Abortion rights groups are backing California Democrats in the escalating battle to redraw congressional maps, warning that Republicans are rigging seats on the heels of deeply unpopular cuts to safety net health programs and restrictions on reproductive care.
"You take away our freedoms, we'll take away your seats," said Jodi Hicks, CEO of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, during Gov. Gavin Newsom's pitch to adopt Democratic-leaning maps to offset President Donald Trump's attempt to bolster GOP seats in Texas.
"We can't sit idly by while the Trump administration, while their backers in Congress, pursue every avenue to strip blue states of their autonomy."
California legislators this week are debating the new congressional maps, drawn by Newsom allies, which would temporarily replace those drawn by the state's independent redistricting commission. If they're approved, voters would have the final say in a November special election.
The mobilization comes as Planned Parenthood, one of the nation's leading reproductive rights groups, tries to prevent further political and funding losses. Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, conservative states, including Texas, have implemented laws banning abortion almost entirely. And Republicans passed Trump's tax-and-spending bill with massive cuts to Medicaid, which keeps safety net providers like Planned Parenthood afloat.
The Trump administration also recently barred the organization and its affiliates from receiving reimbursement for nonabortion services such as cancer screenings and birth control, though a federal judge has temporarily paused enforcement pending a legal challenge.
John Seago, president of Texas Right to Life, said the anti-abortion group is not taking a position on either state's redistricting proposals. But, he said, Democrats' rhetoric about protecting democracy rings hollow when blue states like California pass "shield laws" that protect patients seeking abortions and their health care providers from facing consequences and make it more difficult for states like Texas to enforce their laws.
Hicks, whose group represents about 1 in 5 Planned Parenthood clinics nationwide, promised to "go all in" on Newsom's ballot measure. She declined to say how much money the organization would spend on the campaign.
She added that she wouldn't be surprised to see more health care groups — many of which opposed the recent Medicaid cuts — jump into electoral politics following the passage of Trump's signature law. "Health care organizations that, maybe, don't get involved in those particular races are looking at things differently," she said.
So far, health industry support has been limited to abortion rights advocates. Reproductive Freedom for All, the national abortion rights group formerly known as NARAL, also lauded Newsom for "holding Republicans accountable for trying to steal votes."
Planned Parenthood Texas Votes, the advocacy arm of the state's affiliates, has urged supporters to testify at special session meetings and held a webinar to "stop the redistricting power grab." And the national Planned Parenthood Action Fund encouraged leaders in Democratic states to use "all tools in their power to push back, level the national playing field, and stop the slide into authoritarianism."
Hicks and her group are no strangers to big political fights — even against Newsom. Last year, she and other health leaders led a $56 million campaign to pass a revised state health care tax in November over the governor's concerns.
Newsom, who is trying to build a national profile ahead of a potential 2028 presidential bid, said the effort would "neutralize" Republican gerrymandering in Texas to pad their party's fragile five-seat advantage in the U.S. House. The party in the White House has generally lost congressional seats in the midterm elections, and political analysts say the trend appears likely to continue in 2026.
Newsom also called on lawmakers in other Democratic states to follow suit if GOP states move ahead with redistricting plans. Leaders in Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, New York, and Ohio have suggested they could explore similar actions, creating a potential cascade that political experts have said could sow chaos in next year's midterm elections and set a dangerous precedent.
California Republican Party chair Corrin Rankin, whose party stands to lose five of the nine House seats it currently holds, called Newsom's proposal a "calculated power grab that dismantles the very safeguards voters put in place" when they passed congressional redistricting reform in 2010.
Democratic leaders have cast the move as necessary to combat an existential threat to democracy. And they have criticized Republicans for trying to make an end run around voter anger toward their policies, particularly around health care. Nearly half of adults think the Republican-passed tax-and-spending law will hurt them, according to a July survey by KFF. More than half believe abortion should be legal, at least under some circumstances, per a Gallup poll in May.
The Republican-passed megabill is projected to slash Medicaid, the federal health care program that covers low-income Americans, by nearly $1 trillion over 10 years. And the Trump administration has cut funding to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health, including clawing back medical and scientific research funds from universities.
"They know that voters will hold them accountable for the cuts they rammed through Congress that will strip health care away from millions of people," said Democratic state lawmaker Sabrina Cervantes, chair of the Senate Elections and Constitutional Amendments Committee. "Because they know they cannot win fair elections, they are changing the rules in the middle of the game."
Republican incumbents who could be redistricted into oblivion are crying foul.
"Mid-Decade redistricting is wrong, no matter where it's being done," Rep. Doug LaMalfa wrote on the social platform X. Last week, the seven-term Republican endured a hostile town hall in his rural Northern California district, defending his vote for the new law by saying it "doesn't cut a single dollar from people who qualify" for Medi-Cal, the state's Medicaid program.
If approved by voters, proponents said, California's 52 new House districts would also bolster vulnerable congressional Democrats and be in effect for the 2026, 2028, and 2030 elections. The map would not go into effect unless another state approved its own gerrymandering effort. After the 2030 census, the state commission would regain control of the process.
Paul Mitchell, a redistricting expert who helped draft the Democrats' map, said his team used the commission's district boundaries as a starting point and, for more than half the districts, moved fewer than 10% of voters.
"This is not a Twitter hack job," said Mitchell, a Democrat who is married to Hicks and has long supported the independent commission's work. "I want to get back to nonpartisan redistricting, but right now we're in a crisis."
National polls show voters oppose partisan redistricting. And California voters still overwhelmingly support the state's independent redistricting system, said veteran GOP strategist Rob Stutzman, who added that passing such complicated ballot language in an off-year election would be no easy feat.
"You're asking voters to make an unprincipled decision. You're asking them to rig an election because allegedly Texas is rigging an election," Stutzman said. "'No' votes are so much easier when it's confusing, and this is extremely confusing."
Dave Wasserman, senior editor and elections analyst for the Cook Political Report, said Texas and California have the potential to set off a "redistricting apocalypse" that will have major implications in the fight to control Congress.
"If Democrats fail to pass a ballot initiative to offset Texas, then Republicans would go from having a very narrow chance to hold the House to, perhaps, an even chance," he said. But, he added, public opinion on health care cuts remains the biggest obstacle in the party's path.
This article was produced by KFF Health News, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation.
PSMA PET/CT improves outcomes for men with recurrent prostate cancer