This reclusive heir is the most powerful foe to Gavin Newsom’s plan to redraw California’s maps
By Arit John, CNN
(CNN) — This isn’t the first time Charles Munger Jr. has fought to safeguard California’s independent redistricting.
When a suit filed by Arizona Republicans to disband their state’s commission threatened to topple California’s five-year-old panel, Munger rallied his former allies and braced for battle.
“I’m a redistricting reform zealot,” he told the Los Angeles Times in 2015.
Now, Munger is launching a new crusade, squaring off against Gov. Gavin Newsom and California Democrats in a November race that could reshape the rest of President Donald Trump’s term and the future of gerrymandering reform.
Newsom is leading the push to convince voters to allow his party to temporarily override congressional maps drawn by the Munger-backed commission to create as many as five new US House seats for Democrats. The governor has argued California must “fight fire with fire” after Republicans in Texas and other states redrew their US House maps at the behest of Trump, who is trying to prevent Democrats from regaining House control in next year’s midterm elections.
If Proposition 50 passes, the state would reimplement independent congressional lines in 2031. But Munger and other critics argue the measure would permanently undermine attempts to end gerrymandering.
Munger, who spent more than a decade as a dominating force in California politics before stepping back in 2016, has already spent more than $30 million to defend the reforms he helped pass more than 15 years ago.
That spending has made him a target of Democrats, who have made him the face of a recent ad arguing he’s “spending millions to help Trump rig the election.” Supporters of Proposition 50 have also pointed to donations he’s made to groups that oppose abortion and gay marriage to paint him as a far-right conservative seeking simply to aid his party.
A spokesperson for Munger, who declined to be interviewed, offered a simpler explanation for his activism.
“Charles has no motive beyond preserving these landmark reforms,” Amy Thoma Tan said in a statement to CNN.
The scientist in a bowtie
Like his seven siblings, Munger inherited his political fortune from his father and namesake, Charles T. Munger Sr., the right-hand man of Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett. Munger Sr. raised his kids “to be skeptical, even contrarian,” Charles’ half-sister Molly Munger, a prolific liberal donor in her own right, said in “Poor Charlie’s Almanack,” a collection of the elder Munger’s talks and speeches.
Munger Sr., who Forbes estimated had a net worth of $2.6 billion upon his death in 2023, started distributing his fortune to his children while he was still alive.
The younger Munger favored physics over business. He graduated with a PhD in atomic physics from the University of California at Berkeley and spent much of his professional career working as an experimental physicist.
After a brief stint as a Democrat – he made calls on behalf of former President Jimmy Carter during his first presidential run – he joined the Republican Party.
Those who’ve worked with him over the years say he tends to avoid the spotlight, but is always wearing one of his signature bow ties when he is in public. He applies the same level of academic rigor to politics as he does to his scientific pursuits.
“Not to diminish the finances that he provided the state party and Republican candidates, but I found his advice and counsel worth more than the dollars he gave,” said Jim Brulte, a former California Republican Party chair who made Munger chair of his initiatives committee.
Dan Schnur, a former Republican who got to know Munger while working on redistricting issues nearly twenty years ago, described Munger as “quirky,” a scientist by training who brought a similarly bookish approach to politics.
The two also crossed paths at the Lincoln Club of Northern California, a Bay Area fundraising organization for “old school,” economically conservative but socially moderate Republicans of which Munger was a member. Munger was unlike most major donors, many of whom Schnur said can be loud, opinionated and full of themselves.
“If anything, Charles was just the opposite of that – he tended to be very quiet, very circumspect, and when he did speak up, it tended to be in a much more solicitous manner,” Schnur said. “You’d never know from the way he conducted himself that he was worth more than the rest of the room combined.”
Proposition battles
Frustrated with the way Palo Alto schools taught math, Munger joined the state’s curriculum commission in 2003. He waded into major political spending in 2005, when he gave $100,000 to an unsuccessful redistricting measure backed by former GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Three years later, he was brought on as a funder to support Proposition 11, which created the Citizens Redistricting Commission tasked with drawing legislative maps. In 2010, Munger co-authored Proposition 20, which would also transfer the power to draw congressional lines to the independent commission.
He spent about $14 million on the two measures, but reformers who worked with him at the time said he gave more than just his money.
“He went over everything with a fine-toothed comb,” Kathay Feng, the former president of Common Cause, told the New York Times in 2010. “But it forced us to do our homework. He’s a thoughtful, geeky guy.”
Beyond his direct contributions to Proposition 20, Munger also helped finance the distribution of “Gerrymandering,” a documentary on legislative map drawing released in September 2010. Munger helped mail 660,000 free DVDs of the film to California voters and sponsored its theatrical release.
A rival coalition backed by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi argued the redistricting commission was a costly, confusing system that handed power to unelected bureaucrats and mandated “Jim Crow economic districts.”
Duf Sundheim, a former California GOP chair and Munger-backed 2016 US Senate candidate, said he recalled sitting in the lobby of the Silicon Valley Stanford Park Hotel with Munger, looking at mailers from opponents of the redistricting commission. Munger would laugh and ask if he recognized the person being described.
“At one level, he thought it was just so ridiculous,” Sundheim told CNN. “At another level, I think he probably would have preferred it that he just not be involved in it at all.”
Then and now, Munger has been accused of being motivated primarily by a desire to help Republicans. The Yes on 50 campaign has spent $600,000 on a recent TV ad tying Munger to Trump, according to recent data from AdImpact.
“Munger was always eyed with suspicion by the right-wing, Tea Party types in the party because Munger was a big tent Republican. He knew that a successful party in California had to grow beyond its insignificant base,” said Rob Stutzman, a California-based GOP strategist who previously worked for Schwarzenegger. “Any notion to tie him to carrying Trump’s agenda is, frankly, it’s a lie.”
Allies of the Yes on 50 campaign have pointed to a Politico report on $158,000 in charitable contributions he’s given over the last 25 years to groups that oppose LGBTQ rights and abortion. They’ve also noted his donations to more conservative ballot initiatives, such as the more than $35 million he spent in 2012 on a failed proposition that would have restricted unions’ political spending.
“Munger is doing the dirty work of this dangerous, dictatorial president,” Yes on 50 spokesperson Hannah Milgrom said in a statement to CNN. “His millions are empowering Trump and helping him rig the 2026 election. If Munger succeeds, Trump wins – and our democracy loses.”
The height of Munger’s political activity concluded in 2016, when he spent more than $10 million to fund Proposition 54, which required state lawmakers to make legislation public 72 hours before passing it, put legislative meetings online and allow people to film their own videos of meetings.
Munger and his allies argued the rule would prevent politicians from rushing through backroom deals, while the opposition argued that lawmakers needed the flexibility to reach agreements without extended outside pressure.
Steven Maviglio, a Democratic strategist who managed the campaign to oppose Proposition 54, said he believed that Munger is “in his heart of hearts, a do-gooder,” but had an unrealistic view of how the legislative process works.
“For somebody who’s not involved with government, at all, he believes that that process is important,” Maviglio told CNN. “It’s a sort of amateurish view of the way government works, because if you haven’t experienced [it], you don’t really know the ugly side of sausage making.”
A political reawakening
This time, Munger’s fight is lonelier. Though he and Schwarzenegger have discussed the current redistricting push in person, according to the latter’s spokesperson, the former governor is not part of any campaign. Munger’s campaign has spent $1.9 million running a TV ad featuring Schwarzenegger’s criticism of the Newsom plan, according to AdImpact data.
The California League of Women Voters is also not opposing Proposition 50. And while Common Cause California initially opposed Proposition 50, the national organization said it would not oppose mid-decade redistricting efforts in the state and sent a fundraising pitch off its decision to return $200,000 Munger had given the group to help fight the new measure.
“Common Cause won’t be bought,” the group wrote. “That’s what we said in our letter to Munger, and we hope it’s as important to you as it is to us.”
Asked for comment on the split with Common Cause, Munger said in a statement that he “had hoped to partner” with the organization and the League of Women Voters, and it was “unfortunate both organizations reversed course.”
“I am disappointed that both have (so far) been silenced in this campaign, and hope that in the future each will return to the principles on which they were founded,” the statement reads.
Munger vowed to fight Proposition 50 in a post on X and laid out his opposition to the measure in a New York Times op-ed. While he condemned mid-decade redistricting in Texas, he warned that “returning to the evils of partisan gerrymandering in California is not the solution.”
He also acknowledged that, given the unique circumstances surrounding Trump’s involvement in redistricting, he faced two options himself: stand back as redistricting reform was undermined, or fight a longshot bid to defend the commission, and be labeled “a cat’s paw for Republicans seeking to gain House seats.”
“I’m choosing the latter option,” he wrote.
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CNN’s David Wright and Lizzie Jury contributed to this report.
