Will California’s Proposition 50 kill gerrymandering reform?

California once led the national campaign against gerrymandering. The Golden State’s once-a-decade congressional redistricting process was designed to prevent Democrats and Republicans from rigging the map in their own favor. Now voters will decide if those reform-minded days are over.

If approved, Proposition 50 will likely lead to “more Democrats being elected to Congress,” said The New York Times . The ballot measure would let the state temporarily dump its current map — drawn by an independent commission — for the “next three election cycles” in order to tilt its playing field to the left. Democrats could “flip as many as five of the Republican-held seats in the state” under Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) proposal, an effort to counter Texas ’ recent GOP-driven redistricting effo