Watch: Monique Makes the Case for Prop. 50 in Nov. 4 Special Election - "Trump Is Trying to Rig the Mid-Terms"
Santa Barbara’s influential state senator breaks down the politics and policies behind the unprecedented push by Democrats for an emergency re-draw of congressional maps in California.
It was a moment during Fiesta, Monique Limón recalls, when she decided to embrace fully Gov, Gavin Newsom’s extraordinary special election strategy to counter Donald Trump’s attempted heist of the 2026 congressional mid-terms.
For 100 years, Santa Barbara's high summer festivities had been the town’s most buoyant, carefree and all-embracing annual party, one which state Senator Limón had joined and celebrated since she was a little girl in Santa Barbara public schools.
This year, however, she saw a dark cloud of dread hanging over the holiday, prompted by the specter of menacing gangs of masked and heavily armed federal immigration agents who’ve prowled Southern California, snatching random Latinos off the street since the first days of Trump’s presidency.
“I had gone out to one of our local community spots where people gather, and the organizers described to me a plan of what they would do if there were (immigration) raids,” Limón said in an interview. “And it was such a detailed plan - How much food? How would water be there? Who would blow whistles?
“And I just thought, this is enough,” she added. “This is not okay.”
Limon recounted the story, during a Newsmakers TV conversation on Saturday, by way of explaining her energetic campaigning for Proposition 50, the one and only measure on a special statewide election Sacramento Democrats have set for Nov. 4.
“In the end, this is about (Trump) rigging the 2026 elections at the national level,” she said. “How do we respond? If we do nothing, it does not help our community. We have got to at least attempt to slow this down to, to stop this by putting out to our voters in November.”
Our story to date. Prop. 50, sponsored by Newsom, in collaboration with Limón and every other Democratic leader, lawmaker and statewide office holder in the Capitol, asks voters to consent to an uncommon, temporary change to the state Constitution: approval of a new set of political maps for California’s 52 seats in the House of Representatives.
A statewide ‘yes’ vote temporarily would change district lines created after the 2020 census, by California’s longstanding Independent Redistricting Commission, in an open and unapologetic attempt to give Democrats odds-on chances of winning five additional seats, expanding their current 43-to-9 partisan advantage over Republicans.
There is little artifice to the Democratic argument on behalf of the proposal: Goaded by Trump, Republican lawmakers in Texas over the summer blatantly gerrymandered their district maps to give the GOP the chance to win an additional five seats in the Lone Star State, expanding their edge there over Democrats, to 30-to-8. So Democrats here needed to counter.
At first glance, a pie fight between political insiders, the sudden national outbreak of political warfare over redistricting in fact has broader and far-reaching consequences.
Republicans now control all three branches of government, with Trump having effectively neutered Republican House members and Senators, while a 6-to-3 right-wing majority on the Supreme Court, three of whose members he appointed, has reliably backed some of his most extreme policies.
Lacking any institutional authority or platform, Democrats so far have flailed and floundered in efforts to impose any limits or accountability on Trump’s extremist agenda, which rests on an unprecedented effort to accumulate absolute power in the executive branch, denigrating and damaging the rule of law and the separation of powers and, now, undermining free and fair elections.
Surveying the damage that Trump has inflicted in just seven months, Democrats know that their last best hope for slowing down his authoritarian project is winning back the House in the 2026 congressional election.
In normal times, they would have an excellent chance of doing so: Republicans currently hold only a three-seat advantage in the 435-member House; the party not holding the White House historically picks up a substantial number of seats in the mid-terms, and opinion polls show Trump’s policies underwater in public support.
These are not normal times.
Mindful that he faces congressional losses in 2026, Trump unabashedly has called for governors and state legislators in red, Republican states around the country to carry out ad hoc redistricting (the process traditionally is done only every 10 years, after a new census), in a flagrant effort to redraw the political landscape and deny Democrats any arithmetic chance of winning back the House.
“I mean there is only so much we can take. There is only so much that we as state representatives can abide by,” Limón told Newsmakers. “We felt that if the President and Texas were changing the rules, then we needed to adopt a system to amend our system, to play to their rules that they triggered. And so that's what happened.”
Monique’s substantive argument for Prop. 50. Limón has a well-earned reputation as a policy nerd politician, someone who does her homework and digs down into depth and detail on the problems of constituents that confront her, and the programs she is elected to put in place and oversee.
Characteristically, even in making the case for Prop. 50, a measure that is glaringly about pure, power politics, she focused in our interview on the practical effects and implications, explaining the measure as a tool for fighting Trump’s policy agenda.
Federal cuts. “I think a lot of people have gotten caught up in just the politics. We're really looking at the potential outcomes to the people of California. More cuts - I think that's something that we have deep concerns about. More undoing of some of our environmental protections, less support to our K-12 schools, complete radical shift in how we do healthcare that will leave many, many, many here in this area without access to healthcare.”
Education and nutrition programs. “All of those things are the reasons that we're doing this. I want to make sure everybody knows (putting Prop. 50 on the ballot) was a very difficult deliberation, but it also came at a time where $811 million (in federal funds) were paused for K-12, where $1.25 billion for (the Supplement Nutrition Assistance Program), all federal funds dollars for California for the SNAP program, were lost. And they did not actually give us the $900 million in disaster preparedness grants that we had already received.”
Disaster relief. “And so while this political conversation is happening, we're also feeling the impacts of these changes at the federal government, particularly in light of the funding that they've cut to California, to our needy, to our hungry, and certainly to those in distress. We didn't play partisan politics when it came to disaster relief. We didn't play partisan politics when it came to feeding the hungry, things that were not, under past Republican presidents, the case.”
Bottom line. “At some point…we needed to act and we needed to do something since they had changed the rules to how redistricting happens. We are still taking this to the voters, but we are also very determined to say, look, enough is enough.”
Watch our complete conversation with state Senator Monique Limón about Proposition 50 and the Nov. 4 special election via YouTube below, or by clicking through this link. Listen to the podcast on Apple, Spotify, or on Soundcloud here. TVSB, Channel 17, airs the show on weeknight at 5 p.m. and on weekends at 9 a.m. KCSB, 91.9 FM, broadcasts the program on Monday at 5:30 p.m.
In last two minutes of that conversation, Senator Monique Limon clearly stated that the only constituents she cares about are Democrats. Democrats represent CA and no one else, because the current 83% of 52 house districts isn’t enough to properly represent CA. Thats a pretty terrible statement from one of our state representatives. On the other side, I heard Supervisor Bob Nelson at a speaking engagement today say, “I represent my entire district, it has Democrats, Republicans, Independents, far left, far right, and I try my best to find common ground.”
Senator Limon clearly has common ground with Congressman Salud Carbajal that uses his official socials and site to bash 40% of his constituents daily. Terrible and never any facts. I can’t recall ever saying anything negative about Monique Limon, but the end of this interview was clear to me that I don’t matter to her.
To the rest of the conversation, two points:
1. The only gang out causing fear and chaos during Fiesta was our own criminals that murdered people. Criminals we let out on the streets because of broken policies here.
2. Both parties gerrymander congressional districts. I’ve went through the data on every state. There are at least a dozen states on each side that are significantly overrepresented, but Democrats are actually getting more house seats from it because they have the big urban area states, like IL, NY, NJ, MD, etc. Urban population centers are the #1 weapon in gerrymandering. Just go look at IL and try to explain the shape or sense behind some of their districts.
CA is also already significantly overrepresented. The Independent Redistricting Commission keeps it from being much worse as we see with the new map, because Republicans definitely do not have the cards here with all of heavy blue urban populations.
I don’t agree with what Texas is doing mid census, and I certainly don’t agree with CA’s response - particularly the selective outrage. This is going to set off a chain reaction and it will become status quo of playing these games mid census cycle. Imagine our elected officials actually doing work for their constituents versus constantly using time and resources to keep themselves in political power. Newsom can’t find the $100M fire money, or the $24B homeless money, but he can find hundreds of millions to have a gerrymandering political war with Trump, literally at our expense.
Illegal immigration is a driven by sanctuary state policy. And illegals are adding 5-10 million non citizens to CA population. Politician Limon is also Keely aware these illegal populations bolster democrat members in Congress and in the presidential race. The census counts illegals and they count toward Democrat victories even if none of them vote. This it’s imperative for Dems to stem any removal of these illegals. And so Madam Limon will work tirelessly to continue sanctuary policies, and suborn police and other government to protect and shield the illegal population from federal officers. This is similar to the prewar south where Democrat official brazenly denied federal control of the southern democrats enslaved workers. And today’s battle over illegal immigration brings to mind the idea of equal protection of the law.
For instance our local Santa Barbara police chief indicated the police are here to protect and serve all residents and visitors of our community equally. And that although Santa Barbara is not a sanctuary city, CA is a sanctuary state. And Madam Limon is a certain proponent of this sanctuary state, and sanctuary cities, police, BOS, government schools and so on.
Thus our local police are following CA law and are therefore ignoring federal immigration law. For us that means local police will not enforce any federal immigration laws and, will not inquire about citizenship when doing any police business.
This promise from our police chief of equal protection is a hollow claim.
From our hallowed constitution, Equal protection of the law also means equal application of the law. From rich to poor, regardless of race, religion, creed or sports team preference. Yet the police and our state legislature are applying laws selectively. Illegal visitors are given a pass from obeying federal laws. They don’t need to prove citizenship, no proof of vaccinations, no proof to work, or even vote. They are given immunity from federal law by our state legislature featuring Limon, and of course our governor.
This unequal application of the law is not only unconstitutional on its face, it hurts all of us. When citizens see that some laws are enforced and some are ignored, it removes faith in our government of laws. Breeding cynical views of government and our way of life in America.
And it hurts people trying to obey the laws: When our housing is filled up with illegals, and illegals receive section eight for housing, SNAP for child care, free medical from the state, free education, free food, free free free for the illegal visitors!
This unequal application of the law hurts our legal populations, and deprives them of the basic rights of citizenship. Their voices and votes are diminished, diluted, their faith in a fair government dissolved.
And the reasons for all this state government enforced inequality is simple. It’s federal apportionment. Because federal apportionment law requires the census count all persons in the nation, to adjust the number of members in congress. And so the more illegals crammed into liberal cities and liberal states, will create more political power in congress for those liberal states. More congress people and federal money for those states. So CA likes that federal law, but not laws on immigration.
Our American Civil War was fought over this issue of unfair application of the laws. The democrats slave states demanded and obtained by threat, 3/5ths vote per every slave they owned. And the slave states used those illicit ‘votes’ to prolong and extend slavery across the USA. The democrat slave states goal was: Slavery all the way to the pacific.
If the war had not been won by the north and Lincoln, we would have slavery today. But instead Lincoln and the Republicans stood, fought and died for equal application of the laws. That all men and women shall have equal protection of the law and equal application of the law. And that is what America stands for.
Today, California’s quaint decision to ignore federal immigration laws, ostensibly to protect minorities, belies the true motive of gaining political power. If there is no limit to illegal visitors, there is no limit to disenfranchising voters and dissolving our constitution. And If the left wants a civil war over this transgression, they may get one.