In politics, temporary is forever.
If the ongoing fight over “temporary” healthcare subsidies causing the federal government shutdown is any indication, California Democrats will fight tooth and nail to ensure Prop 50’s “temporary” gerrymandering is forever as well.
In 2021, Congressional Democrats, led by then-President Joe Biden, passed legislation enhancing subsidies for health insurance for many Americans. These enhanced subsidies were only supposed to be temporary, which is why they are set to expire now just a few years later, and now many of the same Democrats who passed these “temporary” subsidies are demanding they be extended.
In fact, very few things labeled temporary by politicians ever are. Instead, “temporary” is either just a sales pitch or a budget gimmick.
In the case of the subsidies, it was the latter. Democrats were trying to circumvent the normal legislative process by using a gimmick that only requires a simple majority. This tactic has certain limitations on increasing the deficit, so the subsidies became “temporary.”
In the case of Proposition 50, however, the term “temporary” was just a sales pitch. Voters like the independent redistricting commission they approved less than two decades ago that ultimately led to fairer district lines. Prop. 50, which overturns the commission’s congressional maps for the rest of this decade in favor of partisan maps, passed overwhelmingly this week, largely because it was allegedly “temporary.” The independent commission would return to normal business after 2030, they said.
But does anyone really think California Democrats are going to go back to independently-drawn maps in just a few years and jeopardize a handful of newly-elected Democratic members of Congress?
“I can’t guarantee what California voters will do in the future,” said Democratic Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren this week when asked if Prop 50 was really temporary, as if she and her Democratic colleagues weren’t the ones responsible for getting this before voters in the first place.
It’s also true that many of the same California Democrats who said Prop. 50 would be “temporary” never wanted the independent redistricting commission in the first place. In fact, California Democrats were the main opposition to the commission when it was first on the ballot, but saying Prop. 50 would dismantle the commission would have been a non-starter with voters.
To be clear, Prop. 50 officially sunsets in a few years. But don’t be surprised when California Democrats find a way to get around it again, either temporarily or permanently.
It’s like Proposition 30, a temporary tax on top earners in California that was allegedly necessary in 2012 to address a budget shortfall. Then-Gov. Jerry Brown stressed it was a temporary measure. Four years later, once the budget had straightened out, Brown pushed for a 12-year extension of the tax through Proposition 55. Does anyone think this “temporary” tax won’t be extended or made permanent in 2030 when it expires?
This is why any government program is nearly impossible to get rid of. The second something passes it creates constituencies that will never let go, even after something has outlived its usefulness. Prop 50 creates the most powerful constituency: California Democrats granted the power to gerrymander.
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It’s hard to see Democrats keeping this power as “temporary.”
Matt Fleming is an opinion columnist with the Southern California News Group. Find him on X at @FlemingWords or email him at flemingwords@gmail.com.
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