- 11 months ago
During remarks on the House floor, Rep. Kavin Kiley (R-CA) tore into Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) and California's redistricting efforts.
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00:00One of the worst consequences of this redistricting war we see breaking out across the country
00:18is that it has provided a pretext for the governor of California to do what he has always
00:25wanted to do, which is to undermine the fairness of our elections in California by abolishing
00:31the Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission.
00:36Now the governor and his enablers insist they're only doing this because of what's happening
00:42in other states.
00:44However, the redistricting commission itself was opposed by Nancy Pelosi, for example, who
00:52led the opposition to its creation and was opposed by the California Democratic Party.
00:59So nothing could justify what is happening in California right now, but they have grabbed
01:05on to whatever pretext they can in order to move forward with returning us, moving us
01:12backwards as a state to the era of partisan gerrymandering.
01:17Now, the problem for Newsom is that the voters of California are overwhelmingly opposed to
01:27this plan.
01:28How do we know that?
01:29Well, California voters have voted three times to support the Independent Redistricting Commission.
01:38And a poll just recently came out from Politico asking voters, do you want the commission to
01:43draw district lines or do you want the politicians to get that power back?
01:47And by a two to one margin, over 60% of Democrats, over 60% of Republicans, over 70% of Independents
01:58said we want the commission drawing district lines.
02:00We don't think politicians should draw their own district lines.
02:05So to solve this problem, that is to say, the public overwhelmingly opposing his plan, which
02:11does require voter approval, the governor has come up with a two-prong strategy, which is
02:18to disenfranchise voters and to defraud them.
02:22So first, well, the previous votes to establish the Independent Commission and to affirm it were
02:29done by our full electorate.
02:31He's now just summonsing a partial electorate in a low turnout, off-year special election
02:36to try to overturn that decision.
02:39What's more, he's thrown out all of our election rules in order to accelerate and condense the
02:44election timeline unlike anything we've ever seen, so that the county registrars are unable
02:49to notify voters, as they usually would that there's an election going on, so that the voter
02:54guide, at least at first, is only going to be available online, such that there will be fewer polling
02:58places and vote centers for people to actually vote in.
03:02So, it is voter suppression through and through in an attempt to reverse the clearly articulated
03:10and repeatedly expressed view of the California electorate.
03:15But that's not all.
03:17For those voters who do turn out, the governor needs to make sure that they are unable to express
03:25their true will or at least have difficulty doing so.
03:30And so that's where he has made use of yet another tool that is available to the one-party
03:38rule that we have in California, which is to commit fraud on the ballot itself.
03:43Now that might sound strong language, fraud might seem a little strong, but it is not an exaggeration.
03:53The definition of fraud is lying to people in order to get them to act in a way that they
04:00don't want to act and that goes against their own interest.
04:03And so that's precisely what's happened here.
04:06We now have the actual language that will appear on the ballot for California voters.
04:14If this were an honest description, it would simply say that we are tearing up the map drawn
04:20by California's independent redistricting commission and replacing it with a map drawn
04:25by politicians in order to maximize partisan advantage.
04:30That is literally what is happening.
04:32No more.
04:33No less.
04:34No more.
04:35No less.
04:36But instead, we get this.
04:37So let's just walk through some of the language.
04:41Authorizes temporary changes to congressional district maps.
04:47So first of all, the changes are not temporary.
04:51They will last through the rest of this decade when the existing map would have expired anywhere.
04:58They are permanent changes.
04:59Oh, and they're not changes.
05:02This implies you're making a little tweak here, a little tweak there.
05:05No.
05:06They've drawn a completely new map that is going to affect districts all across California
05:10and cause voters all across California to lose their representation.
05:16But this is where it gets really good.
05:18Authorizes temporary changes to congressional districts in response to Texas's partisan redistricting
05:27So first, it is blatantly untrue.
05:42The initial version of this said that it would only take effect if Texas moved forward.
05:46That language was deleted.
05:48So this is taking effect if it's passed, regardless of anything that's happened in Texas or any other state.
05:54So at this point, it is completely inaccurate and is in an attempt to simply smuggle some sort of argument or justification into a summary of the actual language.
06:05What's more, there's no mention anywhere of the fact that this is overriding the map created by California's independent commission.
06:14So if you just read it, at first glance, it's almost designed to read as if Texas has somehow come in and messed with California's maps and we need to restore them to proper order.
06:28That's the impression that this is designed to give.
06:33In fact, the independent commission is only mentioned then in the next sentence, where it says that it directs the independent citizens commission to start drawing maps after 2030.
06:47So if you're reading this casually, you might say, oh, this is the side that supports independent redistricting.
06:53After all, they're telling the independent commission to draw maps.
06:57But the independent commission does not need to be directed to draw maps after the next census.
07:02That's what they are already required to do.
07:04The only effect of this initiative is to throw out the map that the independent commission has drawn for this decade.
07:14And then to make things even more farcical, it goes on to say that it's establishing a policy of the state to support independent redistricting.
07:26No, it doesn't. It doesn't establish any policy supporting independent redistricting.
07:30The only thing that this initiative does as it pertains to independent redistricting is to shove aside California's independent redistricting commission.
07:41A few other little inaccuracies that says that this only lasts through 2030.
07:46In fact, the maps, the partisan map that was drawn behind closed doors by the California legislature and the DCCC will last through 2033.
07:56It says it will only cost a few million dollars.
07:59That is outrageous.
08:01The special election itself is going to cost between 200 million and 250 million.
08:08And finally, what it doesn't mention at all is that this is overriding literally the entire rest of California's state constitution.
08:19That is the language that is actually in this constitutional amendment.
08:24It says that everything else in our constitution does not apply.
08:29Partisan gerrymandering will be the supreme law of the land.
08:35So all of the protections in our constitution right now that are manifested in the existing congressional map will be thrown out.
08:45That means the protections where we had extensive public input in drawing the maps.
08:50Instead, this map was drawn by behind closed doors in a matter of days.
08:54The protections that say that those who draw the maps are not allowed to run for public office.
08:58This map was drawn by people who are in public office and hope to run in the very districts that they're drawing.
09:05The protections that say that the district lines need to follow neutral criteria like keeping communities together and cannot be drawn in the interest of partisanship or to favor or disfavor any politician.
09:19That is all thrown out.
09:20This map tears communities apart.
09:23My district is torn into six different pieces.
09:26The county where I live is torn into three or four different pieces.
09:29And it's being designed for the explicit purpose of partisanship.
09:35Gavin Newsom has said the entire point of this map is to, quote,
09:39make California a whole lot bluer and to pick up five seats.
09:43Which, by the way, it says Texas is redistricting as partisan redistricting.
09:48Nothing about that in California when the very people who drew the maps have said that is literally the entire point of the exercise.
09:57So that is what's happening in California.
10:01Is there is this farce of democracy.
10:05This fraud that the governor is perpetrating on the electorate.
10:10There is a systematic attempt to suppress voters in order to return our state to the era of partisan gerrymandering.
10:19Indeed, we even now have reports that the leaders of the legislature itself, that pushed this measure through at Newsom's behest,
10:29have specifically gotten special districts drawn for themselves in order to run for Congress in.
10:38This is precisely why voters have said we do not want politicians drawing district lines,
10:43because they do so in the interests of themselves rather than the interests of the people that they're supposed to serve.
10:50That is the ultimate evil of gerrymandering, is that it shifts power from the people to the politicians.
11:00That's why it undermines democracy and proper representation.
11:05And why is this happening, by the way?
11:07Well, it's really about one thing.
11:10The governor of California is desperate for some issue to run for president on.
11:16He has been trying throughout his tenure as our governor to find something, anything, to get himself national attention.
11:24And I have watched as he has failed time and time and time again.
11:29I remember in his first term at the beginning, he decided to create an animated Mario Kart style video of himself racing Donald Trump,
11:38thinking this was going to get him a lot of attention.
11:41I saw during the covid shutdowns how he would come up with one crazy scheme after another because he was jealous that Andrew Cuomo was getting all the attention.
11:51That didn't really work for him either.
11:53This is literally the first time anything he's ever done has got him the attention that he so craves.
11:59And indeed, while his poll numbers are still abysmal in California, it actually seems to be working when it comes to the far left that tends to participate in primaries,
12:12which is another testament to just how badly our leadership here has failed that they have managed to play into the hands of Gavin Newsom,
12:22who is not a very smart person, who is not a very crafty politician.
12:28And yet this redistricting war has played right into his hands.
12:34Now, despite all of this, I do believe that we can defeat Newsom's effort to defraud and disenfranchise California voters.
12:45And the reason I believe that is because we just did so last year.
12:52What happened with Prop 36, which is the initiative to make crime illegal again in California,
12:59is a perfect case study in how the governor of California has tried to undermine democracy in order to get his way.
13:09But with respect to Prop 36, he failed miserably.
13:15Indeed, in an attempt to stop this initiative, which he led the opposition to, he came up with three different schemes to undermine the will of California voters.
13:28The initiative, Prop 36, gathered something like a million signatures and so qualified for the ballot,
13:36an initiative to restore basic consequences for criminal activity like retail theft and to get treatment for folks who have repeated drug offenses.
13:45The governor opposed this effort to make crime illegal again in California.
13:48So his first attempt to get this voter-qualified citizen initiative, the first attempt to undermine it, was what was called a poison pill.
14:01The scheme went like this.
14:03Newsom had the legislature pass a number of supposedly pro-public safety bills.
14:10Now, they didn't really do much, but they were supposedly part of a public safety package.
14:17But then he inserted into those bills a poison pill that said, and this is completely novel,
14:25of what I understand in the history of legislative government in this country.
14:30He inserted a poison pill saying that if California voters were so bold as to go out and vote for Prop 36, our initiative,
14:39then all of these other bills would automatically be reversed as a punishment, if you will.
14:45So I'll say that again.
14:47The bills themselves said that if voters go out and approve this initiative to make crime illegal again in California,
14:54then all of these other supposedly pro-public safety bills will automatically be repealed as a consequence.
15:00So what was the point of this?
15:02Well, you might say, was it to punish the voters? Maybe.
15:04But the real point was fraud.
15:06What the governor hoped to do was to get these measures passed.
15:11And then what he could say on the ballot.
15:14Remember how he completely committed fraud.
15:16He's committing fraud on the ballot for the redistricting sham.
15:19What he wanted to do for the ballot on Prop 36 was to say, oh, this is a measure that will repeal all of these other pro-public safety bills.
15:28So that he could trick people into thinking it was actually an anti-public safety measure when the whole point was to promote public safety.
15:38Now, that didn't work for various reasons.
15:41Even this proved too corrupt for the California legislature.
15:44So Newsom moved on to his next plan, which was known as the imposter initiative.
15:51So he came up at the last second with his own very much weaker supposedly pro-public safety initiative to put on the ballot alongside Prop 36.
16:04And so the goal was to confuse voters and to get them to prefer his initiative.
16:10And indeed, he even changed the rules for how propositions are numbered in order to put his first.
16:18Now, you might say, well, that's not too much of a problem.
16:21Voters will just pass both.
16:22But he thought of that.
16:24He actually wrote into his initiative language saying that if it got more votes than our initiative, Prop 36,
16:31then Prop 36 would not take effect even if it got more than 50% of the vote.
16:36So the literal effect of his initiative would have been to overturn the results of a Democratic election.
16:43Fortunately, this plan failed, too, because the governor, in his absolute disregard for any decency,
16:52whatsoever, had used the name Alexandra's Law for a part of the initiative dealing with fentanyl.
17:01Now, this was genuinely part of our own initiative.
17:04It was a way to hold fentanyl dealers accountable.
17:07It was named after a young lady who tragically lost her life to fentanyl poisoning.
17:14And the governor went ahead and misappropriated that name and used it for his extremely much weaker version of this provision.
17:23And the family of this young woman spoke out against it.
17:26And it was only then that he was forced to remove this imposter initiative from the ballot.
17:33The third scheme that the governor came up with targeted me specifically.
17:38One of his cronies, a woman named Ann Revell, filed a completely made-up, frivolous complaint against me with the FEC.
17:48It stated, it alleged, that I had transferred $50,000 to the campaign account supporting this initiative.
17:57Completely untrue.
17:58Never did anything of the sort.
18:00Didn't transfer any money to it.
18:01Even if I had, it wouldn't have been a violation of the law.
18:04But Ms. Revell had a brief stint as chair of the FEC herself.
18:10And she has since turned this into sort of a gig where she can make partisan claims and give them a sort of aura of legitimacy as coming from the former FEC chair.
18:24And so fellow Democrats have called her out on this time and time again, that this is what she's doing.
18:29Even in her own failed campaign for state senate, this is what she did.
18:33So she files this complaint.
18:35Before I even see it, she hands it off to the LA Times.
18:38The LA Times dutifully publishes a headline, former FEC chair files complaint related to Prop 36.
18:45And then they went and showed that article to anyone who was considering supporting the initiative in order to try to deter them from doing it.
18:54Now, of course, the FEC rejected Ms. Revell's complaint since it was completely made up.
18:59The very body that she was once the supposed chair of.
19:03A completely disgraceful thing that she did.
19:07But that attempt also, of course, failed.
19:11So all three of these attempts to undermine the opportunity for voters to even vote on this fairly failed.
19:19It went to the ballot box.
19:21Newsom led the campaign against it at the ballot box.
19:24At the end of the day, Prop 36 passed overwhelmingly with nearly 70% of the vote in the state of California.
19:33It passed in each and every one of California's 58 counties.
19:38Even Gavin Newsom's San Francisco.
19:41It received more votes than any other measure on the ballot last year.
19:46So, yes, the governor is using every corrupt means at his disposal in order to undermine our democracy,
19:56to overturn the will of our voters, to deprive our people of fair representation.
20:03But this example shows that we still have the power to fight back and to win.
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