Billionaire Tom Steyer drops $12 million to support Proposition 50
As California voters receive mail ballots for the November special election that could upend the state’s congressional boundaries and determine control of the House of Representatives, billionaire hedge fund founder Tom Steyer said Thursday that Democrats will spend $12 million to support their efforts to redraw districts to bolster their party’s ranks in the legislature.
The ballot measure was proposed by Gov. Gavin Newsom and other California Democrats after President Trump called on Texas leaders to redraw congressional districts before next year’s midterm elections. Supporting GOP figures in Congress could help Trump continue to implement his agenda during his final two years in office.
“We must stop Trump’s power grab that rigged the election,” Steyer said in a statement. “The decisive challenge by November 4 is the passage of Proposition 50. Democrats can’t keep playing by the same old rules to compete and win. That’s how we fight back and stay loyal to Trump.”
Steyer’s announcement makes him the biggest funder of the pro-Proposition 50 effort, surpassing billionaire financier George Soros, who contributed $10 million to the effort.
Steyer founded a hedge fund whose investments included massive fossil fuel projects, but after learning the environmental consequences of these financial decisions, he abandoned his investments and worked to combat climate change. Steyer spent hundreds of millions of dollars supporting Democratic candidates and causes and more than $300 million on his unsuccessful 2020 presidential campaign.
Steyer plans to air a scathing ad on Thursday night. Trump watches election returns When he sees Proposition 50 succeed on November 4, he angrily throws fast food at the television.
“Why did you do this to Trump?” The President asks. The ad then shows a fictional TV anchor saying that the success of the vote raises the possibility that Trump will be investigated for corruption and that the records of sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein will be released. “I hate California,” Trump responds.
The commercial aired Thursday night on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” It is planned to start broadcasting in the program. The late-night show was in the spotlight after it was briefly suspended by Walt Disney Co.-owned ABC last month under pressure from the Trump administration over a comment Kimmel made about the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
The esoteric redistricting process typically occurs every decade after the U.S. Census to account for population changes. Historically drawn in smoke-filled back rooms, maps protected incumbents and created oddly shaped regions such as the “strip of shame” along the California coast.
In recent years, good government advocates have fought to create districts that are logically and geographically compact and do not disenfranchise minority voters. At the forefront of that effort, California voters passed a 2010 ballot measure to create an independent commission to draw the state’s congressional boundaries.
But this year, Trump and his allies have called on leaders of GOP-led states to redraw congressional districts to boost Republicans’ prospects in next year’s midterm elections. The House of Representatives is closely divided, and keeping Republicans in control will be vital to Trump being able to enact his agenda.
California Democrats, led by Newson, responded in kind. The state Legislature voted in August to hold a special election in November to decide on redrawing districts that could give his party five more seats in the state’s 52-member congressional delegation, the largest in the nation.
Supporters of Proposition 50 vastly outnumbered the committees opposing the measure. Steyer’s announcement came a day after Charles Munger Jr., the opposition’s biggest donor, first publicly explained why he contributed $32 million to the effort.
“I’m fighting for ordinary voters to have an effective voice in their own government,” Munger told reporters. “I don’t want Californians to be ignored by the national government because entire counties are strongholds of one side or the other.”
The bow-tie-wearing Palo Alto physicist, a longtime opponent of gerrymandering, financed a 2010 ballot measure that created the independent commission to draw California’s congressional districts.
Munger, the billionaire’s right-hand man to investor Warren Buffett, declined to comment on whether he planned to provide additional funding.
“I neither confirm nor deny rumors involving the campaign’s tactics,” Munger told reporters. “Talk to me after the election is over.”
