Q&A
California Attorney Gen. Rob Bonta, like his Democratic colleagues, has spent much of the year suing the Trump administration and defending his state in court. This month, he got a new assignment: Defending the Democratic ballot measure that will, if passed on Nov. 4, erase five Republican House seats and draw five that Democrats expect to win.
Bonta, first appointed to his role by Gov. Gavin Newsom four years ago, is an important player in any ballot amendment’s passage. His office shapes how any amendment will appear on the ballot, which has helped Democrats; they have controlled the AG’s office since 1999. He is also a supporter of the measure, and talked with Semafor about why. This is an edited transcript of the conversation.
David Weigel: What’s your role, as attorney general, when this measure gets out of Sacramento? There are lawsuits already; Steve Hilton is running for governor and he’s threatened one.
Rob Bonta: With Steve Hilton, I think it’s a lot of show and not a lot of go. He did the press conference outside my office! He’s trying to be relevant and get attention. And I wasn’t even there.
But I’d first say: Trump started this. Just like he made a call in Georgia to try to find 11,000-plus votes, he must have looked at the map and realized they’re gonna get thrashed during the midterms, and started calling around and said: Hey, we need more seats. He wants to change the rules and rig it and manipulate it. It’s just a raw, blatant power grab.
So Trump started this, Republicans started this, Texas started this. California wants to finish it. We want to neutralize it and blunt it. We think an independent redistricting commission is the right way to go, and everybody should have it, but we can’t play by different rules and have one hand tied behind our back and get harmed while people manipulate the process and try to steal a national election with all the consequences — things like the “big, beautiful bill,” which really was anti-California values in so many ways.
What happens next in your office?
We would defend any action in court. We’re communicating with the governor’s office. We’ve told them what we think, and we think the process that he’s talked about is completely lawful: To go to the voters to present to them the maps, completely transparent. The voters will decide. It’s not some back room decision made by legislators. The voters can, in the purest form of direct democracy, vote up or down.
We have another part of our office that will do title and summary. We write the title and summary for every right proposition. So we’ll fulfill that role and that obligation. Our goal is just to call balls and strikes, describe what Gov. Newsom is trying to do, and make it clear for the voters, so they know exactly what they’re voting on. If we need to wall off different parts of the office, we can, but we would defend any challenges in court, like Hilton’s challenge, and we would also write the title and summary.
In Ohio, where the Republican attorney general has the same power to craft language for ballot measures, he wrote some that described an independent commission measure as a “gerrymandering” measure. It worked, and that lost. So, what are your principles for describing what this is, to voters?
Straightforward, understandable to the everyday person — not overly technical.
The info packet for voters would show them the maps?
They should probably be in there. They won’t be on the actual ballots, obviously.
The administration has not fully explained what Trump means, when says he wants to redo the census. How is your office preparing for that? Is it preparing for it?
The Constitution says people. It doesn’t say citizens. There are distinctions in other parts of the Constitution between people and citizens. All people get due process. Certain citizens have rights. This would be the first time ever that undocumented Americans wouldn’t be part of the census — it’s like him in the middle of the night having some idea, throwing red meat to the base.
The base probably loves it, just like the base loved trying to, on day one, get rid of birthright citizenship. But you can’t do it. It’s a constitutional right. That shows his willingness to overstep his actual authority and try to grab authority that he doesn’t have. He wants to amend the Constitution with the stroke of the pen. He wants to take Congress’s power and impound funding that they’ve already appropriated. He wants to infringe on 10th Amendment rights and state rights and make them cooperate with ICE. And we don’t have to. We have a 10th Amendment right not to.
How are you preparing for the Supreme Court taking up the Louisiana redistricting case? How are you girding for the court, possibly, saying that you cannot consider race at all in redistricting?
This sort of race blindness, this growing sentiment — it’s a problem, and it’s wrong. I think the US Supreme Court got it wrong on the Students for Fair Admissions case, which they now use to undergird everything. It’s what they do. It’s a powerful bluff, but it’s a bluff. People get scared and they back down.
So, the inability to consider race is a problem. You have to consider race if you’re going to tackle racism. And there’s no doubt that we’ve had racism in our country. You just need to look at the reasons for the 13th Amendment, the reasons for the 14th Amendment, the Civil Rights Act. There’s no doubt that there was discrimination. And you have to tackle it and recognize race, to tackle racism. This idea that you can just ignore it? It freezes the racism and the inequality. It doesn’t allow you to address it and combat it. Combating racism is not racism. So I’m sure we’ll file amicus briefs on that, and talk about the history of the Voting Rights Act and the need to address race and recognize race.
Some Democrats, like Ruben Gallego, have said: What if this benefits us? What if the Supreme Court says, you can’t consider race in redistricting, and Democrats say: Great, let’s draw out more Republicans?
I don’t think it’s good for society or good for communities who’ve been overlooked and had their voices and their votes diluted. That’s not who we are as a party. We’re about helping vulnerable communities and giving voice to those who’ve been hurt and harmed and mistreated and discriminated against. If the Supreme Court hands down a terrible decision, then we have to be willing to follow the existing law, even if we don’t agree with it, but make sure that our principles, our values, our agenda, can move.
It’s like this idea of California pushing back against Texas. I completely support it. There’s others in my party, our big tent party, who say: Let’s stick with the Independent Redistricting Commission. That’s the right way to go. That’s the best, that’s good government at its best. And they can say that all day while the election gets taken from us, and then Congress starts making decisions like the “big, beautiful bill” and harming immigrants and transgender Americans and women seeking reproductive care and providers trying to provide it, and moves their agenda forward. We can’t be naive. We have to fight.
And I’ll tell you: The voters, if they want nothing more, they want their Democrats to fight. Look what happened at the Supreme Court with Merrick Garland and Amy Coney Barrett. Exact same situation, with a vacancy. One time they blocked it for Obama, the other time they pushed it through right before the election for Trump, and they’re winning because of that. Is that principled? Is that good, long term, for American government? Probably not, but we have to be willing to fight fire with fire.
Comments