Barack Obama has backed Gavin Newsom’s plan to redraw California’s voting map.
The former US president said it was a necessary step to stave off Donald Trump’s efforts to redistrict Texas, which would favour Republicans in the state.
“I think that approach is a smart, measured approach,” Mr Obama said during a fundraiser for the Democratic Party’s main redistricting arm.
Mr Newsom has proposed redrawing California’s voting districts to create five new winnable Democratic House seats, a direct counter to the Texas House’s approval of a new map to create more conservative-leaning seats in that state.
The California plan is designed to flip as many Republican-held seats as those that will be created under the new Texas map.
On Thursday, Texas’s Republican-controlled state Senate approved the new districts, making the Trump-approved maps official, however California faces a more uncertain route.
First, Democrats must use their supermajority in the California state legislature to approve the changes by a two-thirds margin. Then they must schedule a special election in November for voters to approve the new map.
Mr Newsom has until Friday to meet ballot deadlines. Politicians in both Texas and California, America’s two most populous states, were voting on the new maps on Thursday.
California has a voter-approved independent commission that Mr Newsom himself had backed.
Only voters can override the current map, approved in 2021. However, Mr Newsom said extraordinary steps are required to counter Texas and other Republican-led states the US president is pushing to revise maps.
“This is a new Democratic Party, this is a new day, this is new energy out there all across this country,” the California governor said. “And we’re going to fight fire with fire.”
Earlier this month, Texas Democrats fled the state, delaying the passage of the redistricting plan by more than two weeks.
They boarded chartered planes on Aug 3 for New York and Chicago to deny the Republicans the quorum to vote on the redistricting effort, since official business in the Texas legislature requires at least 100 members to be present.
Mr Trump has also pushed Republican leaders in conservative states like Indiana and Missouri to try to create new Republican seats.
Ohio Republicans were already revising their map before Texas moved. Democrats, meanwhile, are mulling reopening Maryland’s and New York’s maps as well.
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