California’s former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) on Friday railed against Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) hope to forgo independent redistricting efforts in the Golden State.
Democrats are currently pushing voters to approve Proposition 50, which would circumvent a constitutional measure granting an independent body authority over redistricting to instead create Legislature-approved lines ahead of next year’s midterm elections. The move follows GOP-led redistricting efforts in Texas.
“I think that prop 50 is a big scam, and the reason why I’m saying that is because it says that we should fight [President] Trump because he’s a threat to democracy,” Schwarzenegger said during a Friday appearance on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher.”
“But in the meantime, they want to go and tear up the Constitution in California, get rid of the independent commission that draws the district lines and take the power away from the people and give it back to the politicians,” he added.
Schwarzenegger was governor in 2010 when the state voted to put the Citizens Redistricting Commission in charge of outlining its congressional districts.
The independent body is tasked with redrawing the districts once every decade in accordance with the Census to account for population shifts.
Earlier this year in Texas, state lawmakers broke with the tradition to approve redistricting efforts outside the Census period, adding another Republican seat in the House for the Lone Star State.
Schwarzenegger said “politicians in California have performed much better” because of independent redistricting and said changing how lines are drawn will “take away the power” from the people, echoing similar statements he made earlier this year.
“I’m a Republican, but I’m not a Republican hack. I’m not a political hack. I don’t serve the party,” he told Maher.
“I always serve the people, the people of first, we cannot undo something and rip away the power that the people in California have and give it back to the politicians. We fought there for too long,” he added.
Newsom has led efforts supporting the passage of Proposition 50, which has also been endorsed by Democrats ranging from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) to former President Obama.
“Californians have been uniquely targeted by the Trump Administration, and thanks to the hard work of the California legislature, they will have a choice to fight back — and bring much needed accountability to Trump’s efforts to undermine the democratic process,” he said in a late August statement.
