On Gavin
I know it is a tad early, but California Governor Gavin Newsom is making the case to be the Democrat’s nominee for president in 2028. He’s taking the fight right at MAGA. On redistricting and on trolling. See the latest from a California ABC TV affiliate:
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — As campaigning for Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Proposition 50 ramps up, legal challenges are already emerging against his push for a voter-approved redraw of California’s congressional districts.
The mid-decade redistricting aims to shore up at least five Democratic U.S. House seats in the midterms – an attempt to offset Texas Republicans’ proposed gerrymander designed to keep Congress under GOP control.
On Monday, President Donald Trump threatened to sue California over his redistricting ballot measure.
“I think I’m going to be filing a lawsuit pretty soon, and I think we’re going to be very successful,” Trump said. “We’re going to be filing it through the Department of Justice, that’s going to happen.”
California Republicans are also escalating their opposition. State Sen. Tony Strickland (R-Huntington Beach) said, “I’m going to fight every step of the way,” after GOP lawmakers filed a complaint with the California Supreme Court.
“If anybody’s rigging the election, it’s Gavin Newsom,” Strickland said. “What he wants is to make sure that we have no competitive elections in California and have a predetermined election.”
The filing asks justices to remove redistricting from the November ballot, arguing Democrats violated the state constitution.
“The legislature cannot break the law and ask for the people later to retroactively give it the power to redistrict,” said Mike Columbo, a partner at Dhillon Law Group.
Democrats maintain the proposal is both legal and necessary. Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, D-Culver City differentiated California’s process from Texas, in a Tuesday interview with ABC7 News.
“Any time you change the state constitution, the change you are making is currently not in the Constitution. That is why we send it to the voters,” he said. “We are asking the voters if this one-time, mid-decade census redistricting can be approved by them as a response to the authoritarian power grab that’s happening in Texas.”
A spokesperson for California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s campaign supporting mid-decade redistricting shrugged off legal threat from Trump and state Republicans.
“Trump’s toadies already got destroyed once in court,” Hannah Milgrom, a spokesperson for Newsom’s “Yes on 50, Election Rigging Response Act” campaign, told ABC News in a statement, referring to the California Supreme Court last week denying a petition from Republican legislators asking for a pause before lawmakers took more action on redistricting.
Loyola Marymount Law professor Justin Levitt says Republicans may face an uphill battle in court, due to SCOCA’s decision last week.
“It’s extremely unlikely that the California Supreme Court is going to indulge that,” Levitt said. “The proposed new map doesn’t actually take effect unless and until the voters approve a constitutional change. That is, it’s just a piece of paper and designed to be just a piece of paper. Unless the voters approve a constitutional change, it’s a thing that has a future trigger, but it doesn’t have any legal impact right now.”
Levitt added Trump could face similar challenges, citing a 2019 U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
“The Supreme Court said federal courts are going to be out of the business of policing partisan gerrymandering,” Levitt said. “The federal courts have retreated from this. Congress didn’t act when it could. And now states are in a brawl that’s messy for everyone.”
I guess Donald Trump and MAGA never heard about the goose and the gander line.
Gov. Newsom also included H-Town in a troll job directed at Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. See this from the Chron:
A social media troll campaign by California Gov. Gavin Newsom targeting Fox News and, apparently, Texas caught Houston in the crossfire this weekend.
Newsom’s press office posted 2024 homicide statistics for Houston underneath a less-than-flattering photo of a grimacing Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Saturday to contrast San Francisco’s much lower numbers. The graphic shows Houston’s 2024 homicide count (322) next to San Francisco’s (35) and calls the figures “facts you won’t see on Fox News.”
“Anyone think Fox News will cover that?” Newsom’s press office wrote on X.
The post was one of 11 the office shared Saturday and Sunday, targeting seemingly higher crime among other cities and states where Republican governors are in office. Newsom’s office name-dropped Dallas, Miami; Tampa, Fla.; Memphis, Tenn.; St. Louis; Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi and compared each of their crime statistics to that of either Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco or California.
The Chronicle has reached out to the Houston Police Department and Abbott’s press office for comment.
Newsom’s press office credits its numbers to violent crime data from the Major Cities Chiefs Association — an organization of law enforcement officials from major U.S. and Canadian cities. The association compiled the total number of homicides, not murders, across U.S. and Canadian cities in addition to rapes, robberies and aggravated assaults.
Houston’s population is more than double that of San Francisco’s, but it still has a higher murder rate than the California city. Houston has a homicide rate of nearly 13.8 per 100,000 people, while San Francisco’s is less than 4.23 per 100,000, based on the MCCA data.
I hate to see H-Town get thrown into the troll mix, but the numbers are what the numbers are. Gov. Abbott thinks his sh_t doesn’t stink, when in fact it does. Gov. Newsom is aggressively fighting to protect our democracy. Abbott in the featured photo is acting on the orders of his daddy, Trump.
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The H-Town City Council will hold an evening meeting today. See this from KPRC TV Channel Two News:
HOUSTON – Starting Tuesday, the City of Houston will hold its public comment sessions for council members and the mayor in the evening.
Often called “pop-off,” residents who have something to say about what’s happening in their neighborhoods will begin taking place at 5:30 p.m., to give working families more time to make their voices heard.
Additionally, city council members will vote on agenda items the following Wednesday morning.
“From this point forward, Houston City Council will hold its last Tuesday public session of the month at 5:30 p.m., and the location of that meeting will still be at City Hall,” the City said in a social media caption back in July. “This change in time was made to give the community more opportunities to engage and voice their concerns to their elected officials.”
This is a good thing.
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Our lead in the AL West is now a game and a half. It is what we call crunch time. The lousiest team in MLB is in town for three. We must handle business. It is Dollar Dog Night this evening at Daikin Park.