Counties will be paid upfront for special redistricting election, California official says

California will foot the cost of redistricting upfront, an official with the state’s Department of Finance told lawmakers on Wednesday.

Legislators are continuing to fast-track a package of bills this week to convene a special election in November where voters will decide whether to implement new, partisan congressional maps for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections. The full legislature is expected to vote Thursday on the package, Democratic leadership has said.

Led by Gov. Gavin Newsom and California Democrats, the effort is meant to “neutralize” similar partisan redistricting moves in Republican-controlled states, including Texas.

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Local elections officials had expressed concerns about the cost of holding a last-minute, statewide special election. The governor’s request had called for the state to “reimburse” counties for the cost of administering a special election, and elections officials advocated for that money to be advanced.

“No county budgeted for a special statewide election,” Orange County Registrar of Voters Bob Page said in a post on LinkedIn.

On Wednesday, appropriations committees in both the state Assembly and Senate considered the redistricting package, which includes bills that allow the state to suspend the enacted congressional maps drawn by California’s independent redistricting committee, propose new partisan congressional maps and administer and fund a special election in November.

Christian Beltran, with the state Department of Finance, told members of the Assembly Appropriations Committee that his department will work with the secretary of state’s office and county election offices “to ensure that funding for this election will be made in advance to the election.” That way, he said, counties won’t lose money.

L.A. County’s registrar estimates, as of Wednesday, the cost for the county to administer the special election is about $63.3 million.

Orange County’s election chief’s total is $15.6 million.

Similarly, Riverside County’s registrar estimates the cost to be between $15 and $16 million.

Republicans, meanwhile, have estimated the special election will cost more than $230 million statewide.

“You are voting to appropriate funding for a costly special election at a time when California faces painful budget cuts to health care, education, housing and other critical services,” said Assemblymember Diane Dixon, R-Newport Beach.

Later in the meeting, Sen. Sabrina Cervantes, D-Riverside, while presenting the bill calling for a statewide special election on Nov. 4, pushed back, accusing Republicans of orchestrating a costly election of their own when they tried to recall Newsom in 2021. That election cost taxpayers just over $200 million.

The costs of a special redistricting election this November, Cervantes said, “are going to be just as much as a failed recall that your party placed on Gov. Newsom. That was irresponsible. That wasn’t fiscally responsible.”

Over the objections of their Republican colleagues, Democratic lawmakers moved the redistricting-related bills out of committees this week.

Republicans, who vastly oppose the redistricting efforts, have attempted to stymie the bills’ progress.

Assembly GOP members earlier this week attempted to amend the bill to prohibit any legislator who voted for it from running for Congress in any of the new proposed districts. Democrats shot down that proposal.

Republican legislators also asked the state’s Supreme Court to intervene. They argued the state’s constitution requires the redistricting bills, because they are new, to be published for 30 days before any action could be taken by the legislature.