NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
The top Republican in the State Assembly will announce Wednesday a new bill to split California into two new states along a north-south line as a response to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s mid-decennial redistricting effort, Fox News Digital has learned.
Assemblyman James Gallagher’s plan, laid out in what will be filed as AJR-23, would create a new state featuring its liberal coast and another uniting California’s conservative inland counties.
Gallagher, R-Yuba City, dubbed the move a “two-state solution” – a term more identified with territorial clashes in the Middle East – to Newsom’s own clash with Republicans, which is the governor’s reply to Texas’ redistricting efforts.
“The people of inland California have been overlooked for too long. It’s time for a two-state solution,” Gallagher said.
Gallagher’s resolution responds to Sacramento’s attempt to permanently redraw California’s congressional maps – an act he says would silence rural voices and rig the political system forever.
DEMS WANTED TO DRAW EVERY REPUBLICAN OUT OF MARYLAND BUT NOW LAMBAST TEXAS REDISTRICTING
Assembly Minority Leader James Gallagher, R-Yuba City, left; Gov. Gavin Newsom, right (Getty Images)
While the political power of California’s overall current landmass would be diminished, the new “Inland” California would be one of the largest states by population in the nation, and reliably right-leaning.
Following a series of county lines generally slightly west of Interstate 5 – which runs the 800-mile height of the state – the new coastal state would retain many notably left-wing communities like San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, Silicon Valley and Sonoma.
It would also include the relatively center-right Orange County, as well as San Diego County, where the state’s Senate Republican Leader Brian Jones hails from.
Jones said earlier this month that Newsom wasn’t elected “to play gerrymandering games to boost his presidential campaign, [but] to solve problems here at home.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Jones, Newsom and Gallagher, for comment.
Gallagher’s home county – Sutter, located north of Sacramento – would fall in the new conservative inland state.
It would also include right-leaning Truckee – where Interstate 80 crosses the Sierras – along with Kern County, where former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., hails from.
San Bernardino, Riverside and Imperial counties – which today make up what is similarly called the “Inland Empire” – would also fall in the new state.
The 17 coastal counties would together create a state of 29.5 million people while the inland state would be home to 10 million, according to the Manteca Bulletin.
MEXICAN IMMIGRANT-TURNED-CONGRESSWOMAN BLASTS DEM CLAIMS TEXAS REDISTRICTING HURTS LATINO VOTE
Texas would become the nation’s most populous state, edging out Coastal California by about 1.5 million, while Inland California would become the 11th most populous state – fitting in between Michigan and New Jersey.
Gallagher has lambasted what he calls Newsom’s “mid-decade power grab” as a “mockery of democracy.”
“Don’t p— on my boots and tell me it’s raining. These are rigged maps, drawn in secret to give Democrat politicians more power by dismantling the independent commission Californians created to keep them out of map-drawing,” he said in a statement earlier this month. His comments came after Newsom approved the Democrats’ plan to place a resolution on the November ballot allowing the state to circumvent its semi-independent redistricting board.
“Californians should choose their representatives, not the other way around,” he said.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
State Sen. Roger Niello, R-Fair Oaks, is the top Republican on the elections committee.
Niello said earlier this month that Democrats only recently found interest in redrawing the congressional maps – sharing several examples of liberal lawmakers verbally opposing redistricting as recently as July.
“In just a few weeks, a mysterious case of collective and selective amnesia seems to have set in. Let’s rewind the tape and hear them in their own words,” Niello said.
Gallagher is expected to hold a press conference at 10 a.m. PT in Sacramento to further discuss his plan.