Abortion rights groups are backing California Democrats in the escalating battle to redraw congressional maps, warning that Republicans are rigging seats on the heels of deeply unpopular cuts to safety net health programs and restrictions on reproductive care.
And they worry thereâs more to come, including a .
âYou take away our freedoms, weâll take away your seats,â said Jodi Hicks, CEO of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, during Gov. Gavin Newsomâs pitch to adopt Democratic-leaning maps to offset President Donald Trumpâs attempt to bolster GOP seats in Texas.
âWe canât sit idly by while the Trump administration, while their backers in Congress, pursue every avenue to strip blue states of their autonomy.â
California legislators this week are debating the new congressional maps, drawn by Newsom allies, which would temporarily replace those drawn by the stateâs independent redistricting commission. If theyâre approved, voters would have the final say in a November special election.
The mobilization comes as Planned Parenthood, one of the nationâs leading reproductive rights groups, tries to prevent further political and funding losses. Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, , including Texas, have implemented laws banning abortion almost entirely. And Republicans passed Trumpâs tax-and-spending bill with massive cuts to Medicaid, which keeps safety net providers like Planned Parenthood afloat.
The Trump administration also recently barred the organization and its affiliates from receiving reimbursement for nonabortion services such as cancer screenings and birth control, though a federal judge has temporarily pending a legal challenge.
John Seago, president of Texas Right to Life, said the anti-abortion group is not taking a position on either stateâs redistricting proposals. But, he said, Democratsâ rhetoric about protecting democracy rings hollow when blue states like California pass ââ that protect patients seeking abortions and their health care providers from facing consequences and make it more difficult for states like Texas to enforce their laws.
Hicks, whose group represents about 1 in 5 Planned Parenthood clinics nationwide, promised to âgo all inâ on Newsomâs ballot measure. She declined to say how much money the organization would spend on the campaign.
She added that she wouldnât be surprised to see more health care groups â many of which opposed the recent Medicaid cuts â jump into electoral politics following the passage of Trumpâs signature law. âHealth care organizations that, maybe, donât get involved in those particular races are looking at things differently,â she said.
So far, health industry support has been limited to abortion rights advocates. Reproductive Freedom for All, the national abortion rights group formerly known as NARAL, also lauded Newsom for âholding Republicans accountable for trying to steal votes.â
Planned Parenthood Texas Votes, the advocacy arm of the stateâs affiliates, has urged supporters to testify at special session meetings and to âstop the redistricting power grab.â And the national Planned Parenthood Action Fund encouraged leaders in Democratic states to use âall tools in their power to push back, level the national playing field, and stop the slide into authoritarianism.â
Hicks and her group are no strangers to â even against Newsom. Last year, she and other health leaders led a $56 million campaign to pass a revised state health care tax in November over the governorâs concerns.
Newsom, who is trying to build a national profile ahead of a , said the effort would âneutralizeâ Republican gerrymandering in Texas to pad their partyâs fragile five-seat advantage in the U.S. House. The party in the White House has generally lost congressional seats in the midterm elections, and political analysts say the trend appears likely to continue in 2026.
Newsom also called on lawmakers in to follow suit if GOP states move ahead with redistricting plans. Leaders in Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, New York, and Ohio have suggested they could explore similar actions, creating a potential cascade that political experts have said could sow chaos in next yearâs midterm elections and set a dangerous precedent.
California Republican Party chair Corrin Rankin, whose party stands to lose five of the nine House seats it currently holds, a âcalculated power grab that dismantles the very safeguards voters put in placeâ when they reform in 2010.
Democratic leaders have cast the move as necessary to combat an existential threat to democracy. And they have criticized Republicans for trying to make an end run around voter anger toward their policies, particularly around health care. Nearly half of adults think the Republican-passed tax-and-spending law will hurt them, according to a . More than half believe abortion should be legal, at least under some circumstances, per a Gallup poll in May.
The Republican-passed megabill is projected to slash Medicaid, the federal health care program that covers low-income Americans, by nearly $1 trillion over 10 years. And the Trump administration has cut funding to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health, including clawing back medical and scientific research funds from universities.
âThey know that voters will hold them accountable for the cuts they rammed through Congress that will strip health care away from millions of people,â said Democratic state lawmaker Sabrina Cervantes, chair of the Senate Elections and Constitutional Amendments Committee. âBecause they know they cannot win fair elections, they are changing the rules in the middle of the game.â
Republican incumbents who could be redistricted into oblivion are crying foul.
âMid-Decade redistricting is wrong, no matter where itâs being done,â Rep. Doug LaMalfa wrote on the social platform X. Last week, the seven-term Republican endured a hostile town hall in his rural Northern California district, defending his vote for the new law by saying it âdoesnât cut a single dollar from people who qualifyâ for Medi-Cal, the stateâs Medicaid program.
If approved by voters, proponents said, Californiaâs 52 new House districts would also bolster vulnerable congressional Democrats and be in effect for the 2026, 2028, and 2030 elections. The map would not go into effect unless another state approved its own gerrymandering effort. After the 2030 census, the state commission would regain control of the process.
Paul Mitchell, a redistricting expert who helped draft the Democratsâ map, said his team used the commissionâs district boundaries as a starting point and, for more than half the districts, moved fewer than 10% of voters.
âThis is not a Twitter hack job,â said Mitchell, a Democrat who is married to Hicks and has long supported the independent commissionâs work. âI want to get back to nonpartisan redistricting, but right now weâre in a crisis.â
show voters oppose partisan redistricting. And still overwhelmingly support the stateâs independent redistricting system, said veteran GOP strategist Rob Stutzman, who added that passing such complicated ballot language in an off-year election would be no easy feat.
âYouâre asking voters to make an unprincipled decision. Youâre asking them to rig an election because allegedly Texas is rigging an election,â Stutzman said. ââNoâ votes are so much easier when itâs confusing, and this is extremely confusing.â
Dave Wasserman, senior editor and elections analyst for the Cook Political Report, said Texas and California have the potential to set off a âredistricting apocalypseâ that will have major implications in the fight to control Congress.
âIf Democrats fail to pass a ballot initiative to offset Texas, then Republicans would go from having a very narrow chance to hold the House to, perhaps, an even chance,â he said. But, he added, public opinion on health care cuts remains the biggest obstacle in the partyâs path.
This article was produced by Ńîšóĺú´ŤĂ˝Ňîl Health News, which publishes , an editorially independent service of the .Ěý
