After Governor Gavin Newsom pledged to complete his passion project of destroying California by tearing up the Golden State’s independently drawn congressional district lines, in favor of a heavily gerrymandered map meant to benefit congressional Democrats—AKA Proposition 50—former California Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger vowed to campaign up and down the state against Newsom’s doctored-up map.
And unlike his marriage vows, Arnold seems determined to keep this one.
Schwarzenegger—who championed Proposition 11 in 2008, which created the California Citizens Redistricting Commission to draw state legislative boundaries, and Proposition 20, in 2010, which added the state’s congressional districts to the commission’s duties—is commonly described as “the father of independent redistricting.” Should Prop. 50 happen to pass, Arnold’s magnificent legacy of voting reform will have been destroyed by Newsom.
If the independent redistricting committee gets wiped out, then Arnold might best be remembered for “Jingle All the Way.” Try explaining that to your grandkids next Christmas. Go ahead, I dare you.
In September, Schwarzenegger gave an exclusive interview to CNN’s Elex Michaelson where he said that Democrats’ plan to redistrict California’s congressional districts is a “scam” and “a big mistake.”
“Two wrongs don’t make a right,” he said.
When asked if California Democrats will ever want to go back to the current, nonpartisan system, Schwarzenegger answered, “There’s no such thing with politicians and temporary. Have you ever seen a tax that stopped? It’s permanent.”
He went on to urge voters to “vote no on Proposition 50.”
Then, this weekend on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher,” Schwarzenegger declared, “I think that Prop. 50 is a big scam, and the reason why I’m saying that is because it says that we should fight [President] Trump because he’s a threat to democracy…But in the meantime, they want to go and tear up the Constitution in California, get rid of the independent commission that draws the district lines and take the power away from the people and give it back to the politicians.”
He then went on to say, “I’m a Republican, but I’m not a Republican hack. I’m not a political hack. I don’t serve the party…I always serve the people, the people are first, we cannot undo something and rip away the power that the people in California have and give it back to the politicians. We fought there for too long.”
And just in case all of that was too subtle for you, Schwarzenegger also posted a photo of himself wearing a T-shirt that read “F* the politicians. Terminate Gerrymandering.”
I asked Jim Lacy, author of “Taxifornia” and an official in the Reagan Administration, how much of a punch Schwarzenegger still packs in California politics. He told me, “He [Schwarzenegger] does have caché, and I’ve actually done some polling on this myself. He does have caché, but it’s not enough cache to overturn the Newsom-versus-Trump projection. So, what the Democrats want to do is make it Newsom versus Trump. If they make it about Newsom versus Trump, they’re going to win, because Trump’s favorables are about 30, 35 percent. They don’t really get much higher than that. Newsom, even though he can be greatly criticized, is closer to 50 percent. So, in thinking about how you defeat Prop 50, you think, ‘well, can you bring in someone to counter, and not make it Newsom versus Trump, make it Newsom versus Schwarzenegger.’ If you make it Newsom versus Schwarzenegger, it improves the ‘no’ side, but it doesn’t lift it over the top, according to the polling that I’ve not only seen, but I’ve done. It brings it to within four to five percent.”
Lacy went on to say that what is really needed “is an injection of very, very heavy advertising that demonstrates the corruption of the process. That demonstrates that it was not transparent…people like the idea of the independent nonpartisan commission.”
In other words, it’s going to cost a lot of money to draw attention to the problem of money in politics.
As of October 16, 2025, the “Yes” side has raised $136.4 million, and the “No” side is far behind with $79.2 million.
If Schwarzenegger really wants to defeat Prop. 50, he’s going to need to get much louder between now and Election Day. Otherwise, he’ll be known as the taller unfunny guy in “Twins,” and Gavin Newsom will be playing the lead in the remake of “True Lies.”
John Phillips can be heard weekdays from noon to 3 p.m. on “The John Phillips Show” on KABC/AM 790.