For Immediate Release
Date: 9/24/2025
Board of Supervisors Rejects Supervisor Wagner’s Resolution to Oppose Proposition 50
(Santa Ana, CA) – At the September 23 Board meeting, the Orange County Board of Supervisors rejected in a 3-2 vote Supervisor Wagner’s resolution to oppose Governor Gavin Newsom’s gerrymandering special election.
“Governor Newsom’s off-year special election is going to cost Orange County taxpayers millions of dollars,” said Supervisor Wagner. “The Board majority kept their statements brief, because they know how hard it is to justify this Proposition, when it is so blatantly obvious that this is a partisan power grab by Governor Newsom. Supporting an attempt to overturn an independent redistricting commission approved by the voters of this state twice, so that Sacramento politicians in back rooms can draw congressional lines for themselves, is an insult to the people of California.”
In 2008 and 2010, California voters approved two ballot measures that delegated the drawing of both state legislative and congressional district lines to a nonpartisan Citizens Redistricting Commission. Since its implementation, the Commission has made district lines fairer and more balanced, following the census results and not halfway through the normal cycle, while also attempting to keep communities together.
Proposition 50 would undermine 15 years of progress in ensuring that our congressional districts are drawn by nonpolitical actors, not elected officials who have a vested interest in their own political future.
“One of my colleagues,” added Supervisor Wagner, “said Prop. 50 is in response to the redistricting efforts in Texas. But Texas was responding to litigation under the Voting Rights Act. Governor Newsom does not even have that fig leaf to hide behind. His is but a naked, partisan power grab. If what Texas is doing is wrong, as the Governor argues it is, we should not respond to Texas with our own wrong. Where Governor Newsom should respond to Texas is in the things Texas does to make itself more attractive as a place to live. People flee California because of our rapacious tax system, because we tolerate high crime and homelessness, because we are not business friendly, and because our education system fails too many of our children. People see Texas as a better place to live. Governor Newsom should respond to that and make us a golden state again. He cynically does the exact opposite pimping for Prop. 50. It should be opposed by the Board of Supervisors, and everyone interested in a free and fair California.”
To learn more about the Third District office, please visit donwagnerca.com and follow him on social media @donwagnerca for the latest updates.
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