{"id":292127,"date":"2026-04-29T22:44:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T22:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/292127\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T22:44:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T22:44:10","slug":"california-congressman-slams-nations-gerrymandering-war-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/292127\/","title":{"rendered":"California congressman slams nation’s ‘gerrymandering war’ | California"},"content":{"rendered":"

(The Center Square) \u2013 A California member of Congress opposes what he calls the “gerrymandering war” that has broken out across the country.<\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters Wednesday afternoon during a media call, U.S. Rep. Kevin Kiley, I-Rocklin, said gerrymandering is wrong in blue or red states.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have opposed these mid-decade redraws in every state\u00a0where they’ve occurred, whether that’s Texas; whether it’s California; whether it’s Indiana, which ultimately rejected it; now Virginia and Florida,\u201d said Kiley, an independent who caucuses with Republicans.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it’s very odd that you see the same politicians who condemn\u00a0gerrymandering in one state are suddenly celebrating it\u00a0in another state,” Kiley said during a video conference with reporters.<\/p>\n

‘This whole thing has been incredibly damaging for democracy and representation\u201d in the United States, Kiley said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think this is the time for Congress to take responsibility\u00a0for its own elections,\u201d the representative continued. \u201cWe need legislation to prohibit\u00a0mid-decade redistricting, and\u00a0I’m working on legislation for Congress to assure\u00a0that voters in all states have fair representation\u00a0by putting congressional districts into the hands\u00a0of independent commissions going forward,\u00a0modeled on the system that we did have in California.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kiley was a Republican member of the House until March, when he\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0he would be changing to an independent.<\/p>\n

News reports at the time said that congressional redistricting was a factor in that decision. Kiley was one of five Republicans at risk of losing their seats.<\/p>\n

The Center Square asked for confirmation of the reason in Wednesday\u2019s call.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, the\u00a0reason for my change is because I think partisanship has gotten\u00a0out of control in Congress, and it\u2019s\u00a0really doing great damage to our country. And, of course, the redistricting war\u00a0is a very clear manifestation of that,\u201d Kiley told The Center Square. \u201cIt has\u00a0taken partisanship to new levels. It has said we’re going to elevate partisanship above everything else in our\u00a0politics, and so I do think that a good antidote\u00a0to this plague of gerrymandering is just to say,\u00a0\u2018Let’s take partisanship out of the equation.’ \u201d<\/p>\n

Kiley also said this reflects the way he has always approached his job, which is to be \u201can independent voice\u201d for his district to answer\u00a0to my constituents, not to party leaders in Washington\u00a0or Sacramento.<\/p>\n

Before his election to Congress in 2022, Kiley\u00a0served<\/a>\u00a0in the California State Assembly for six years. Before that, Kiley worked as an English teacher at Manual Arts High School in inner-city Los Angeles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(The Center Square) \u2013 A California member of Congress opposes what he calls the “gerrymandering war” that has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292128,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,4059,124539,14023,6139],"class_list":["post-292127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-gerrymandering","tag-kevin-kiley-politician","tag-united-states-congress","tag-united-states-house-of-representatives"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}