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The architect of California’s Democratic-friendly redistricting plan, which helped the party flip five Republican-held House seats in November’s midterm elections, is now calling on Democrats to put an end to partisan gerrymandering nationwide.
Paul Mitchell claimed in a San Francisco Chronicle op-ed published Wednesday that lawmakers should “kill partisan gerrymandering for good.” His comments come after California voters approved Proposition 50 in November 2025, temporarily replacing the state’s independently drawn congressional districts with a Democratic-friendly map for elections through 2030.
Mitchell acknowledged in his op-ed that Proposition 50 was designed to benefit Democrats, but defended it as a temporary response to Republican-led redistricting efforts before calling for an end to partisan mapmaking altogether.
“I wasn’t trying to do this [op-ed] to time with anyone’s efforts to do further gerrymandering,” Mitchell told Fox News Digital on Thursday evening. “I always planned on doing this as soon as the election was over, and I even did a CNN interview with Elex Michaelson during the election coverage where I said that the answer needs to be to stop this redistricting war and actually fix the problem.”
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Mitchell went on to say that Prop 50 was “the right response” to Texas Republicans’ redistricting push.
“Prop 50 was the right response to what Republicans in TX were doing, but recall that when TX started doing this, our approach wasn’t to just start redistricting ourselves, we did a lot of work trying to get TX to not start the redistricting wars,” he told Fox News Digital. “If then someone had said “congress will be banning mid-decade redistricting” we would have been all for it. And I supported the legislation by Zoe Lofgren that would have [set up] national redistricting standards.”
Mitchell argued that Republicans’ midterm losses could make them more receptive to redistricting reform after years of opposing it.
“What makes now really important is that Republicans, who have opposed redistricting reform, should now realize that they lost in this war, so getting out of future wars is something maybe they would take more seriously now,” he told Fox News Digital.
As for California, Mitchell believes the Proposition 50 maps will remain in place through 2030 and said the focus should be on restoring a fairer redistricting process in 2031.
He called for Congress to prohibit mid-decade redistricting but argued that such a restriction alone would not prevent partisan gerrymandering when states redraw their maps after each census.
“I think the best solution would be independent commissions in every state,” he said.
The California Democratic Party touted Prop 50 as a “direct response to a Republican power grab orchestrated by President [Donald] Trump and state leaders in Texas, who redrew congressional district lines to gain five more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.”
Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom similarly claimed in a Nov. 4, 2025 social media post that Prop 50 “is about standing up to bullies like Donald Trump.”
Mitchell’s recent op-ed also claims that gerrymandering can erode voters’ ability “to elect the candidates they prefer.”
Democrats notably succeeded in flipping all five House seats in California targeted by the party’s redistricting push in the November midterm elections, the AP reported Nov. 4.
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“The incoming Congress should make national redistricting a priority, establishing minimum standards for how all states draw their districts,” Mitchell wrote in the opinion piece.
Mitchell serves as the vice president of Political Data Inc., a California-based bipartisan voter data firm. He is also the owner of Redistricting Partners, a Sacramento-based data consulting firm.
Mitchell, across his career, has conducted more than 100 redistrictings for states, cities, school boards and community college districts, including the State of New York Independent Redistricting Commission, the Los Angeles City Council Redistricting Commission and the Long Beach Independent Redistricting Commission, according to Redistricting Partners’ website.
When asked about whether California’s gerrymandered maps were necessary during a Nov. 8 interview on “California Politics 360,” Mitchell said it would have been “a huge mistake” for Democrats to “sit” on their “laurels.”
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Following Democrats’ sweeping victories in November’s midterm elections, some states have floated redrawing their congressional maps ahead of the 2028 election cycle, Roll Call reported Nov. 9.
Meanwhile, outgoing Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said Nov. 4 that he would not call a special legislative session to redraw congressional maps or limit the powers of the incoming governor before his term ends in January 2027, WABE reported.
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“As long as I’m governor, we will always respect the results of secure, accessible, and fair elections, and also abide by the laws and constitution of our state,” Kemp said in a statement.
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