Letters: Voters should say no to the tyranny of the masses

"Proposition 50 abrogates our constitutional spirit of protecting the minority against the tyranny of the majority. Californians should roundly reject it. California has 52 House representatives, but only nine are Republican despite the fact that nearly 40% of our state electorate voted for Donald Trump, meaning we already have a biased skew against Republicans; proportionately, California should have about 20 Republican representatives. Proposition 50 would foist a further biased, nonrepresentative redistricting, probably resulting in 50 Democratic and 2 Republican representatives."

"Gov. Newsom cries that Texas is redistricting, so we must counter a potential increase in Republican representatives. So, we should further deprive California citizens of their proportional representation because another state is attempting to redistrict their state's representative allocation proportional to their own electorate's voting? Championing "representative Democracy" and "will of the people" is only empty hypocrisy by anyone promoting Proposition 50, an un-American violation of our constitutional principles."

"Yes vote is the only choice on Prop. 50 Democrats generally despise gerrymandering, but we have no choice in California. Vote yes on Proposition 50. The need to redistrict in California is only in response to the extreme gerrymandering in Texas demanded by Donald Trump and passed by the Texas Legislature. Other red states are expected to follow. California's Proposition 50 redistricting passage will be entirely up to California voters, and will sunset after the 2028 election...again, unlike red states."

Proposition 50 would remove constitutional safeguards that protect minority representation against majority dominance and could intensify partisan imbalance in California’s congressional delegation. California already has a disproportionate number of Democratic representatives relative to the state’s Trump-supporting electorate, and Proposition 50 could push representation toward an extreme Democratic majority. The measure is framed as a response to red states’ gerrymandering, especially Texas, and is portrayed as a defensive necessity. The proposition would be voter-controlled in California and include a sunset after the 2028 election. The argument asserts that a yes vote counters external partisan redistricting threats.

Read at The Mercury News