Proposition 50 passed Tuesday in the special election in California.
Prop 50, also known as The Election Rigging Response Act, will create a temporary congressional district map that will create five new Democratic districts within California, substituting previous maps created by the independent California Citizens Redistricting Commission. After a five year period, the temporary district map will expire, and the commission will resume enacting congressional district maps in 2031.
The proposition was created in response to the mid-decade legislative redistricting in Texas signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott, which created five new Republican districts within the state. Texas Democrats have been fighting this map in court, but Prop 50 will only go into effect if Texas follows through on redistricting without a state-wide vote.
States are required to redistrict every ten years in accordance with the U.S. Decennial Census, which records the entire U.S. population every decade. The new congressional district maps are created by an independent commission rather than by the government. This means that both the redistricting efforts in Texas and in California are abnormal.
At Venice, history teacher Taylor Vivanco said that some AP Government and Politics teachers hosted a debate on Prop 50 in class, including Vivanco, history teacher Leah DiVencenzo, and history teacher Isabel Cortes.
Vivanco’s class had already been learning about gerrymandering beforehand, and watched videos and read an article about Prop 50 to ensure students were prepared.
In Vivanco’s debate, which took place on September 18, most students were on the “Yes” side. However, in most of his classes that did the debate, Vivanco said that the judges voted that the “No” side had the better argument.
In education, Vivanco said, there are conversations surrounding how much classroom lessons should connect back to the real world.
“Learning is very topical,” he said. “Students aren’t just learning a book in theory, but actually looking more into seeing how these ideas are actually playing out in the real world.”
Vivanco, who teaches seniors, said that it is important for his students who are eligible to vote to make an “informed decision.”
“They should at least know the reason why they are voting for that beyond the ads that they see on YouTube, Hulu, TikTok, or whatever,” he said.
After signing up for a Prop 50 canvassing event near her neighborhood in September, junior Sage Smith, along with junior Posey Dinka, created a group of student canvassers at Venice High School for Democratic causes.
“I’m too young to vote, but that doesn’t stop me from being able to influence elections and tell other people how they should be voting,” she said.
Smith said that some students believe they do not have a say in current politics.
“A lot of students think that they’re vote doesn’t matter, that their voice doesn’t matter, and that they don’t actually have any power,” she said. “But people respond really well to physically seeing students advocating for things.”
Prop 50, Smith said, can be a good way for students to be “involved in their communities.”
“It’s a local election, which means every single vote counts way more than people think it does,” she said. “Things can be decided based on a few hundred votes.
“So convincing just one person, five people, ten people—that’s huge. That’s really important, and that can make a difference,” Smith said.
