I stand by my criticism of the TX change, previously they were at least close (6-7%) to representing their voters, but they potentially tripled that gap. The secondary risk is that Blue states have and will follow, which will likely go further in red states until we have all these states where Democratic voters and GOP voters are not represented.

Lastly we should look at the state legislature of TX.

2024 Elections have GOP gaining 1 seat and Dems losing 1 seat with GOP voters increasing by 4.65% and Dems decreasing by 2.61% (that math's) with a seat split is now 88/62 (58.7%/41.3%) compared to a popular vote split of 56.3%/43% -pretty close to representation, so Good job Texas, your state legislature appears pretty democratic! 👏

To summarize, the Texas state legislature appears to be quite fair, and the congressional split was not far off of decent representation (voter turn-out can account for most of this) until the recent change that is. The congressional seat change, IMO, is not in favor of the voting voice in TX. This, again IMO, is wrong.

Conclusion

What TX did is wrong, California's prop 50 is also wrong. Two wrongs do not make a 'right'. Right? The messaging around prop50 is deliberately misleading. The only reason to support 50 is to silence more voices with a view different from your own. It does not support a fair democratically-elected republic, it supports an increase in power for an unchecked political super-majority in CA by making that majority even bigger. Our Governor has lied to us by saying things like without prop50 there won't be a Presidential election in 2028. That's rubbish. I don't believe for 1 second that Newsom actually believes that, I believe he is doing more of what many do these days. Fearmongering. If he actually believes that about the 2028 election then I feel he has no business performing the duties of Governor, I would actually sleep better knowing he's a liar, at least in that case he's in touch with reality a bit, just dishonest as most politicians are (fits within existing expectations, unfortunately).

TX took action, pressured by the Trump admin, to jerrymander it's congressional districts in a manner they believed some Blue states had already done (again, 2 wrongs don't make a right). CA in response has chosen to jerrymander more and claim it as proper democratic representation, and fear monger and foment hatred for Trump and his voters with a 'Yes' on 50.

No on 50 people. No matter your persuasion politically, it's just wrong.

Peace.