Rep Gray Refuses to Comment on CA Redistricting, Attempts to Block Constituent’s Recording

In a video shared online, Democratic Congressman Adam Grey (CD-13) is seen blocking a constituent’s phone to stop his recording and evaded answering if he supports Governor Gavin Newsom’s and California Democrats’ plan to “temporarily” redistrict California into a permanent Democratic majority through the elimination of any and all Republican representation in the once-Golden State.

The Globe reached out to Gray’s Communications Director JoJo Duchesne (she/her) for comment, but had not received a response at the time of publishing.

For background, the “toss-up’ race between Gray and incumbent Republican Congressman John Duarte was decided in Gray’s favor by a mere 142 votes as ballots were continually counted for a month after Election Day.

The Globe reported that on November 14th, Duarte’s lead was enough for a few outlets to call the race in his favor, but as ballots continued to be received and counted, his lead dwindled to a razor-thin loss.

Duarte stood at 79,456 votes and Gray at 75,693 with a total of 73% of the vote in. In terms of percentages, it was 51.2% to 48.8%. This led a few outlets to begin calling the race, and many others expected to do so at the next tally.

However, in the next week votes for Gray seemed to pour in, leading many to back off calling Duarte the victor. In late November, updates had the race grow closer grew closer, with Duarte only up 101,217 votes to 100,866, or, 50.1% to 49.9%. Then with Gray finally pulling ahead with the last mail-in votes being counted, 104,503 votes to Duarte’s 104,321 votes.

The closeness of the race, and California’s decision to continue counting votes that arrived up to 7 days past election day, has caused the Republican National Committee (RNC) to file lawsuits against California. The 1 month to allow counting of curated and late votes also became a cause celebre, with even President elect Donald Trump weighing in on the issue. Many Republicans have also said that the 13th District, as well as the 45th district where Congresswoman Michelle Steel (R-CA) lost, had been decided not on the election day vote count, but through late and curated ballots that in most other states would be illegal to count.

The new redistricting map proposed for Congressman Gray’s district has been redrawn (see below) to reduce Republican representation from 29 to 27 percent, a loss of two percent.

NRCC spokesman Christian Martinez told The Globe, “Adam Gray has gone from attacking California voters with his radical policies to physically lashing out at them. Emboldened by Gavin Newscum’s corrupt power grab, Gray doesn’t even pretend to care about Californians. That’s what an out-of- touch politician caught red-handed supporting a rigged system looks like.”

Today, President Trump announced in a press conference that the DOJ intends on suing to stop the ballot initiative slated to appear before California voters on November 4.

“I think I’m going to be filing a lawsuit pretty soon, and I think we’re going to be very successful in it. We’re going to be filing it through the Department of Justice. That’s going to happen,” he said.

On social media, Governor Newsom responded, “BRING IT.”