Earlier this year, after the Texas Legislature passed a new congressional map engineered to net five extra GOP seats, Republicans in Texas and across the country were triumphant.

The first shot in a brewing redistricting arms race had been fired at the behest of President Donald Trump, who was also looking to Republican legislatures in Indiana and Missouri to take up similar redraws. And while Democratic governors were sympathetic about calls to fight back, most were handicapped by independent redistricting commissions or maps with little ground left for Democrats.

The one exception was California and Gov. Gavin Newsom, who publicly made himself the chief foil to Trump and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. Newsom threw his weight behind a ballot measure to temporarily suspend the state’s independe

See Full Page