On a cloudless afternoon in October, Don Pettinger rides Rusty, an aptly-named Red Roan horse, along a trail outside his Norco home.
Norco is a rural community of about 25,000 people at the northwestern edge of Riverside County, tucked between hills next to the Santa Ana Riverbed.
Pettinger’s neighborhood, like most in Norco, is lined by horse trails with white railing instead of sidewalks. He has three-quarters of an acre with a barn, a stable and a paddock — a small enclosure outside a stable — to exercise his horses.
Pettinger’s home is not an outlier in Norco, it’s the standard. The city is known by locals as “Horsetown USA” and they tout their rural way of life as something rare in Southern California.
Norconians, as locals refer to themselves, worry that Proposition 50 — Governor Gavin Newsom’s ballot measure to counter redistricting in Texas and other red states — could threaten the rural way of life they covet.
“What does Norco stand for? It stands for the equestrian lifestyle… being able to get our horse and go ride,” Pettinger said.
If Prop 50 passes, Norco would be thrown from staunchly conservative District 41 into District 35, which is solidly Democratic, urban and unwise — or unsympathetic — to what Pettinger and others here hold dear.
“If we get a representative here who is representing Los Angeles or parts of Pomona, she's not going to be used to our lifestyles,” Pettinger added. “We need someone who knows who we are.”
Republican Congressman Ken Calvert has represented Norco for 33 years, and was born and raised one town over, in Corona. (Norco is a portmanteau of North and Corona.)
Calvert has served on the House Appropriations Committee since 1992 and is one of the most senior members in the Western United States.
Norco City Council member Kevin Bash said over the years the Congressman has helped deliver important funding for infrastructure projects.
“He built two bridges for us,” Bash said. “He's put together a recycled water treatment plant to help the Navy, to help our lake.
Bash worries that without Calvert, Norco might not get what it needs.
Yet conversations with Bash and many other Republicans in Norco turned their ire not toward Congress but state politics, where Democrats hold the power.
“Our biggest enemy is the state of California,” said Bash.
For instance, Republicans in Norco said state policies requiring high density housing threaten Norco’s culture of animal keeping.
“In my opinion, [Newsom is] a flat out idiot that is in it for himself and not the people he is elected to represent,” said Erica Helsley, who works at the Thrifty Horse tack store.
She echoed what many Republicans in Norco feel about Newsom, and added that she’s concerned that being added to a less rural district could jeopardize her way of life.
Separating ‘communities of interest’
Matt Rexroad, a Republican consultant and redistricting expert, said Calvert’s district is unique. He said the surrounding districts had to meet federal Voting Rights Act requirements to ensure minority groups have voting power.
“[District 41] exists because it's the leftovers from cutting up the state for the Federal Voting Rights Act,” Rexroad said.
The surrounding districts are majority Latino, while District 41 is majority white. Rexroad said Prop 50’s proposed map breaks up communities with shared values like Corona and Norco.
“You’re now connecting a bunch of areas that don’t really have good communities of interest,” he said.
In 2021, the Independent Redistricting Commission reviewed input from community members about how they wanted to be represented.
“Those groups in western Riverside County said that we wanted to be together,” Rexroad said. “This process that the governor is proposing completely violates all of that public comment.”
An opportunity for Democrats
In Calvert’s three decades of serving in Congress, only one challenger has come close to unseating him. Democratic attorney Will Rollins almost unseated Calvert in 2022 and again in 2024 after newly redrawn maps added Palm Springs, a Democratic stronghold, to Calvert’s district.
Longtime Norconian Sandy Milo is a rare Democrat in the city. (Only 22% of people in Norco were registered Democrats in the 2024 presidential election.)
“I hate him,” Milo said. “He does very little for us.”
She and other Democrats in the area see Prop 50 as an opportunity to finally oust Calvert.
“Ken Calvert, I think, is just one of those guys who touts the party line,” said Riverside County Democratic Party Chair Joy Silver.
Many Democrats in the region don’t like that he voted to cut Medicaid by way of signing the Big Beautiful Bill, or his hardline “enforcement-first” stance on immigration.
“He is notorious for not showing up and having town halls,” Silver added.
The last publicly available town hall event was held over the phone in 2017, according to a press release on Calvert’s Congressional website.
“Prop 50 takes away power from the people,” Calvert told KVCR. “In effect, it gives it back to the political parties. In this instance, the Democratic Party created these districts, and removed the independent citizens redistricting commission.”
For now, Calvert said he’s more focused on defeating Prop 50 than preserving his seat in Congress.
“I'm a single political figure within the state. I think people do care about the future of their state and their communities, and I'm advocating for that,” he said, adding that he doesn’t know what he’ll do if Prop 50 does pass.
‘Let us be’
There’s no sign that Congress would come for Norco’s horsetrails if Prop 50 passes, or implement new housing laws in the city.
But as he’s feeding his eight chickens, Don Pettinger says he’s still worried — and that he’d rather ride trusty Rusty than a wave of change.
“Let us be Horsetown, USA,” said Pettinger. “Let us be.”