Redistricting Schemes And Daddy’s Millions: The Two Big Threats To California Democracy

What’s Worse— Newsom’s Cynicism Or Kounalakis’ Dirty Cash?

Gavin Newsom, California’s unpopular neoliberal governor who’s dying to run for president, is still howling at the moon over Texas’ nakedly partisan redistricting. He’s gambling that California voters, who passed an anti-gerrymander ballot propositions in 2008 and 2010, are partisan enough to overturn their own decision to bail the Democrats out of their Texas jam… or at least to make Newsom look heroic for being willing to try to do something when no one else is.

Newsom wants to sound bombastic to a national primary audience— “I’m not going to sit back any longer in the fetal position, a position of weakness, when in fact California can demonstrably advance strength”—  and moderate to California voters: “We’re not here to eliminate the [independent redistricting] commission. We’re here to provide a pathway in ’26, ’28, and in 2030 for congressional maps on the basis of a response to the rigging of the system of the president of the United States.”

His latest plan is to call a special election this November, one year before the midterms to have voters decide on the new maps, which will be likely designed to eliminate a number of Republican incumbents, most likely Ken Calvert, David Valadao, Young Kim, Kevin Kiley and Tom McClintock. Five for the five Texas’ GOP legislature is working on gerrymandering out of their seats. nIf Ohio does the same thing Texas is doing, California could also eliminate Darrell Issa’s seay and possibly Jay Obernolte’s or Vince Fong’s.

Jeremy White reported that Newsom’s scheme “would be an enormously expensive and politically perilous campaign. Newsom would be counting on Democrats’ anti-Trump message overcoming voters’ reluctance to return power to politicians for an explicitly partisan exercise. Newsom and his allies would need to raise enormous sums on a tight timeline so they could inform and turn out voters. And while they could tap into a national network, Trump and conservative opponents could be motivated to wade into the race to rebuke Newsom and the national party.” Trump’s pac is sitting on $200 million and, as we saw earlier, Musk seems willing to keep bankrolling the GOP’s efforts.

The L.A. Times ran Newsom’s appeal: “I think there’s a growing recognition in this country, not just with Democrats, independents, but also Republicans, that de facto the Trump presidency ends in November of next year if the American people are given a fair chance and a voice and a choice. We’ll take back Congress. The President of the United States recognizes that, so he wants to rig the game, wants to change the rules midterm. We’re going to respond in a transparent way, an honest way, but it’s in response.”

Taryn Luna reported reported that “Under Newsom’s plan, the California Legislature would need to take a vote to send a ballot measure to voters. Newsom said voters would be given the maps of new congressional districts. A special election would be held on the first Tuesday in November asking voters to adopt the maps and allow the new districts to remain in effect through 2030 when California would return to the independent redistricting system that’s currently in place… The governor said he’s in the early planning stages of the process and doesn’t have an estimate yet for the price tag of a statewide special election. Newsom called the cost of preserving Democracy ‘priceless. There are many local elections that first Tuesday already on the ballot, so it requires significant less resources than a special election that didn’t already have regular elections considered,’ Newsom said. “So that could be very meaningful in mitigating the cost.’”

And speaking of California, with Harris out of the gubernatorial race, that election is suddenly red hot. There are now 6 competitive candidates from most progressive to least progressive: former state controller Betty Yee; former congresswoman Katie Porter; state superintendent of public instruction Tony Thurmond; former congressman, former state attorney general and former Health and Human Services secretary, Xavier Becerra; former Los Angeles mayor and former Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa; former former president pro tem of the state Senate and former speaker of the Assembly Toni Atkins; and Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis.

Democratic strategist Garry South wrote that “For the time being, there will likely be no obvious frontrunner among the current field, with all currently polling in the single digits, and none of them comes with significant statewide name identification or political base. In a recent poll conducted by the University of California Irvine, released in early July, every one of the Democratic candidates other than Harris were in single digits— and the leader after Harris, with only 9%, was someone who isn’t even a candidate at the moment: Los Angeles businessman Rick Caruso, who ran for mayor there in 2022.”

Kounalakis, despite being the incumbent lieutenant governor and having been elected to the office twice, came in at a measly 2%. Porter, who ran for the U.S. Senate in last year’s statewide primary election, showed up at just 6%. Sitting Superintendent of Public Instruction Thurmond, also a state officeholder in his second term, didn’t even register.

But there is a big X factor hanging out there for all of the candidates not named Eleni Kounalakis: the prospect of her super-rich father, Sacramento developer Angelo Tsakopoulos, starting to throw millions of dollars into a putative independent expenditure to buy her name ID and try to move her into position as a leader in the polls. Word on the street for quite some time— spread by Kounalakis’ supporters themselves, apparently to make the rest of the field think twice— is that Tsakopoulos has parked $50 million he is willing to spend to try to buy her the governorship.

And lest anyone write this off as an idle threat, let’s not forget that he outright bought Kounalakis her current job in 2018. He poured more money into a so-called independent expenditure on her behalf than was raised and spent in total by her Democratic run-off opponent in the race for lieutenant governor, Sen. Ed Hernandez, who was 10 times more qualified than she was.

The Fair Political Practices Commission, the state’s political campaign-spending watchdog and regulator, has made crystal clear that any attempt by an immediate family member to fund a putative independent expenditure is presumed to be “at the behest of,” and coordinated with, the candidate it’s intended to benefit— and thus a violation of the California Political Reform Act.

And, come on, one’s own father would be one of the most immediate family members. It defies reason and common sense that a candidate’s own parent, who lives in the same city, who’s the grandparent of her kids, whose company she ran for years, and which is still paying her, could conduct a truly independent expenditure without any communication or coordination with his own daughter— which is the determinant of whether an expenditure is actually independent of the candidate.

They got away with it in 2018 because Kounalakis’ Democratic run-off opponent declined to file a complaint or raise hell about it, which he was fervently urged to do by those of us who understand the law and knew it didn’t pass the smell test as a truly independent expenditure.

And lest we Democrats forget, Kounalakis and her father already stuck us with one terrible nominee for governor, their business crony Phil Angelides in 2006. He was on the ropes in the Democratic primary, out of money and off the air, way behind a far better candidate. Then the two of them came in overnight with a $10 million so-called independent expenditure that saved Angelides, got him back on TV, and won him the nomination. After running an atrocious campaign, he got creamed that November by 17 points, in an otherwise great year for Democrats, in which they took back both the U.S. Senate and House, and won a majority of governorships.

Democrats should expect and demand that the remaining candidates for governor fight it out fairly and squarely, making their best case to the voters, using their fundraising success as one measure of their appeal to the Democratic electorate, and ultimately to the state of California.

The governorship of the largest state, with more people than the continent of Australia, and an economy that is the fourth largest in the world, should not be determined by a filthy rich sugar daddy— quite literally— putting his moneyed thumb on the scale.

All of their dough comes from AKT Developments, the old man’s rape-and-scrape land developer company, for which she worked for almost 20 years, including serving as president, and from which both she and he made all their millions. It is a rapacious developer that has been found guilty of perpetrating all kinds of environmental damage, including violating the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act and the Endangered Species Act. Not to mention creating major suburban sprawl all around Sacramento. It’s the kind of record that, if committed by a big-bucks Republican developer, would draw howls of protest and condemnation from “green” Democrats— but they abide his and her terrible environmental record because they move a massive amount of dollars to Democrats, basically tribute money to buy their silence and cause them to look the other way, and even bring prominent Democratic officials— or their spouses, like Paul Pelosi— into lucrative land deals. 

What’s at stake in this race isn’t just who gets to occupy the governor’s mansion in Sacramento. It’s whether California Democrats are going to allow their party’s most powerful office to be bought and sold like a piece of downtown real estate. California is a progressive beacon, a policy engine, a cultural leader. It deserves a governor who earns the job through public trust, not private wealth. Voters— and the press— should be on high alert for any attempt by Tsakopoulos to repeat the sleight of hand he pulled in 2018. It’s not just ethically offensive; it’s illegal. And shame on anyone who turns a blind eye, as was done last time. No candidate should be able to skip the hard work of coalition-building, campaigning, and consensus-making by relying on a family ATM. This isn’t the era of gray backroom deals or dynastic coronations. If the Democratic Party stands for anything, it ought to be merit, transparency, and grassroots power— not letting deep-pocketed developers pick our leaders. California’s future is too important to leave up to one man’s bank account. Let’s not let history repeat itself.