The Brief

What seemed a few weeks ago like a far-fetched political fantasy ahead of the 2026 midterms has quickly evolved into a high-stakes showdown enveloping states across the country.

As Texas this week began an off-cycle redistricting process meant to shore up Republicans’ slim House majority, Gov. Gavin Newsom appeared Friday with a group of Democratic legislators from that state, reaffirming his intention for California to respond with new maps of its own that would benefit Democrats.

Following a meeting with the Texas lawmakers at the historic governor’s mansion in downtown Sacramento, Newsom told reporters that “everything is at stake if we’re not successful next year in taking back the House of Representatives” — not only blunting President Donald Trump’s agenda, but protecting American democracy.

“If we don’t put a stake into the heart of this administration, there may not be an election in 2028,” he said. “They’re not screwing around. We can’t afford to screw around either. We have got to fight fire with fire.”

There’s one major obstacle to the governor’s ambitions, however: While the Legislature draws district lines in Texas, California relies on a bipartisan citizen redistricting commission protected by the state Constitution.

In 2008, voters narrowly approved an amendment removing California legislators’ power to draw their own seats. Two years later, voters overwhelmingly passed another amendment expanding the commission’s authority to congressional maps.

The independent commission in California became a national model for advocates who hoped to end the partisan gerrymandering that has contributed to a decline in competitive House seats and the country’s fractious, sectarian politics.

Now Newsom, who said he otherwise supports independent redistricting, is exploring multiple options for working around the commission to squeeze more Democratic districts out of California, if Texas follows through on its plan.

That would probably involve calling a special election, Newsom said, though he is still discussing with the Legislature what sort of proposal they might present to voters. Would it include a new map to approve or create another process to draw on? Would the commission be temporarily or permanently repealed?

“This is a fluid conversation,” he said. “We’re gaming all those things out.”

Trump turns up the heat in Texas

States typically redraw their congressional seats once per decade, after the census, to ensure the districts are all roughly equal in population. The most recent maps were drawn after the 2020 election and took effect in 2022.

But last month, Trump’s political team began pressuring Republican leaders in Texas to revisit the state’s district lines and create additional GOP seats. The party won a five-seat majority in the House last November, the narrowest in nearly a century, leaving little room for error as Trump tries to enact his legislative agenda and putting control of the chamber at risk if next year’s midterm is a wave election against the unpopular president.

Despite opposition from Republicans in the Texas congressional delegation — who worried that diluting their conservative voter bases in redistricting could inadvertently make their seats vulnerable — Gov. Greg Abbott earlier this month called a special session of the Legislature to redraw the maps. He is targeting four Democratic seats in the Dallas and Houston areas that the Trump administration has deemed “unconstitutional racial gerrymanders” because they have high numbers of Black and Latino voters. The first public hearing took place on Thursday, with Texas Democratic lawmakers slamming the move as a “power grab.”

The boldly political maneuver juiced similar efforts in other Republican states, including Ohio and Missouri, that could further pad a GOP majority, while setting off alarm bells among Democrats nationally.

But even as party leaders voice their outrage, they have fewer options to fight back, because congressional districts in many of the largest Democratic states, such as California, New York and New Jersey, are drawn by independent commissions.

No one has been more outspoken than Newsom, who weeks ago began publicly floating the idea of sidestepping California’s commission to redraw more congressional districts in Democrats’ favor if Texas moves forward with its plan.

But it’s no sure thing in California

It’s a legally dubious and politically fraught endeavor. Even some of Newsom’s fellow Democrats have expressed skepticism because of the precedent it would set, including Assemblymember Alex Lee of Milpitas, whose vote may be needed to place a measure on the ballot. Common Cause California, a nonprofit that advocates for government in the public interest and backed the formation of the independent commission, blasted it as a “dangerous move” that would “put our state’s democracy on the line during a time of national instability.”

Meanwhile, Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton is already threatening to sue to stop a new map and has added to his platform a plan to require the redistricting commission to include more GOP seats.

Because of the legal risks in having the Legislature simply draw new congressional districts, the most likely route is a special election asking voters to overturn the independent commission, said Paul Mitchell, a Democratic redistricting consultant.

The problem is that the commission remains highly popular with voters in polling, Mitchell said. To get around that, Newsom may need to make concessions, like a temporary pause that resumes the independent redistricting process in 2031, after the next census.

“It’s ‘in emergency, break glass,’ not ‘let’s burn down the whole building,’” Mitchell said.

Even then, he said, Democrats would need to maintain the drumbeat of frustration over how the party is being harmed in Texas for months to turn out a motivated electorate in an unusual special election.

“It’s like lightning in a bottle right now,” Mitchell said. “Are they going to be able to keep this a front-burner issue for people?”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Lines stretched around the block Sunday at the Original Saugus Cafe in Santa Clarita. It was supposed to be the restaurant's last day before closing after 139 years — making it the oldest continually operated restaurant in Los Angeles County.

But earlier this week, a sign was posted on the door saying, "Reopening under new ownership soon," although there were few details about who would be running it.

The sign was a surprise to the Mercado family, who have operated the restaurant for nearly 30 years. The family now is in a legal dispute with the Arklin family, who owns the property, about the potential re-opening and who owns the historic name.

The background

Alfredo Mercado worked his way up from bartender to restaurateur, purchasing the business in 1998. Since then Mercado and his daughters have operated the restaurant, leasing from the Arklin family. For most of that time, according to the Mercado side, the two families maintained good terms. Property owner Hank Arklin Sr., a former state assemblyman who owned other properties in the area, kept a verbal month-to-month agreement with the Mercados — no written lease required.

That changed when Arklin died in August at age 97.

New terms, failed negotiations

Larry Goodman, who manages multiple properties for the Arklin family's company, North Valley Construction, took over the landlord relationship. In September, the Mercado family say they were presented with a new written month-to-month lease.

Yecenia Ponce, Alfredo's daughter, said the new terms included various changes to the existing agreement, including a rent increase and charges for equipment.

Months of back and forth negotiations about different options, including selling the business, ultimately fell apart. Their attorney, Steffanie Stelnick, says they are being forced out, without proper legal notice, and has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Goodman saying the family has plans to continue running the business.

LAist reached out to Goodman for comment repeatedly Wednesday and Thursday by phone but did not hear back.

Goodman told The Signal, a Santa Clarita valley news outlet, that Alfredo Mercado had changed his mind several times in recent weeks about keeping the business.

“I said, ‘Fine,’ then I got out and got someone to take it over,” Goodman said.

He said he'd been in contact with Eduardo Reyna, the CEO of Dario's, a local Santa Clarita restaurant, and that the cafe could re-open as soon as Jan. 16.

Who owns what?

The dispute also focuses on who owns the rights to the Original Saugus Cafe name.

Ponce said when her father purchased the restaurant in 1998, it was called The Olde Saugus Cafe, but the name was then changed to The Original Saugus Cafe. State records show that name registered as an LLC under Alfredo Mercado.

After Arklin’s death, however, the Arklin family filed a pending trademark application to lay its own claim to the name.

The Mercado family is resisting.

"As long as they don't buy the name from us, we're not handing it over," Ponce said.

Ponce said the family had no idea the landlord planned to continue operations.

"We truly did think we were closing," she said. "We were not aware that they had plans to continue."

She apologized to customers for the confusion.

Whether the decades-old restaurant name survives — and under whose control — may ultimately be decided in court.

Community leaders and politicians in Los Angeles are responding in outrage after an ICE agent shot and killed a woman in Minnesota on Wednesday.

The fatal ICE shooting of 37-year-old Renee Good has sparked anger and fear in Los Angeles, which has been an epicenter of federal immigration enforcement since the summer.

Jorge-Mario Cabrera with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, or CHIRLA, says the killing was upsetting but not surprising.

" Los Angeles has been witness of the escalating aggressiveness of these federal agents against the community," he told LAist.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has defended the shooting, saying Good was trying to run agents over with her car. That account has been disputed by eyewitnesses, the mayor of Minneapolis and other officials. Bystander video also challenges the federal narrative, according to MPR News.

L.A. politicians have joined a chorus demanding justice for Good. Mayor Karen Bass posted on X, saying that ICE agents are waging "a purposeful campaign of fear and intimidation" on American cities.

"The senseless killing of an innocent and unarmed wife and mother by ICE agents today in Minneapolis is shocking and tragic and should never have occurred," she said in the post.

L.A. County Supervisor Janice Hahn called on Noem to withdraw ICE from U.S. cities.

“These ICE agents are undertrained and trigger happy and everyone who has seen this video knows ICE murdered this woman,” she said in a statement.

Some protesters also gathered outside the federal building in downtown L.A. Thursday morning to condemn the killing.