Charles Munger Jr. spent upwards of $30 million in a failed effort to defeat Proposition 50.
Charles Munger Jr., the good-government philanthropist and Republican megadonor who bankrolled the failed opposition to Gavin Newsom’s redistricting campaign in California, called Tuesday for a renewed push for independent map-drawing across the country.
In a statement, the multi-millionaire and physicist who contributed upwards of $30 million to defeat Proposition 50, called for a nationwide commitment to “fair and impartial maps” and an end to the gerrymandering wars. Although he did not explicitly offer his fortune moving forward, Munger said he “looked forward to serving as a resource to all states and our nation.”
“For what looms for the people of California, I am saddened by the passage of Proposition 50,” he said. “But I am content in this, at least: that our campaign educated the people of California so they could make an informed, if in my view unwise, decision about such a technical but critical issue as redistricting reform.”
Since Newsom and California’s Democratic establishment this summer placed Prop 50 on the ballot, a core argument for its passage was that it is a non-permanent, break-in-case-of-emergency tactic to combat a mid-cycle Republican gerrymander of Texas. The measure’s official ballot language promises a return to independent redistricting in 2031, and pledges to establish “policy supporting nonpartisan redistricting commissions nationwide.”
It is those promises that Munger is now seeking to leverage as Prop 50 becomes law. After helping to pass redistricting reforms in California in 2008 and 2010, Munger watched his good-government coalition dissolve at the outset of the Prop 50 campaign, and was ultimately handed a demoralizing defeat even after investing tens of millions of his personal fortune into the campaign.
But the good-government philanthropist seems to believe the ballot language (and Newsom’s assurances that independent redistricting would return) could serve as a silver lining.
In a statement, Munger said the independent redistricting commission, which Proposition 50 temporarily sidelined, must be “fully funded immediately” and be given independent legal counsel outside of the California attorney general.
“Despite whatever partisan temptations to yet another gerrymander,” he said, “the Citizens Redistricting Commission, and not politicians, must draw the California districts for the U.S. House of Representatives for the elections of 2032.”