Inside how Democrats want to redistrict California

IN THIS EDITION

House Dems are California dreamin’

Senate passes rescissions package. Now what?

The Vault: Crypto’s Congress crashout

Tech: Lawmakers target chip smuggling

The Creator Economy: Entertainment’s New Era

THE TOP

House Dems are California dreamin’

Happy Thursday morning.

News: California Democrats are charging ahead with an ambitious and potentially expensive plan to squeeze between five and seven more Democratic seats out of their congressional map.

The goal: To offset the Republican redistricting in Texas — and potentially elsewhere — and win the House majority next year.

“We’re ready,” Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) said. “If Texas goes, we are going.”

The California Democratic congressional delegation huddled Wednesday afternoon with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), the chair of the delegation, hosted the meeting with Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar.

California Democrats were overwhelmingly on board with drawing a new map, but members want input in how the lines are drawn.

California’s current partisan split is 43 Democrats to nine Republicans. Some California Democrats have indicated they’re willing to run in more competitive districts in order to reach the goal of gaining a half dozen more blue seats. Although we’ll see what happens if and when there are new maps.

We can’t overstate the significance of these looming redistricting wars and the potential they have to transform the midterms.

House Republicans, clinging to the slimmest of majorities, are trying to insulate themselves from a challenging political landscape in 2026 with new maps. Texas Republicans are in the midst of a White House-driven push to knock five Democrats out of their districts. Democrats say they’re ready to fight back.

“We’re obviously very sensitive to what’s happening in Texas and the continued consolidation of power that House Republicans are looking at,” Aguilar told us. “Our belief is we need to have every option available to us.”

The road ahead. This is a brazen political gamble, exactly the kind of ploy that the Democratic Party base has been demanding. Yet it’ll be extremely hard to pull off for a few reasons.

The biggest roadblock is that the California voters approved a constitutional amendment that handed authority over redistricting to an independent commission ahead of the 2011 remap. Proposition 20 was adopted by an overwhelming margin, and it has generally made House races in California more competitive.

But California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom sees two ways to overcome it.

The first: Newsom can call a special session. The legislature would put a proposition on the ballot that would “pause” the commission or rescind its redistricting power. California voters would have to approve this in a special election. They might not.

Democrats believe voters would back their proposal if they frame it as the key to thwarting what they see as a congressional power grab by President Donald Trump. Democrats would need to go on the airwaves to message the issue, and this would be extremely expensive. Republicans will try to fight this dramatic redraw of the map, of course.

One idea we’ve heard is to have the proposition worded so that the independent redistricting commission would return if other states — like Texas and Florida — institute commissions of their own. Another proposal is to include a sweetener in the proposition to convince GOP voters to back it, such as a voter ID law.

The second: This path is less likely because it is more complicated and legally murky. The California legislature would embark on redrawing districts under the theory that it is permitted because the state’s constitution is silent on mid-decade redistricting. And if the California constitution doesn’t address that scenario, then Democrats could do the mid-decade redraw without the commission.

This strategy would depend on surviving a legal challenge. Newsom called it “a novel legal question.” It’s a risky tactic, but could be done more expediently than a ballot initiative.

The map. California Democrats we talked to believe that they could reduce the GOP footprint in their state to two or, most likely, three seats. That means that some Republican incumbents would be drawn out of their seats. It also means some Democrats may have to run in tougher seats and represent new territory.

“I’ve run in some of the most competitive districts in the country, so I’d be fine if it helps us get the majority,” Rep. Ami Bera (D-Calif.) said.

The Democratic gains will likely depend on whether or not the mapmakers honor the Voting Rights Act and leave certain districts with majority Latino populations.

Keeping those Latino seats intact will blunt pickup opportunities. For example, Democrats could knock off GOP Rep. Ken Calvert in Riverside County but would probably need to leave GOP Rep. Young Kim’s Orange County district as a Republican vote sink to shore up the surrounding Democratic members. A new map could oust Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley by drawing his district to include blue areas in and around Sacramento.

Seats held by GOP Reps. David Valadao, in the Central Valley, and Darrell Issa, in San Diego County, could probably get better for Democrats but these wouldn’t be slam dunks. Democrats could be looking at a pickup of two to four seats.

But if Democrats disregard the Voting Rights Act — a scenario that exposes them to even more lawsuits — that opens up possibilities. Democratic members such as Reps. Lou Correa and Juan Vargas could share some of their left-leaning voters and create a ripple effect across the map.

This map could reduce the GOP delegation to just three members, targeting Kiley, Calvert, Issa, Kim, Valadao and maybe even Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Calif.) to the north.

“We want our gavels back,” said Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), who would be in line to chair the House Veterans Affairs Committee. “That’s what this is about.”

– Ally Mutnick and Jake Sherman

Congressional women’s softball game: Lawmakers broke the press team’s two-year winning streak last night as the congressional team beat the Bad News Babes 5-3. Thunderstorms forced the game to end early. The Congressional Women’s Softball Game helps raise money for breast cancer awareness. Don’t miss our recap, and thanks to Kenzie Nguyen for covering.

THE SENATE

Senate passes rescissions package. Now what?

The Senate passed President Donald Trump’s $9 billion rescissions package late Wednesday night after a marathon series of amendment votes.

Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) joined all Democrats in opposing the measure. The package — which faces a Friday deadline — now heads to the House.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise has set a possible floor vote for this afternoon on the measure. This would be a big win for Trump and GOP leaders.

Funding fallout. Attention now turns to Senate Democrats, who will need to decide if — and how — to follow through on their implicit threats to walk away from any bipartisan FY2026 spending deal if Republicans passed a rescissions package. Senate Democrats have leverage because any funding measure needs at least 60 votes.

With an eye on how March’s funding fight turned out (hint: poorly), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer will have a chance at a do-over. Schumer said Wednesday that the rescissions effort “compromises” Congress’ ability to “reach bipartisan and reasonable appropriations deals.” He’s also cited impoundments and the Trump administration’s threats of “pocket rescissions” at the end of the fiscal year.

Even GOP appropriators are pulling teeth to get OMB to release education funds that were due to be released on July 1, underscoring the Trump administration’s defiance of Congress’ intent.

Yet the rescissions fight doesn’t appear to be having an immediate impact on the Senate Appropriations Committee’s churn. The panel is still marking up bipartisan appropriations bills, with the MilCon-VA funding measure on tap for this morning.

The Commerce-Justice-Science bill, which stalled out last week after a dispute over a new FBI headquarters, will also be taken up.

A GOP reckoning. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he intends to process as many funding bills as possible on the floor before the Sept. 30 deadline. This could begin as soon as this month.

But Thune and other Republicans have acknowledged that the rescission effort has been a tough moment for appropriators like Collins.

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), a member of the Appropriations Committee, went as far as to say Democrats are “correct” about how rescissions will impact FY2026 spending talks:

Some Republicans even say they took a risk by backing the rescissions bill. A few GOP senators voted for the measure after receiving commitments from the Trump administration that certain programs won’t be cut even if they fall under the funding accounts listed in the rescissions package. That includes Rounds, who got assurances on tribal radio stations.

Jeffrey Epstein update. Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin and Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) are sending a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi urging her to provide a report next month to the CJS subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations panel on disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

The subcommittee approved a Van Hollen amendment last week requiring a DOJ report on Epstein as part of the CJS bill. With the full Senate Appropriations Committee set to mark up the CJS bill today, Durbin and Van Hollen are urging Bondi not to wait until the bill becomes law but to issue the report by mid-August.

— Andrew Desiderio and John Bresnahan

THE VAULT

The Vault: Crypto’s Congress crashout

The House broke a nearly 10-hour standoff over crypto policy late Wednesday night. Crypto Week lives on!

It only took the longest House vote in history, but 10 conservatives flipped to “yes” to allow a trio of major crypto bills to proceed to the floor, along with the FY2026 Defense appropriations package.

Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters on Wednesday night that the House would vote on the GENIUS Act today, while the CLARITY Act could get bumped to next week.

This is ultimately a win for the leaders of the House Financial Services and Agriculture committees. Reps. French Hill (R-Ark.) and Glenn Thompson (R-Pa.), who chair those panels respectively, argued fiercely against attaching the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act to the CLARITY Act, which would introduce market structure reforms for crypto.

To maximize the leverage with the Senate, Thompson, Hill and their committees want CLARITY to get as big a bipartisan vote as it can. The CBDC prohibition is mostly a Republican priority.

The deal. Conservatives — minus Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) — voted to advance the rule after agreeing to a deal with the House GOP leadership. The agreement would have Republicans attach language to the annual defense reauthorization bill that would prohibit the Federal Reserve from issuing a central bank digital currency, or CBDC.

House GOP leaders plus Republicans from the Financial Services and Agriculture committees met multiple times with House Freedom Caucus hardliners on Wednesday to discuss the best way to enact the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act. It wasn’t always pleasant, but they got there.

“I am tired of making history,” Johnson told reporters Wednesday night. “I just want a normal Congress. But some people have forgotten what that looks like. But as long as we get it done, it doesn’t matter to me how long a vote is held open.”

Leadership. We have lots of questions about how the House ended up in this position. Why did the GOP leadership bring the rule to the floor if they knew they had vote issues? Why did the White House staff allow Trump to negotiate with the HFC without committee leaders in the loop?

Republican leadership’s retort is that the HFC is simply miffed with the state of the House Republican Conference. Hardline conservatives feel as if they have been jammed by the Senate a number of times this year — most recently during reconciliation.

The HFC missed the boat on influencing this debate. There was a discussion about combining CLARITY and GENIUS a few weeks ago.

In the end, the HFC didn’t really get that much. GENIUS and CLARITY will get separate House votes — as originally envisioned. Only now, CBDC gets into NDAA, where it becomes one more provision that could simply get stripped out by the Senate.

– Brendan Pedersen, Laura Weiss and Jake Sherman

Tech: Lawmakers target chip smuggling

A bipartisan group of lawmakers wants to crack down on the smuggling of American technology, including chips for artificial intelligence.

A handful of members on the House Foreign Affairs Committee are introducing a bill to nearly double the number of export control officers stationed around the world. These are the officials who monitor whether U.S. products that can serve both civilian and military purposes are being diverted into places they’re not meant to go.

The bill comes during a heightened focus on export controls of American-made AI chips. While the Trump administration is relaxing some of those restrictions, many on Capitol Hill want to see a tougher approach regarding U.S. technology going to geopolitical rivals.

AI competition is “a race against time, and we know that China is very proficient at replicating our advances and replicating our technology,” Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.), the bill’s sponsor, told us. “We don’t want those [chips] to be smuggled, we don’t want them to be replicated, we don’t want them to be sold in the black market.”

The details. The bill would mandate that there be at least 20 export control officers globally. There are currently 11 stationed in consulates across Asia, Europe and the Middle East. These officials report to the Bureau of Industry and Security, a part of the Commerce Department.

Kamlager-Dove said the bill is a “no-brainer” and has Republican backing. GOP Reps. Bill Huizenga (Mich.) and Jefferson Shreve (Ind.) are co-sponsors. The top Democrat in the Foreign Affairs panel, Gregory Meeks (N.Y.), also supports the bill.

Tracking chips. The House Select Committee on China has claimed that over 100,000 chips were smuggled into China last year. The panel’s chair, Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) have been pushing their colleagues to pass the Chip Security Act, which would require that advanced AI chips have the ability to be tracked.

Nvidia and other U.S. chipmakers have repeatedly rejected any suggestions that they facilitate the smuggling of their products into China or that they circumvent American export controls.

– Diego Areas Munhoz

THE CREATOR ECONOMY

The Creator Economy: Entertainment’s New Era

Content creators are changing the way media is created — bringing the business of Hollywood to the suburbs.

Today, we launched the second feature in our series, The Creator Economy, in partnership with YouTube. In this four-part series, we explore the impact creators have on the economy and how they’re starting to drive the policy debate in Washington.

For our second feature, we sat down with Dude Perfect CEO Andrew Yaffe. Yaffe discusses how the viral YouTube sports comedy group — made up of five friends who first came to fame after filming a backyard trick basketball shot — is expanding their business.

Dude Perfect has its own massive studio space in Frisco, Texas, and is a model for other content creators looking to do the same. MrBeast, the megapopular YouTube creator, also has a headquarters and production studio in Greenville, N.C.

Creators like Dude Perfect and MrBeast are bringing the economic impact of Hollywood and New York to small towns across the country, while also choosing a more cost-efficient plan for their businesses.

“In reality, we are producing content that is of the quality of Hollywood, just in a far more cost-efficient, direct-to-audience way, where we’re getting direct feedback,” Yaffe said.

The Policy Play. Lawmakers are recognizing the economic impact of these creators, too.

“This is the American entrepreneurial spirit,” said Rep. Greg Murphy (R-N.C.), whose district houses the MrBeast empire. “If there’s a way in this day and age to use technology or social media to create a buzz and earn money, then more power to them.”

Reps. Beth Van Duyne (R-Texas) and Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) recently launched the bipartisan Congressional Creators Caucus to understand and begin to regulate the creator industry.

Van Duyne said she’s started to look into specific policy areas to help creators. Van Duyne, a member of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, said some creators have talked with her about the tax implications of how creators are defined.

“It’s a burgeoning industry,” Van Duyne said. “I don’t care what district you represent, you’ve got content creators in your district, and it’s business.”

Read the full feature here.

– Samantha Handler

MOMENTS

CLIPS