Hollywood star and former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger laid out his plan for saving democracy on Friday night’s episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, and it involves Democrats and Republicans working together—something even Maher seemed skeptical of seeing happen anytime soon.
Speaking to Maher, The Terminator star, who served as governor of California from 2003 to 2011, explained his plan, which consists of three parts. “What I suggest is to have a proposal like the Save Democracy Act, where we go and make Election Day a holiday so that everyone has time to go out and go to the election,” the 78-year-old icon began. Maher noted that Democrats already support the idea of making Election Day a national holiday.
Schwarzenegger continued laying out his plan, telling Maher, “The second point is you have to have fair redistricting. You have to have an independent redistricting commission in each state all over the United States.”
A key component of Schwarzenegger’s legacy as governor of California was the creation of the California Citizens Redistricting Commission, which current Governor Gavin Newsom has sought to override with Prop 50, a measure designed to combat Republican gerrymandering in states like Texas and Missouri.
Finally, Schwarzenegger said, “You have a voter ID, so then when you go and vote, people should know that you are that person.”
The point of his proposal, he explained, was that there was “something that the Republicans like, and there’s something that the Democrats like” so that the parties could “get together and solve this problem.”
Schwarzenegger also took the time during his interview with Maher to criticize Newsom’s efforts to redraw California’s electoral maps to combat Republican gerrymandering in other states, repeating MAGA talking points while doing so.
”I think that Prop 50 is a big scam,” said Schwarzenegger. “It says that we should fight Trump because he’s a threat to democracy. But in the meantime, they want to go and tear up the Constitution in California, get rid of the independent commission that draws the district lines and take the power away from the people and give it back to the politicians. How does this help democracy, imitating what Texas is doing? It doesn’t make any sense,” Schwarzenegger asked.
He went on to argue that both red and blue states already engage in gerrymandering to their advantage, referencing “states out there that have 40 percent Republicans and only have like 20 percent of representation in Congress.”
Earlier on Friday, Vice President JD Vance made the same point in a post on social media, writing on X, “New England’s six states vote about 40 percent Republican, and have literally zero Republican representatives in Congress.”
This is really something. New England’s six states vote about 40 percent Republican, and have literally zero republican representatives in Congress. https://t.co/1DgmOvaFl6
— JD Vance (@JDVance) October 18, 2025
Former President Barack Obama, meanwhile, has expressed support for Newsom’s efforts, agreeing with Schwarzenegger that “over the long term, we shouldn’t have political gerrymandering in America, just a fair fight between Republicans and Democrats based on who’s got better ideas.”
“But since Texas is taking direction from a partisan White House and gerrymandering in the middle of a decade to try and maintain the House despite their unpopular policies, I have tremendous respect for how Governor Newsom has approached this,” he wrote on X in August.
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