Letters to the Editor: Sept. 12, 2025

Prop 50

The Herald’s Sunday editorial , a reprint of an L.A. Daily News editorial, which urges a no vote on Proposition 50, fails to address the elephant in the room.

Proposition 50 has been placed on California’s November ballot to provide voters with a choice to temporarily suspend California’s independent redistricting commission and approve new, temporary congressional district lines.  Why did Governor Newsom and the California Legislature approve placing this ballot choice before voters?  While the L.A. Daily News makes brief reference to President Trump’s appeal to the Texas legislature to “give him five more Republican seats in the U.S. House of Representatives,” it does little to explain the long- term implications of this unprecedented presidential interference with a state’s sovereign authority to redistrict.

In fact, the redrawing of congressional district lines has occurred every 10 years after each national census provides revised population figures. Texas has moved forward to satisfy President Trump’s request to upset this precedent and empower his political objective of keeping the U.S. House of Representatives under Republican control in the 2026 elections.

Remember, it is was on Jan. 2, 2021, during an hour-long conference call that then-U.S. President Donald Trump pressured Georgia’s Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes” to overturn the state’s election results from the 2020 presidential election.

The question for California voters is whether we will allow the incumbent president to interfere with states’ redistricting procedures to achieve his explicit partisan political goals?

By providing California voters with a choice to counter this crass power grab,  Governor Newsom and the legislature are looking at the big picture.  We will all be impacted adversely if the composition of the U.S. House of Representatives is allowed to be dictated by the Republican president.

While we can all appreciate the power of an independent citizens redistricting commission, we must not lose sight of our state’s future with respect to critical federal programs that are under attack and which may not survive continued Republican/MAGA control of U.S. Congress. The real elephant in the room, then, is the prospect of the further degradation or elimination of programs such as MediCare and Medicaid, Social Security, public health, education, social safety net programs, climate and environmental protections, civil rights, voting rights, international security, and the due process rights of all U.S. residents.

It is also important to note that Monterey County will not be expected to pay for the special election, its costs will be covered by the state.

If you care about the future of our state, its future is directly connected to the future of our nation. Please join me by voting YES on PROPOSITION 50 on Nov. 4.  Your ballots will arrive by mail in early October.  Please vote early and return your ballots in the postage paid envelopes provided with your ballot.

— Bill Monning, former state senator, Carmel

War department

With Trump’s order to rename the Defense Department the War Department, it looks like he’s gotten more senile than Biden was. The last time it had that name, Trump was only one year old. He might be regressing to his infancy. Next thing we know, he might need diapers and a feeding bottle at his desk.

Conveniently, it’s happened now to help us forget the worsening economy, the Epstein case, and other broken promises. I guess he’ll be at least 12 in his mind before the wars in Israel or Ukraine ever end.

— Bill Graham, Salinas

Alternative history

It was bad enough that the Trump administration awarded $5 million to the woman insurrectionist who was killed while storming the Capitol, but now she’s going to receive a military funeral with honors?  Won’t be long before the new Republican commission appointed to do another investigation of the attempted coup erases everything we all saw with our own eyes.  Next thing you know Trump will have the remains of Benedict Arnold dug up so we can honor him for his treason.

— Glenn Nolte, Carmel Valley