Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA) has introduced legislation that would prohibit mid-decade redistricting nationwide.
“I’ve officially introduced legislation to stop Newsom’s plan to abolish the Citizens Redistricting Commission, seize its powers for himself, and remove all checks and balances in California,” Kiley said.
“I’m calling on House Leadership to bring it up for a vote and end this insanity,” he added.
I've officially introduced legislation to stop Newsom's plan to abolish the Citizens Redistricting Commission, seize its powers for himself, and remove all checks and balances in California.
I'm calling on House Leadership to bring it up for a vote and end this insanity. pic.twitter.com/ggXDMTuYNI
— Rep. Kevin Kiley (@RepKiley) August 5, 2025
“For decades, the California Supreme Court has held that the State Constitution forbids mid-decade redistricting, and since 2010 redistricting in the state has been done by a voter-approved Independent Citizens Commission,” Kiley’s office stated in a release.
“But now, Governor Gavin Newsom is seeking to overturn that long-standing precedent, sideline the Citizens Commission, undo the will of voters, and return line-drawing power to himself and other partisan politicians. The Governor’s brazen scheme has been denounced by groups ranging from Common Cause to the California League of Women Voters,” it continued.
“Gavin Newsom is trying to subvert the will of voters and do lasting damage to democracy in California,” Kiley said.
“Fortunately, Congress has the ability to protect California voters using its authority under the Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution. This will also stop a damaging redistricting war from breaking out across the country,” he added.
Kiley told Fox News that “all options are on the table” to stop states from engaging in a nationwide fight over redistricting congressional maps.
“It creates a lot of instability if you’re just constantly shifting the lines on the map around so that, you know, representatives are losing constituents, losing communities, gaining new ones. People elect one person as their representative, and then suddenly that person is representing an entirely different area,” Kiley told Fox News Digital.
“It’s just total chaos. It’s not good for representative government. It’s not good for constituents. It is not good for Democrats or Republicans,” he added.
More from Fox News:
Texas Republicans are currently mounting a push to redraw the Lone Star state’s congressional map. President Donald Trump, who supports the effort, said it would give the GOP as many as five new seats in the House of Representatives.
California Democrats have launched their own redistricting bid in response, with Gov. Gavin Newsom signaling he’s ready to wield the Democratic supermajority in the state legislature to push a special election for voters to decide on new congressional maps.
Several states, both with Republican and Democratic majorities, have since followed suit in threatening their own redistricting efforts.
When asked if he thought the issue began with Texas, however, Kiley pointed out that Newsom’s bid would require sidelining the state’s independent redistricting commission. California is one of eight states that has an independent commission charged with redrawing state maps, according to a chart by Loyola Law School.
ADVERTISEMENT“What Newsom is doing is unique because he is actually trying to abolish an independent commission that currently exists and exercise a power that he doesn’t actually have, and to override the will of voters in the process,” Kiley said.
“That being said, I don’t love what’s happening in Texas, or I don’t like the idea of this happening anywhere else in the country.”
In addition to launching redistricting efforts in various states, Democrats fled Texas in an attempt to halt the congressional redistricting vote.
Kiley's legislation would prohibit Texas from voting on new congressional districts before the 2030 census.
However, President Trump has instructed the Department of Commerce to work on a "new and highly accurate" census that doesn't include anyone in the country illegally.
President Trump Instructs Department Of Commerce To Work On “New And Highly Accurate” Census
KCRA 3 noted:
California voters took the power to draw maps away from state lawmakers in 2008, but Newsom wants to ask them to change that temporarily. An independent, citizen-led redistricting commission has been drawing maps for the last two decades.
California voters would be asked to change the state's redistricting process, for congressional maps only, for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections, under this scenario. Then the power to draw the maps would be returned to an independent redistricting commission after the census, in 2031.
