{"id":34529,"date":"2025-11-02T11:33:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-02T11:33:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/34529\/"},"modified":"2025-11-02T11:33:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-02T11:33:07","slug":"proposition-50-has-become-californias-political-ink-blot-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/34529\/","title":{"rendered":"Proposition 50 has become California’s political ink-blot test"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When it comes to Proposition 50<\/a>, Marcia Owens is a bit fuzzy on the details.<\/p>\n

She knows, vaguely, it has something to do with how California draws the boundaries for its 52 congressional districts<\/a>, a convoluted and arcane process that\u2019s not exactly top of the mind for your average person. But Owens is abundantly clear when it comes to her intent in Tuesday\u2019s special election.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m voting to take power out of Trump\u2019s hands <\/a>and put it back in the hands of the people,\u201d said Owens, 48, a vocational nurse in Riverside. \u201cHe\u2019s making a lot of illogical decisions that are really wreaking havoc on our country. He\u2019s not putting our interests first, making sure that an individual has food on the table, they can pay their rent, pay electric bills, pay for healthcare.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peter Arensburger, a fellow Democrat who also lives in Riverside, was blunter still.<\/p>\n

President Trump, said the 55-year-old college professor, \u201cis trying to rule as a dictator\u201d and Republicans are doing absolutely nothing to stop him.<\/p>\n

So, Arensburger said, California voters will do it for them. <\/p>\n

Or at least try.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a false equivalency,\u201d he said, \u201cto say that we need to do everything on an even keel in California, but Texas\u201d \u2014 which redrew its political map to boost Republicans <\/a>\u2014 \u201ccan do whatever they want.\u201d<\/p>\n

Proposition 50, which aims to deliver Democrats at least five more House seats<\/a> in the 2026 midterm election<\/a>, is either righteous payback or a grubby power grab. <\/p>\n

A reasoned attempt to even things out <\/a>in response to Texas\u2019 attempt to nab five more congressional seats. Or a ruthless gambit to drive the California GOP to near-extinction.<\/p>\n

It all depends on your perspective.<\/p>\n

Above all, Proposition 50 has become a political ink-blot test; what many California voters see depends on, politically, where they stand.<\/p>\n

Mary Ann Rounsavall thinks the measure is \u201chorrible,\u201d because that\u2019s how the Fontana retiree feels about its chief proponent, Gavin Newsom<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a jerk,\u201d the 75-year-old Republican fairly spat, as if the act of forming the governor\u2019s name left a bad taste in her mouth. \u201cNo one believes anything he says.\u201d<\/p>\n

Timothy, a fellow Republican who withheld his last name to avoid online trolls, echoed the sentiment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just Gavin Newsom playing political games,\u201d said the 39-year-old warehouse manager, who commutes from West Covina to his job at a plumbing supplier in Ontario. \u201cThey always talk about Trump. \u2018Trump, Trump, Trump.\u2019 Get off of Trump. I\u2019ve been hearing this crap ever since he started running.\u201d<\/p>\n

Riverside and San Bernardino counties form the heart of the Inland Empire. The next-door neighbors are politically purple: more Republican than the state as a whole, but not as conservative as California\u2019s more rural reaches. That means neither party has an upper hand, a parity reflected in dozens of interviews with voters across the sprawling region.<\/p>\n

On a recent smoggy morning, the hulking San Bernardino Mountains veiled by a gray-brown haze, Eric Lawson paused to offer his thoughts.<\/p>\n

The 66-year-old independent has no use for politicians of any stripe. \u201cThey\u2019re all crooks,\u201d he said. \u201cAll of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lawson called Proposition 50 a waste of time and money.<\/p>\n

Gerrymandering \u2014 the dark art of drawing political lines to benefit one party over another \u2014 is, as he pointed out, hardly new. (In fact, the term is rooted in the name of Elbridge Gerry, one of the nation\u2019s founders.)<\/p>\n

What has Lawson particularly steamed is the cost of \u201cthis stupid election,\u201d which is pushing $300 million. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe talk and talk and talk and we print money for all this talk,\u201d said Lawson, who lives in Ontario and consults in the auto industry. \u201cBut that money doesn\u2019t go where it\u2019s supposed to go.\u201d <\/p>\n

Although sentiments were evenly split in those several dozen conversations, all indications suggest that Proposition 50 is headed toward passage<\/a> Tuesday, possibly by a wide margin. After raising a tidal wave of cash, Newsom last week told small donors that\u2019s enough, thanks<\/a>. The opposition has all but given up and resigned itself to defeat. <\/p>\n

It comes down to math. Proposition 50 has become a test of party muscle and a talisman of partisan faith<\/a> and California has a lot more Democrats and Democrat-leaning independents than Republicans and GOP-leaning independents.<\/p>\n

Andrea Fisher, who opposes the initiative, is well aware of that fact. \u201cI\u2019m a conservative,\u201d she said, \u201cin a state that\u2019s not very conservative.\u201d<\/p>\n

She has come to accept that reality, but fears things will get worse if Democrats have their way and slash California\u2019s already-scanty Republican ranks on Capitol Hill. Among those targeted for ouster is Ken Calvert, a 16-term GOP incumbent who represents a good slice of Riverside County.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like it\u2019s going to eliminate my voice,\u201d said Fisher, 48, a food server at her daughter\u2019s school in Riverside. \u201cIf I\u2019m 40% of the vote\u201d \u2014 roughly the percentage Trump received statewide in 2024 \u2014 \u201cthen we in that population should have fair representation<\/a>. We\u2019re still their constituents.\u201d (In Riverside County, Trump edged Kamala Harris 49% to 48%.)<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

Amber Pelland says Proposition 50 will hurt voters by putting redistricting back into the hands of politicians.<\/p>\n

(Allen J. Schaben\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

Amber Pelland, 46, who works in the nonprofit field in Corona, feels by \u201csticking it to Trump\u201d \u2014 a tagline in one of the TV ads supporting Proposition 50<\/a> \u2014 voters will be sticking it to themselves. Passage would erase the political map drawn by an independent commission, which voters empowered in 2010<\/a> for the express purpose of wrestling redistricting away from self-dealing lawmakers in Washington and Sacramento.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t care if you hate the person or don\u2019t hate the person,\u201d said Pelland, a Republican who backs the president. \u201cIt\u2019s just going to hurt voters by taking the power away from the people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even some backers of Proposition 50 flinched at the notion of sidelining the redistricting commission<\/a> and undoing its painstaking, nonpartisan work<\/a>. What helps make it palatable, they said, is the requirement \u2014 written into the ballot measure \u2014 that congressional redistricting will revert to the commission after the 2030 census, when California\u2019s next set of congressional maps is due to be drafted.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m glad that it\u2019s temporary because I don\u2019t think redistricting should be done in order to give one political party greater power over another,\u201d said Carole, a Riverside Democrat. \u201cI think it\u2019s something that should be decided over a long period and not in a rush.\u201d (She also withheld her last name so her husband, who serves in the community, wouldn\u2019t be hassled for her opinion, she said.)<\/p>\n

Texas, Carole suggested, has forced California to act because of its extreme action, redistricting at mid-decade at Trump\u2019s command. \u201cIt\u2019s important to think about the country as a whole,\u201d said the 51-year-old academic researcher, \u201cand to respond to what\u2019s being done, especially with the pressure coming from the White House.\u201d<\/p>\n

Felise Self-Visnic, a 71-year-old retired schoolteacher, agreed.<\/p>\n

She was shopping at a Trader Joe\u2019s in Riverside in an orange ball cap that read \u201cHuman-Kind (Be Both).\u201d Back home, in her garage-door window, is a poster that reads \u201cNo Kings.\u201d <\/p>\n

She described Proposition 50 as a stopgap measure that will return power to the commission once the urgency of today\u2019s political upheaval has passed. But even if that wasn\u2019t the case, the Democrat said, she would still vote in favor.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnything,\u201d Self-Visnic said, \u201cto fight fascism, which is where we\u2019re heading.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When it comes to Proposition 50, Marcia Owens is a bit fuzzy on the details. She knows, vaguely,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34530,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[24712,7,9,8,24709,24710,9731,4263,1554,24696,24711,4489,1748,8634,564,1519,1522],"class_list":["post-34529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-average-person","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-eric-lawson","tag-hand","tag-independent-commission","tag-money","tag-name","tag-party","tag-political-ink-blot-test","tag-proposition","tag-republicans","tag-riverside","tag-texas","tag-trump","tag-voter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34529","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=34529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}