The nation’s most prominent anti-gerrymandering organization is in the midst of a tense internal debate over whether to modify its position opposing all partisan redistricting, a remarkable development in response to a gerrymandering war that has broken out across the nation.
It’s a sign that after two decades of hard-won progress against partisan line-drawing, the movement is facing an existential crisis.
Common Cause has fought to bar gerrymandering through laws, referenda, and constitutional amendments for decades, battling both Democrats and Republicans in red and blue states to adopt measures to restrain lawmakers from drawing district lines that advantage their own party.
Why We Wrote This
Common Cause has for decades argued against partisan redistricting as bad for democracy. Now the group is facing internal pressure to relax its stance in California, amid concerns that democracy confronts bigger challenges.
But on Monday night, after a meeting by the organization’s national governing board, the group’s president and CEO Virginia Kase Solomón emailed organization leaders asking them not to make any new statements on gerrymandering until the board issued further guidance, which she said would come later this week. The request to stand down comes as Democrats in California are pushing to temporarily suspend the state’s independent redistricting commission to allow them to draw five or more new Democratic-leaning House districts. The move – which would undo anti-gerrymandering reforms that Common Cause helped make law in 2010 – is a response to Republicans’ aggressive mid-decade push to redraw state maps in Texas and elsewhere in their favor ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
“While IRCs [independent redistricting commissions] remain our gold standard and will continue to be our position, the board is currently considering options as to how we will respond under these highly unusual circumstances,” Ms. Solomón wrote in an email to the group’s leaders that was read to the Monitor by two separate sources who had received it.
“It’s certainly an inflection point for our organization,” one Common Cause staffer told the Monitor.
The internal tensions at Common Cause are a striking sign of the times, as voting-rights and pro-democracy groups grapple with how to respond to what many of them see as an unprecedented attempt to undermine and even dismantle democracy by President Donald Trump and his Republican allies. As Republicans fight to keep their razor-thin House majority and unfettered control of the federal government, every seat counts – and the two largest states could easily tip the balance of power with partisan line-drawing.
President Trump, who on Monday said the GOP was “entitled to five more seats” in Texas, pushed state Republicans to redraw their congressional map.
Texas Democrats have fled their state to block a vote on the bill. On Tuesday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott asked the state Supreme Court to remove Democrats’ minority leader from office, as other Republicans called for the lawmakers to be arrested. California Gov. Gavin Newsom and his Democratic allies have responded by pledging to return the favor if Texas follows through, pushing for a statewide voter referendum to temporarily suspend California’s nonpartisan map and let Democrats ruthlessly redraw the maps to flip just as many seats to their column.
A history of fighting for democratic reforms
A nonpartisan, grassroots organization, Common Cause has played a key role in numerous government reform fights over half a century, from the push to lower the national voting age to 18 to the fight for national campaign finance reform.
The group is particularly known for its anti-gerrymandering efforts – both successes and setbacks. It played a key role in California’s 2010 adoption of a citizens redistricting commission, working closely with Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to boost a statewide referendum that overturned one of the country’s most aggressive gerrymanders. After that, California went from a state that had almost no competitive House races to one that has been at the center of the battle for House control.
Common Cause also sued to overturn North Carolina Republicans’ aggressive gerrymander, a case that eventually went to the U.S. Supreme Court (Rucho v. Common Cause). In a landmark 2019 ruling, the court split 5-4 along partisan lines, declaring that while gerrymandering might be “incompatible with democratic principles,” federal courts could not have oversight – a major setback for anti-gerrymandering efforts.
Common Cause’s unequivocal anti-gerrymandering position had stayed consistent even in recent weeks.
Less than two weeks ago, Common Cause held a press call with state leaders from California and Texas titled “Why Newsom and Trump are Wrong on Redistricting.” The organization launched a national petition demanding that “Every governor – Democrat and Republican – must commit publicly to rejecting any and all efforts to redraw maps for partisan gain.”
But that longtime position is now under review from the board.
“This is the first time in modern history that a sitting U.S. president and his political party have moved unilaterally to engineer the outcome of an election before a single vote has been cast. It has triggered a wave of responses across the country and will have long-term consequences for our democracy,” wrote President Solomón in a statement to the Monitor.
“We are assessing all options on the table to confront this attack on our democracy. We continue to maintain that citizen-led Independent Redistricting Commissions are the gold standard for protecting the power of the people.”
When asked if that meant the organization’s board was debating opposing or staying neutral in California’s looming gerrymandering battle, or whether it might even go so far as to support the Democrats’ temporary gerrymandering plan, Ms. Solomón reiterated that the group is “assessing all options on the table to confront this attack on our democracy.”
“You can’t unilaterally disarm”
Voting-rights, democracy-reform, and good-government groups have found themselves increasingly allied with Democrats in recent years. But not everywhere. Democrats have continued to draw gerrymanders in states like Illinois and Maryland that don’t have explicit restrictions on partisan line-drawing, generating tensions with those groups. And Common Cause has been willing to take on and criticize Democrats when warranted. (Rucho v. Common Cause, the Supreme Court case, ended up including Maryland Republicans objecting to Democrats’ gerrymander of their state.)
Many Democrats in recent years had embraced nonpartisan redistricting maps both as a good-government message and a sound political strategy aimed at undoing heavily gerrymandered Republican maps. But since President Trump demanded that Texas redraw its map before the next election to try to help the GOP keep House control, there’s been a dramatic shift in Democrats’ approach. Multiple blue-state governors led by California’s Governor Newsom have threatened to respond in kind, even though many of their states have laws prohibiting gerrymandering.
As Democrats have rapidly shifted to saying they can’t cede the battle, it’s put voting rights organizations in an increasingly tough position.
Rep. Ted Lieu, a California Democrat and member of the House Democratic leadership, told the Monitor in late July that he was urging good-government groups to support California Democrats’ push for a gerrymander of their own to fight back against a gerrymander in Texas.
“I hope they now realize that you can’t unilaterally disarm,” he said. “You now have the potential of no longer having a democracy, which would mean no longer having good government. So I hope they realize their own existence is facing existential threats.”
One source close to Common Cause says there has been “significant pressure” from Democratic officeholders to get the organization to “back away from our support for independent redistricting commissions” in California.
It remains unclear what stance the group will take. The board’s failure to come to a consensus in Monday’s meeting indicates disagreement among members.
Some still opposed
Not everyone is reconsidering their position on gerrymandering.
Common Cause worked closely with then-Governor Schwarzenegger to ban state legislative gerrymandering in 2008 and congressional gerrymandering two years later.
Schwarzenegger Chief of Staff Daniel Ketchell points out that the former governor has continued to campaign for anti-gerrymandering efforts in recent years, including in 2018 in Colorado and Michigan – and says his view hasn’t changed.
“He thinks gerrymandering is evil no matter who does it and has campaigned against it all over the country. And he believes in the old preschool lesson [that] two wrongs don’t make a right,” he says.
Multiple Common Cause activists say they are personally torn over the issue. They have spent their careers fighting partisan gerrymanders and see them as bad for democracy. And they also worry that any support for a temporary exemption to their position would permanently undermine their credibility.
But many see the midterms as a crucial turning point in democracy’s survival. And they see Democrats’ point that blocking gerrymandering in blue states while red states continue to gerrymander without restrictions will just tilt the map rightward, ignore the will of the voters, and empower President Trump to further undermine democracy.
“What does it mean to sort of uphold one pillar of democracy when all of the other pillars are falling down?” one source close to Common Cause asks rhetorically. “Is there some sort of morally consistent, or value-driven, way to bend the rules? I don’t know.”
