By Damon Connolly
September 20, 2025
https://www.marinij.com/2025/09/20/marin-voice-assemblymember-lays-out-case-for-prop-50/
It is tragically self-evident that the Trump administration poses a unique threat to our freedoms, shared values and diverse communities. The National Guard is being sent to American cities against the will of local elected leaders and the residents themselves, federal agencies designed to help the most vulnerable are being gutted and whole neighborhoods live in fear that their family members will be seized and sent off to brutal foreign prisons without due process.
Since President Donald Trump’s election last year, I have often been asked what can be done to stop this dangerous slide towards authoritarianism. How can the cruelty of the White House be confronted? How can we protect our democracy?
Californians now have a definitive answer — vote yes on Proposition 50.
Proposition 50 on the Nov. 4 special election ballot is by far the nation’s most consequential election this year. Prop 50 is a temporary emergency measure that redraws California’s congressional districts in response to Trump’s attempts to thwart the will of the people in next year’s midterm congressional election. Currently, Trump’s Republican Party has a slim five-seat majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. Fully aware of the growing unpopularity of his extremist policies, Trump demanded five additional Republican congressional districts from a compliant Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. Texas’ new districts appear to be fundamentally discriminatory because they dilute political representation for voters of color.
Many of my Democratic counterparts in the Texas Legislature left their state to deny quorum during the special legislative session that voted on Trump’s power grab.
One of the reasons Texas Democrats eventually returned to Austin is because of the actions of myself and my colleagues in California’s Legislature. I helped co-author and pass the Election Rigging Response Act. This legislative package is a direct ask to California voters to take a tangible and meaningful stand against Trump. It asks voters, not politicians, to defend democracy.