Prop 50: measuring morality in a time of immorality

.

Since long before I told people to vote yes on Prop 11 and yes on Prop 20 and no on Prop 27, I’ve been an advocate of better and more fairly solving democracy’s eternal problem of politicians choosing their voters rather than voters choosing their politicians.

(I’d like to link to a famously good Washington Post article on gerrymandering [I did post the article’s image below] in case if you’re not up on the scuttlebutt, but my WaPo account expired today. I canceled a couple weeks ago because I had enough with billionaire manipulation of its editorial pages. Still a lot of good reporting happening there, but I decided my meager journalism budget should be spent elsewhere. I want to go local, but the San Francisco Chronicle, the best option, is significantly more expensive than what I’d been spending. Anyway. Instead I’ll link to this hour of radio that gives a solid example of how awful things can get.)

Anyway, given my history as an outspoken advocate for fairly drawn lines, you’d think I’d have a clear argument against Prop 50. If you haven’t been paying attention to the intersection of national and California politics, here’s the official description:

Hhhhhh.

So Texas’s legislature, under the direction of our pathetic would-be-dictator of a president, redistricted to let Texas send fewer Democrats to Congress in 2026 in hopes of avoiding the expected backlash against Republicans come midterms. It’s not the only Republican-run state doing this, but Texas is the biggest. And Texas had more Biden voters in 2024 than any other state in the nation (save one), so diluting the political power all those blue voters could make a huge difference nationally, when it comes to preserving a Republican majority in the House of Representatives.

But there’s that save one I mentioned above: California. The only state that also had more Trump voters than Texas. And, thus, California has the power to gerrymander its Republicans with every degree of antidemocratic harshness that Texas is doing to its Democrats.

(Were every state to do this to the fullest extent, the Democrats would likely win the battle of the cheaters, as Democratic-run states have the largest population. Repubs would hold onto their nobody-lives-there advantage baked into the Constitution [as currently written], but it would be an ugly and stupid fight regardless, one that no one could win.)

But unlike Texas, California legislators do not have the power to play dirty without the permission of voters. Which is why we got a flier this week featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger pleading with us to vote no by reminding us of a well established truth: two wrongs do not make a right.

I agree.

Yet, Prop 50 would expire in 2030, after which we’d go back to our nonpartisan line-drawing committee.

In the meantime, perhaps we Californios could heroically prevent an unmoored Republican Party from tossing a quarter-millennium of gradual democratic improvement into the ash heap of history. In other words, two wrongs, even if they don’t make a right, at least may not allow the first wrong to win the day unchallenged.

Since I last wrote about this topic, a lot of math has gone into improving the problem of proper line-drawing (not that the Supreme Court cares). With some real work, we could make things better. (Let me link to this again.) But right now, we have a minority party led by a maniac deadset on destroying what makes America great. And the opposition party is floundering in foolishness—or at least they certainly look foolish.

We need healthy parties that engage in an intentional way. I’m not sure how we fix this. Maximizing partisan gerrymandering is clearly a stop-the-bleeding sort of fix (at best) and not a legitimate attempt at healing America.

So. Should Californians vote for Prop 50?

I honestly, genuinely do not know.

I’ve been intending to write this essay for a while, but I was hoping I would figure out the answer first. Voting has now begun and I still do not know. Let’s reason together, shall we?

● The Republican Party is engaging in dirty politics, including gerrymandering at a national level. Democrats doing the same where they can does get us closer to a proper distribution of representation throughout the nation as a whole.

● Just because the other guys are engaging in immoral actions does not justify the normalization of immorality. An eye for an eye was done away with by higher law long ago. The only path toward righteousness is righteousness, and we cannot let evil persuade us to sacrifice our moral standards in the fight against evil. That will only accelerate evil’s spread, and acceleration of evil will never bring greatness to a nation.

● This is a crisis moment. With one party actively engaged in dismantling the rule of law, siccing armed mercenaries upon American citizens, discarding legal precedent, etc etc etc, all while controlling all three branches of government? Whatever hailmary can be thrown is surely worth throwing.

● While Prop 50 is set to expire in 2030, there will always be another crisis. If we become accustomed to compromising moral standards for short-term victories, those standards will gradually dissolve until we do not stand for anything.

● While this temporary change will help approximate a proper balance between parties at the national level, many Californians will, at their local level, have their voices diluted. The influx of Democratic representation at the expense of Republican voters will—even if for only five years—disenfranchise many Californians in exactly the same way Democrats are accusing the other side of. Again, two wrongs are two wrongs.

● Although hyperbole is everywhere, nothing in my lifetime matches the damage to the American experiment being inflicted by Trump and his cronies. It’s when things are most dangerous that the heaviest tools must be employed.

● Hyperbole is right. Although the president and attorney general and many of the loudest Republicans may broadcast an intense disinterest in the rule of law, most Americans on both sides of the divide believe in America. They doubt the good intentions of the other side, sure, but they still believe in Constitutional rule themselves. Like Indiana Jones, maybe we just need a little faith to take the step to give the other side a chance.

● Are you kidding? Are you following the news out of Texas?

● So we should just vote to break the democratic system we’re so proud of out of . . . revenge?

● No. To save it.

We could just say that excuses are the last resort of the guilty and take the high road. Or we could embrace the exceptionalism of this moment and fight gerrymandering with gerrymandering. Both are compelling arguments.

I had assumed that writing this post would solve the mystery of how to vote. I’m disappointed that is not yet true.

I think I have decided that a NO vote is the morally correct option. But just as World War II was a good war, maybe this is when we (metaphorically! metaphorically!) pick up our muskets and go to war? I don’t know.

I wish I could read the future.

How are you voting / would you vote were you in California?

Please explain your answer. I want to understand.