With 45 minutes left before polls closed in California, longtime Republican Congressman Doug LaMalfa said he still felt the fate of Proposition 50 could go either way.
A short time after that interview, early results landed from California elections officials showing that Prop 50 had resoundingly received nearly 65% of the yes vote statewide.
However, in Shasta and other North State counties that LaMalfa represents, a strong majority of the electorate cast votes against the proposal, including a 70% no vote in Shasta County.
“I’m saddened that the voters bought into a temporary goal instead of a long-term protection of the Constitution and good election process,” LaMalfa said on Tuesday night, Nov. 4. “On Prop 50, they did a good job of conning people on all that.”
U.S. Rep. Doug LaMalfa listens to a question Monday, Aug. 11, 2025, during a town hall meeting in Red Bluff, California.
State elections officials have said voting results will be officially certified by Dec. 12, with more votes still to be counted locally. “There are a lot of ballots in today’s mail and yesterday’s mail and all that stuff,” LaMalfa said from Washington, D.C.
A ‘power grab’
The California Republican Party, Assemblyman David Tangipa and 18 California voters filed a federal lawsuit early Wednesday to challenge Prop 50, alleging it unconstitutionally gerrymanders districts in violation of the 14th and 15th Amendments.
LaMalfa currently represents California’s 1st Congressional District, which includes counties along the Oregon border.
The redrawn District 1 voters approved would encompass Lassen, Plumas, Sierra, Butte, Tehama, Glenn, and Lake counties, along with portions of Mendocino and Sonoma counties.
Meanwhile, Modoc, Shasta, and Siskiyou counties would shift into District 2, currently held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman.
California Democratic leaders proposed redrawing congressional district lines, as shown in this map. Voters on Nov. 4, 2025 approved Proposition 50, which could give way to five seats flipping from Republican to Democrat.
LaMalfa has handily won elections and has held office representing California’s 1st Congressional District since January 3, 2013.
He said nothing proponents of Prop 50 have said had anything to do with improving elections or representation.
“When you look at the way these maps are drawn, they really wouldn’t make any sense for ‘communities of interest…’ It’s strictly a power grab,” LaMalfa said.
The Republican lawmaker said he’d flown from California to D.C. in “blind hope” that once the election is over, “something could come to a head on this shutdown business. So I thought it wouldn’t be bad for me to be back here.”
The federal government shutdown began on Oct. 1, with Democrats and Republicans each blaming the other for an impasse that has led to some federal workers going unpaid and extraordinary cuts in food payments to low-income people in the form of SNAP benefit payments.
“The House did its work. The Senate can either pass the bill we sent them as is (or) modify it, amend it or change it to what you like and then send it back to us and we’ll debate that,” LaMalfa said. “But at least let’s have the volley go back and forth between us instead of having a stalemate. This is not representation, what’s happening here.”
LaMalfa touts Trump administration progress on border security, foreign trade, ‘peace things’
Asked what major Democratic wins on Election Day in New York, Virginia and New Jersey might illustrate about how voters are feeling about President Donald Trump’s administration, LaMalfa said, “There’s a lot to be happy about in current — take the shutdown aside — but on trends towards our secure border, inflation being held in check, (the direction of) fuel prices.”
He added that, “There are a lot of things that have been happening since January that have been very positive — foreign trade and some of the peace things. There’s a lot of positive. But people only want to listen to this rhetoric on saving democracy from Trump is what the Prop 50 deal is.”
The long-tenured Republican lawmaker dismissed the nation’s recent “No Kings” protest rallies.
“What king are you talking about? A king wouldn’t allow you to have that rally,” LaMalfa said.
The protests drew more than 3,000 people in Redding and millions more in 2,700 cities nationwide on Oct. 18 to spotlight what organizers of the event described as Trump’s authoritarian stance on immigration, major reductions to SNAP benefits for millions of people and wide-ranging federal job cuts.
“There’s a lot of nonsense out there that doesn’t really tie into an actual debate or what’s being worked on in the granular view here at the committee level,” LaMalfa said. “There’s a lot of rhetoric flying down there.”
Michele Chandler covers dining, food, public safety and whatever else comes up for the Redding Record Searchlight/USA Today Network. Accepts story tips at 530-338-7753 and at mrchandler@gannett.com. Please support our entire newsroom’s commitment to public service journalism by subscribing today.
This article originally appeared on Redding Record Searchlight: Doug LaMalfa, California Republican, reacts to Prop 50, Trump agenda
