Washington, D.C. —  In case you missed it, Eric H. Holder, Jr., the 82nd Attorney General of the United States and Chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC), joined This is Gavin Newsom to discuss the importance of California’s measured response to the egregious gerrymander Republicans enacted in Texas.

During their conversation, Attorney General Holder and Governor Newsom discussed several topics, including the NDRC’s work to promote fair redistricting and the importance of California’s Proposition 50 referendum in the fight against Donald Trump’s mid-decade gerrymandering scheme.

Below is an excerpt of Attorney General Holder’s conversation with Governor Newsom on President Trump’s mid-decade gerrymandering scheme:

GOVERNOR NEWSOM: “So, California is one of those states with an independent redistricting commission. It was a commission that, when I was mayor, there was an effort to repeal it that I publicly opposed, because I long supported the idea of independent redistricting. And it’s a point of pride that this state has been one of the leaders. What happened, however, in Texas changed the equation. And I’m curious, just from your prism and your perspective, as a champion of independent redistricting as well, what does Texas represent to you? And first, if I could just unpack a deeper question: Why do you think President Trump made the phone call to Greg Abbott? Why do you think he even pursued this mid-decade redistricting strategy in the first place?”

ATTORNEY GENERAL HOLDER: “Well, before he picked up the phone, he looked at his desk, picked up some papers that said, ‘These are your polling numbers, Mr. President.’ And he made the determination that, unless we cheat, unless we come up with more safe Republican seats, we’re in real danger of losing our majority in the House of Representatives. And that would really establish a really huge obstacle to doing the kinds of radical things that they have done in the first eight months and want to continue to do over the course of the next three years or so. And I think that’s the thing that generated the call from the president to the governor in Texas. And it’s an interesting thing; when the president called those folks in Georgia and said, ‘I need 11,780 votes’ when it came to the 2020 election, Republicans in Georgia—Secretary of State Raffensperger, a person who I don’t agree with on a whole bunch of stuff—they at least had the guts to say, ‘No, we’re not going to do that.’ [President Trump] called Greg Abbott and [Abbott] expressed some little concern about it at the beginning, but at the end of the day did exactly what it is that the president asked him to do.”

“You know, we’ve always thought of the California Independent Commission as the gold standard. It’s something that, as I’ve campaigned around the country for fairness, I’ve always pointed to California. And I think the system in California is a great one. But I think the determination that you made, and other Democrats in California, was exactly the right one given what they did in Texas and what they’re doing in other states as well. We couldn’t simply disarm. We had to respond to that. And what I’ve said—I thought about this long and hard before—I said, ‘This is something I think we ought to do,’ because I’ve been fighting against gerrymandering either by Democrats or Republicans. But I think that what’s happening in California makes a great deal of sense. It is something that kind of meets this three-part test of mine. It’s got to be responsive—and so it’s certainly responsive to that which happened in Texas. It’s got to be responsible. Didn’t go crazy, just came up with a way in which you try to come up with additional seats. And it’s got to be temporary. I want to get back to this whole fight for fairness and the way in which it’s crafted in California. In addition to having the people ultimately vote on it, which is not what happened in Texas. It only will exist until after the next census.”

GOVERNOR NEWSOM: “No, and I appreciate this. And your evolution was mine as well, as someone that believes in the principle of independent redistricting as well. So it wasn’t an immediate response. Frankly, it was in response to outreach by legislative leaders in Texas that said, ‘Well, hey, California, have our back.’ And we thought it may be a rhetorical play just to support them and say, ‘We’re watching. We’re paying attention.’ But, realizing the consequences of these five seats and how that can tip the balance and rig the next election in 2026, we were able to fashion a process that, as you say, is temporary, transparent, and democratic. It’s the only maps that are now being presented to the voters themselves. They will decide for themselves in the most transparent way and in a temporary way that ends as you suggest after the ‘28  and‘30 [elections] and into the [2030] census will revert back to its original form—again only in response to Texas. But I want to ask you to respond: it’s not just Texas, is it, Mr. Attorney General? We’re seeing this in Missouri just this week, you’re seeing activity in Indiana, conversations that are happening in Florida, there’s different conditions and criteria in Ohio and Utah. Maybe you can give us a lay of the land more broadly?”

ATTORNEY GENERAL HOLDER: “Yeah, I mean you hit just about all the states where this is still being considered. You know, Texas has already done it. Missouri has already done it. But those other states are certainly considering it. Ohio has got to redraw their maps, because of a constitutional provision there. But the question is what are Ohio Republicans going to do? There is within the Ohio Constitution a prohibition against partisan gerrymandering. So we’ll see what they do in Ohio. What are they going to do in Kansas? What are they going to do in Florida? There’s a whole range of other states where they’ve made the determination that they’re going to really kind of cheat. And that’s what it is. You can talk about a whole bunch of different things. It’s cheating. They’re going to cheat to try to hold on to the majority that they have in the House of Representatives. And it really comes on the basis of fear. They’re afraid of the people who they say they want to represent. They’re afraid of the legislative agenda that they have tried to put in place. They’re afraid of the administrative things that they have done. They’re afraid to be held accountable for taking a whole bunch of good people and a whole variety of government agencies around the country and simply told them, ‘Get out of here. You’re fired.’ They’re afraid of trying to defend that which Elon Musk and his DOGE bros did. It’s all a political fear that is driving what it is that they are—that they’re—doing. And it’s fundamentally unAmerican and it’s unpatriotic. It’s cheating, but it also goes against that which we do and which makes, I think, this nation exceptional. We trust the people to make determinations about policy and the direction of the nation, and they want to cut the people out of the process.”

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