California Gov. Gavin Newsom promised retaliation against Republicans if Texas follows through on redrawing its congressional map, saying he’ll ask voters to approve a new map that would counter GOP gains with five new Democratic seats in his own state.
“We will nullify what happens in Texas,” Mr. Newsom said Friday as he welcomed Texas state lawmakers who have fled their state to try to derail the map redrawing.
He said his state legislature will propose new maps for California and put them on a special ballot in November, temporarily overturning the state’s current rules that have the lines drawn by a commission. The new map will produce enough seats to counter any GOP gains, he said.
He said he has no doubt voters in his state will approve the plan, viewing it as a referendum on President Trump’s first months in office.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, head of the caucus of California’s Democrats in the U.S. House, said all of them are in agreement behind the retaliation.
Mr. Newsom, a Democrat with White House ambitions, said Mr. Trump ignited the new House arms race by prodding Texas to do an unusual mid-decade redistricting. The governor compared it to Mr. Trump trying to cajole state officials into finding extra votes, and extra electoral votes, in the 2020 election.
“He’s dialing for seats,” Mr. Newsom said.
Dozens of Democrats from Texas’s state legislature have fled the state in order to deny the Republican-majority body a quorum to do business during a special session where they were supposed to consider new congressional maps that could net the GOP as many as five seats in the U.S. House.
Some have shown up in Illinois, and others were in Sacramento with Mr. Newsom.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, has called for the runaway Democrats to be stripped of their seats but Mr. Newsom defended their flight, saying the ability of a minority party to run away is “as old a principle as American pie.”
He and fellow California Democrats also bristled at the suggestion that two wrongs don’t make a right, saying the ends justified the means.
“This is not a wrong,” said Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi. “This is self-defense for our democracy.”
If Democrats do erase five GOP seats, it would leave Republicans with just four of California’s 52 seats. They hold nine right now, or about 17%, in a state where Mr. Trump won 38% of the vote last year.
In Texas, Democrats won 13 of the 38 seats in last year’s House elections, or 34%, in a state where Democrat Kamala Harris won 42% of the vote.