(LifeSiteNews) — California voters will decide on Tuesday, November 4, whether to gerrymander congressional districts to virtually eliminate Republicans from the state’s delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives.

If Proposition 50 passes and has its intended effect of disappearing five GOP seats in 2026, Democrats will outnumber Republicans by a margin of 48 to 4. Conservative citizens of the State of Jefferson, a decades-old secessionist movement in Northern California, would find themselves represented by an ultraliberal lawmaker from Marin County.

Titled the Election Rigging Response Act, Prop 50 is billed as an emergency measure to offset partisan gerrymandering by Republicans in Texas. It would set aside the electoral maps produced by the state’s independent redistricting commission for the next three election cycles.

Supporters have spent $138 million on the contest so far, versus $80 million in spending by opponents. The Prop 50 special election will cost taxpayers around $300 million, even as the chronically mismanaged state is running a $20 billion budget deficit.

The measure is looking increasingly likely to succeed, but an upset defeat is possible. Ten counties that voted for Joe Biden in 2020 flipped in 2024 for Donald Trump, who won nearly 40 percent of the statewide presidential vote. Republican voter registrations have increased by 48,104 since last February, while Democrats have mustered a mere 190 new registered voters.

The state legislature placed Prop 50 on the ballot at the behest of Gov. Gavin Newsom, who will term out of office in January 2027 and is almost certain to run for president in 2028. The 58-year-old Democrat will enter that race as either the victorious leader of the “No Kings” resistance to President Donald Trump or a seriously weakened loser.

The redistricting scheme is Newsom’s latest chess move in pursuit of the White House. Homosexual “marriage” was his signature issue during two terms as mayor of San Francisco, but as governor he has rebranded into a national defender of abortion on demand.

Newsom declared California an abortion “sanctuary” days after Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022 and then rented billboards in conservative states proclaiming, “Need an abortion? California is ready to help.”

Thanks to a bill he signed into law last month, California doctors can now prescribe abortion pills anonymously and the prescriptions can be filled without listing pharmacy information on the label. The goal is to evade federal restrictions and out-of-state lawsuits related to the dangerous drugs.

Seeking the global spotlight, Newsom visited Israel in October 2023 soon after the invasion by Hamas, meeting with Californians injured in the attack. He then proceeded to Beijing, where he was warmly welcomed by Chinese dictator Xi Jinping and photographed at the nearby Great Wall.

READ: Newsom signs law forcing California schools to promote LGBT ‘hotline’ on student IDs

Newsom debated Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Fox the following month, awkwardly acting as President Joe Biden’s surrogate in the event with the Republican presidential candidate. His proposal for a 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution on gun control has failed to gain traction even in liberal states.

“This Is Gavin Newsom,” the governor’s podcast intended to shed light on the motivations of the MAGA movement and how Trump returned to power, has featured interviews with conservative political figures such as Steve Bannon and Newt Gingrich. Newsom agreed with the late Charlie Kirk in the podcast’s first episode last March that allowing biological males to compete in female sports is “deeply unfair.”

Earlier this month, however, Newsom signed the Youth Sports for All Act, creating a commission to promote access to high school athletics regardless of “gender identity.” The move reinforced his reputation for saying one thing but doing another.

Newsom’s Yes on 50 campaign has been sending out daily fundraising emails ostensibly drafted by Newsom himself. “My decision” was the subject line of the October 13 email, stressing the closeness of the contest and claiming redistricting backers are being outspent.

Newsom wrote that he “heard the calls for Democrats to ‘Do Something!’ I agreed. No more holding hands. No more talk. It was time for action. Concrete action. … We are building the strongest grassroots campaign Democrats are waging anywhere. And if we’re in this together, we’re going to win. But I can’t do it alone.”

“Folks,” Newsom said in his October 10 email soliciting donations, “I am worried. God help us if we lose in California. We may have enjoyed our last free and fair election.” “Stephen Miller” was the subject line of the October 6 email, sounding the alarm about the Trump strategist and progressive nemesis. “Mike ‘Little Man’ Johnson” was the title of the October 3 email focused on the government shutdown.

Under the “Make them pay” subject line on October 1, Newsom wrote, “If you are looking for a way to make Donald Trump and Republicans pay for shutting down the government, winning here is something they will feel.” To make that happen, email recipients must contribute today.

“When Democrats go on OFFENSE, we WIN. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!” Newsom emailed on September 27. The mimicking of the president’s penchant for caps lock reflects a combative public relations strategy that has been termed “dark woke” and seen as a social media-driven attempt to “out-Trump” the chief executive.

But Newsom’s track record of leftist extremism is unlikely to play well outside of deep-blue urban enclaves. He recently signed three bills strongly opposed by conservative Christians and parental rights groups.

Assembly Bill 495 aims to ensure continuity of caregiving for minors whose undocumented parents are detained or deported due to immigration enforcement, using a short form that does not need to be signed by a parent to provide information that does not need to be verified. A phony caregiver without any photo ID can now pick up an unrelated child from school simply by providing a fake Social Security Number.

AB 727 requires contact information for the Trevor Project LGBTQ+ Suicide Hotline to be included on public school student ID cards. TrevorSpace, the related online community that promotes “gender fluidity” but lacks identity or age verification safeguards, has been flagged as a “groomer’s paradise.”

AB 1084 speeds up the legal process for name changes for minors who believe their “gender identity” does not match their biological sex. The measure severely limits the ability of parents to block requests by minors with gender dysphoria to alter vital records like birth certificates and requires courts to automatically seal such records.

The No Secret Police Act, another new law in the Golden State, prohibits federal immigration agents from wearing face coverings to conceal their identity, despite the real risk of doxing and retaliation. Newsom also established the Bureau for Descendants of American Slavery to begin building the infrastructure for providing future reparations.

Opposition researchers will find plenty of other low-hanging fruit once Newsom tosses his hat into the presidential ring. He made California the nation’s first “sanctuary” for gender-confused children in 2022, while the Menstrual Equity for All Act of 2021 requires public schools to stock free menstrual products in at least one male restroom.

Prop 50 would be an easier sell if not for California’s steep decline in quality of life, resulting in heavy outmigration to better-governed states. Though Newsom frames the measure as the last firewall preventing a Trump dictatorship, it asks voters to reward the disaster of decades of Democratic one-party rule.

Republicans have not won a statewide office in California since Arnold Schwarzenegger was re-elected as governor in 2006. Schwarzenegger was largely responsible for the creation in 2008 of the nonpartisan Citizens Redistricting Commission, which Prop 50 now seeks to dismantle.

Newsom met with Schwarzenegger last summer to persuade the former governor to sit out the redistricting fight. Instead, Schwarzenegger called Prop 50 a “big scam” during the October 17 episode of Real Time with Bill Maher.

“We Cannot Save Democracy by Burning it Down in California,” according to the Vote No on Prop 50 campaign slogan. Newsom will be a less viable candidate for president in 2028 if he turns out to be a failed arsonist.

Robert Jenkins is a Catholic writer living in Sacramento, California.