The battle between states attempting to redraw congressional maps mid-decade is now being called the "redistricting war." The results could upend the midterm elections and determine control of the U.S. House.
At the center of this fight are the nation's two states with the most members in Congress: Texas and California.
The new Texas maps are on the way to Gov. Greg Abbott's desk, already facing legal challenges. California's Democratic-controlled Legislature formally approved their own redistricting plan last week, sending maps to voters this fall.
This move by Calif. Governor Gavin Newsom, if approved by voters, would temporarily suspend the maps created by the Independent Redistricting Commission in California – something former Calif. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger advocated for as a way to eliminate gerrymandering.
So what does the "Governator" think about this new redistricting war?
The Houston Chronicle senior columnist, Lisa Falkenberg, asked him that very question, and she joined the Texas Standard to talk about his response. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: Tell us a little bit about Arnold Schwarzenegger's time as governor and his attempts to change the way political maps are drawn in the first place. This goes way back to, what was it, around 2007, '08?
Lisa Falkenberg: Well, he says he was innocent or unaware of the role of gerrymandering the rigging of political maps for partisan purposes when he took over as governor. But he said he quickly understood when he would have conversations with people on both sides of the aisle, elected officials, they would say "I actually like this clean air idea here in this bill, but I can't support it because my district wouldn't like it." And vice versa on the Democratic side, I guess with regards to school reform.
And so why wouldn't the district have it? Because the districts had been gerrymandered to be very, very blue or very, very red and there wasn't much middle ground even among the voters in these districts. And so he said, well, you've got to do something on it. And he tried several times before he succeeded.
And one of the reasons is this is complicated, it's confusing, people don't get it, and frankly it's boring, but he managed to over the years just talk about it so much that people began to understand the influence of political gerrymandering and policymaking.
Well, this conversation you had with Schwarzenegger was not very boring at all. In fact, he made a few statements there that have already started to grab some headlines. Let's listen to one.
He's talking here about the redistricting battle in Texas that seemed to have been kicked off by the Texas Legislature at the prompting of President Trump. Now, California is coming back to try to offset whatever gains Texas Republicans may make in that gerrymandered map. But here's what he has to say about the process. Let's listen.
Arnold Schwarzenegger: It's mean-spirited, it's evil, simply because they say they're supposed to be a public servant, and this is everything but public service. It is party service. It's serving the party.
The Democrats try to outdo the Republicans because they want to serve the Democratic Party, and the Republicans try to do that to the Democrats to serve the Republican Party. But who is serving the people then?
You know, it's fascinating to me, Lisa, that as this quote got picked up in the press, a lot of people sort of trying to suggest that Schwarzenegger was being critical of Texas Republicans who launched this redistricting push in the first place. But he's sort of going beyond that, it sounds to me. What did you make of that?
Yes, of course he's critical. He's very careful to say, "I am critical of what is going on in Texas, and I'm critical of what's going on in California, because gerrymandering of any sort is wrong."
And there was another comment I really liked that encapsulated his thoughts really well: "This is not a battle between Democrats and Republicans. This is a battle between politicians and the people." And he says that because he believes any time that gerrymandering is involved, it just becomes political, it becomes partisan, and the people are hurt, the people are left behind, because our system is meant for everybody's vote to count equally. One person, one vote.
But when you rig these maps, you carve them up in a certain way, you're taking some of the voting power away from some people to benefit a party. And I agree with him on that.
Well, of course, Schwarzenegger pushed for this independent citizen redistricting commission years ago. It was in place when now-Gov. Newsom is pushing to basically have that commission's work ignored. What's the fix, if the commission itself couldn't stop what's happening now?
Well, he would say, and I've talked to other architects of that system in California, is that you may win this in the short term, Democrats, or you may fend off this power grab by Trump of the U.S. House, but in the long run, you will lose the trust that voters had in you when you embraced fair political maps. And so that's what he's concerned about.
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