California Republicans wiped out by Prop 50 blast redistricting coup

Voters in former Republican strongholds are seeing red as their districts turn blue after Gavin Newsom and California’s voters passed Prop 50, paving the way to flip five House seats to the Democrats.The proposition — which passed overwhelming with 63 percent of the vote — was a feat of calculated gerrymandering meant to offset a similar, Trump-backed scheme in Texas, theoretically balancing the scales in Washington. Prop 50 eliminates five of the state’s Republican congressional districts by swapping the existing map — drawn by an independent commission — with one from Democratic state lawmakers until 2030.But 2,000 miles away from the Capitol, conservative Californians feel their voice is being stripped away in the name of political gamesmanship.“This is just Newsom reacting to Texas.He says, ‘They can do it, and we can do it too.’ It’s like a child throwing a tantrum,” said Silvia Garcia, 73, who cast a “no” vote in her hometown of Lakeside, CA, near San Diego.Lakeside, a Republican enclave, will now be part of a majority-Democrat district for the next five years.Texas recently took on a gerrymandering plan of its own, hatched at the request of President Trump, who browbeat state lawmakers into drumming up five more seats for the Republicans ahead of the midterms.Ligia Carle, 64, who moved to the U.S.

from Mexico City more than 30 years ago, doesn’t mind fighting chicanery with chicanery.“It’s not unfair.They started this.

[Trump] is the one who requested an extra five seats,” she said.“It is very disappointing that things can be so crooked.I never expected something like this,” Carle admitted, but said she hopes Prop 50 will help stymie “everything that is happening right now, the bad things happening around the country.

ICE taking down citizens.I hope it will stop.”But Amy Liebland, 65, a conservative in the town of Huntington Beach, near Los Angeles, believes “two wrongs don’t make a right.”“I’m against ...