“Thousands of Californians have spoken, and their message is simple: Stop rigging, gerrymandering and disenfranchising,” Bianco, the Riverside County sheriff, said. “Voters deserve to choose their leaders — not the other way around.”

Hurricane Erin may not be forecast to make landfall, but the sprawling Category 2 storm is still going to impact much of the East Coast as it tracks north this week. On Tuesday, North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein declared a state of emergency to prepare for the life-threatening rip currents and storm surge expected to affect the coastal region.

After Democrats returned to the Texas statehouse, Republican leadership assigned law enforcement officers to monitor them to prevent further delays to their plan to redraw congressional voting districts to favor Republicans ahead of the election.

Governor Gavin Newsom has rallied enough support from local Democratic leaders to plow ahead with a controversial initiative to redraw California’s congressional maps. A key next task: tapping the state’s wealthy to help sell the plan to voters.

The lawsuit comes as Newsom seeks a tit-for-tat expansion of California's House delegation to match a redistricting in Texas that would net Republicans five more seats.

Lodi Mayor Cameron Bregman is sounding the alarm over the newly redrawn California congressional maps that would cut his city into three separate congressional districts.

CAP-AND-TRADE UNVEILED: The Assembly is proposing modest reforms to the state’s signature cap-and-trade program for greenhouse gas emissions, according to draft legislative language circulating today, our Camille von Kaenel scooped for Pro subscribers.

California is a crucial battlefront in a coast-to-coast political civil war over congressional redistricting, a war that Republicans nationally appear better positioned to win.