The Point Sur Lighthouse near Big Sur, Calif.
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The clock is ticking to get the word out to rural voters about Proposition 50, and both Democrats and Republicans know it.
Rep. Doug LaMalfa, a Republican who is at risk of losing his northern agricultural seat to a Democrat if Proposition 50 passes, gave his final call to a crowd of farmers this week. It’s part of an eleventh-hour push from both parties to rally rural voters to their side ahead of Tuesday’s special election on the ballot measure to redraw California’s congressional map.
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“All you have to do is look how these maps have been drawn,” said LaMalfa while surrounded by a group of farmers in a barn north of Sacramento during a press conference on Wednesday. “It’s really a blatant power grab.”
LaMalfa is one of five Republican congressional representatives from California who, due to the way the maps would change, have a high chance of losing their seats during next year’s midterms if voters approve Prop. 50. The seven-term Republican warned that if voters set aside their “principles” and “belief systems,” then they will “become the thing that you despise about that system.”
“Look at the maps, look at the maps. See how contorted they are,” he said, later noting the challenge that comes with a district that would combine people from Cedarville and Modoc County with those in Sausalito and Marin counties.
Modoc County, the perfectly square-shaped county with a population of under 9,000 and tucked into the northeasternmost part of the state, became the poster child for Republicans to demonstrate how the rural voice would be diluted under Prop. 50.
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Geri Byrne, the chair of the Rural County Representatives of California, which represents 40 rural counties, described Modoc at LaMalfa’s press conference as “endless miles between towns.” She said she fears that the issues that affect those rural residents — “water rights, wildfire resilience, family farms” — will get drowned out if Modoc is absorbed into a new district with more urban voters. In 2020, over 80,000 acres burned in wildfires across Modoc and Siskiyou counties.
“We need leaders who get that, who live it. And you can tell we have that right now,” said Byrne, who is also the vice chair of the Modoc County Board of Supervisors. She argued that redistricting “carves up rural counties like ours, forcing us into oversized districts, mashed together with looming urban and suburban areas hundreds of miles away.”
Byrne added that making already large districts even more sprawling will make it “nearly impossible” for rural communities to then connect with their representatives. “No more town halls down the road,” she said. “Fewer chances to sit face to face, share our struggles and build real understanding. That’s not representation. That’s isolation.”
Under the new maps, voters in Modoc would still be voting in the same district as other kindred conservative pockets like Shasta and Siskiyou counties, though the district would also encompass districts as far south as Marin County.
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Also at risk of losing it all is Rep. Ken Calvert, the Coachella Valley conservative who was elected in 1993. The 72-year-old Calvert is the longest-serving Republican congressman from California.
Calvert has contributed over $275,000 to the campaign against Prop. 50, Jason Gagnon, his press secretary, told SFGATE in an email. Calvert also attended a rally last Sunday in Corona to generate support against Prop. 50. At least six Democrats have jumped into the race to replace Calvert, showing the perceived opportunity for Democrats there in a post-redistricting world.
Republicans aren’t the only ones campaigning. Even as recent polls indicate well over a majority of support for Prop. 50, Democrats seem to still understand the rural vote can make or break the election.
California Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, a Democrat who represents a massive swath of inland California in the state Legislature, made an attempt to appeal to farmworkers specifically in a television ad focusing on immigration as a core American value. Rivas’ assembly district is home to state agricultural hubs, where fears of Immigration and Customs enforcement activity have been particularly high.
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“This isn’t the America that we know, that welcomed my grandfather as an immigrant farmworker. Sending troops into our cities, expanding ICE’s overreach,” Rivas said in the television ad. “… Donald Trump wants to be a tyrant. We must fight back.”
There are some at-risk Republicans who appear to be laying low on Prop. 50 and focusing on work in Washington, D.C., instead.
Jonathan Wilcox, a spokesperson for Rep. Darrell Issa, who represents part of San Diego, told SFGATE that the congressman has been in Washington, D.C., all week with a “very full” schedule. Representatives for Rep. David Valadao, who represents the Central Valley, and Rep. Kevin Kiley, who represents a wide swath of the Sierra, did not respond to SFGATE’s request for comment before the time of publication about whether the congressmen have any plans to be on the ground in their districts and rally the no vote ahead of next week’s election.
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