2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: California

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

2. the commission explicitly has to conform to municipality lines, which also look terrible

Was that the case in 2010 too? Because the current districts are fairly compact.

Yeah that's a good question. You'd think the loss of a district would make districts neater on this front, not messier.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Lol district 20 looks like their COI was just “coast”. Ik that it’s to separate white and Hispanic voters but that kinda extreme

The 2003-2013 iteration of CA-23 says hi.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

This is interesting. They kept LGBT communities united in districts wherever possible.

https://www.eqca.org/big-wins-lgbtq-redistricting/

If LGBT qualifies as a COI, you can create a COI for literally any reason, thereby negating the practical power of the term.

Considering the sort of job the CA Commission has..."keeping LGBT areas together" - i.e. a group that is, at most, 8-9% of the population - strikes me as a significantly lesser need compared to things like compactness, community links (of the non-race-driven variety), municipal integrity, and the needs of other, larger groups such as Blacks, Latinos, etc.

It's also completely unnecessary since LGBT Americans haven't needed "dedicated" districts of any sort to get the sort of advances they've obtained over the past 15 years (and more advances that are in store if/when enough Ds get elected to Congress). And additionally, drawing a sort of district where they would have a strong position in a primary, in terms of raw numbers, is basically impossible.

But I'm not on the CA Commission, so whatever. Not my job. Life goes on.

But if I was? I'm not going to put that high a weight on what these activist groups think. They'd be relevant, sure, but there are more than one or two things that rank higher.

It certainly is unjustifiable to rubber-stamp a Dem gerry on the disingenuous grounds that it was for "LGBT rights" and pushed by an activist group with that sort of agenda. Like, the Dem controlled House passed the Equality Act as it is. I don't think any sort of dedicated district is really necessary - Dems from a wide range from districts voted for it, and constituency and terrain didn't really matter very much on that vote.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

LGBT cois certainly do exist such as palm springs or areas of SF but to draw an entire map for socal and claim its an LGBT map is not an LGBT organization its a Democratic group.

Or it could be both. Though, to be blunt, it really doesn't matter too much. The group's map matters more than the group itself.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Looking at the Assembly maps this is what I have managed to determine

Democrat Ken Cooley gets a district that goes from 55-42 Biden to 52-46 Biden. He has one term left before he terms out.

Republicans Frank Bigelow and Jim Patterson are double bunked. They each have one term left before terming out. Patterson probably has an advantage a Bigelow's seat was pretty much dismantled.

There is a new swing seat with parts of Stanislaus County and Merced County. It's 51-47 Biden and will surely end up being a contentious race.

Jordan Cunningham is the incumbent who got the worst out of this map. He goes from 54-43 Biden to a punishing 64-34 Biden. He over performed Trump by 12% and will surely over perform in SLO County again, but losing the elastic to conservative parts of Santa Barbara County for coastal Monterey County makes this a bridge too far.

In Orange County, Democrat Cottie Petrie-Norris' district went from 54-43 Biden to just 50-48 Biden. She barely won in 2020, so she will move to the new safe Democratic seat anchored on Irvine and Costa Mesa. Republican Laurie Davies gets put into a 52-46 Biden district that also includes Oceanside and Vista in San Diego County. Republican Steven Choi is probably left without a seat at the table unless he takes on Phillip Chen in the 50-48 Trump seat in Northern OC.

Republican Marie Waldron in San Diego County has been put into a 57-41 Biden district which is way to the left of her current district.

How much of this was driven by more Dem parts of the state making relative gains in population %?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://www.kcrw.com/news/shows/kcrw-features/palm-springs-lisa-middleton-ken-calvert-redistricting

Calvert is going to get slaughtered in Palm Springs, running behind whatever the anemic Pub baseline is there.

Could he do worse in Palm Springs in 2022 than Trump did in Hudson in 2020?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Been playing a little bit with California. First time really ever drawing SoCal so please be gentle. (Ignore everything north of Lancaster).

link

It's strange that out of all the county crossings you make, San Bernardino and Riverside is where you refuse to cross, when they are the most similar overall. As you can see just by looking at the roads, Southern OC and Riverside really shouldn't be paired that way.

I think that seeing Sol post this has inspired me to get back into mapping a bit. I'm going to toy with what the seats might look like if you do such a crossing.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Been playing a little bit with California. First time really ever drawing SoCal so please be gentle. (Ignore everything north of Lancaster).

link

It's strange that out of all the county crossings you make, San Bernardino and Riverside is where you refuse to cross, when they are the most similar overall. As you can see just by looking at the roads, Southern OC and Riverside really shouldn't be paired that way.

I think that seeing Sol post this has inspired me to get back into mapping a bit. I'm going to toy with what the seats might look like if you do such a crossing.

Try to avoid the looping, it seems politically motivated.

Looping? Where?
EDIT: Do you mean what was done in San Bernardino and Riverside?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Been playing a little bit with California. First time really ever drawing SoCal so please be gentle. (Ignore everything north of Lancaster).

link

It's strange that out of all the county crossings you make, San Bernardino and Riverside is where you refuse to cross, when they are the most similar overall. As you can see just by looking at the roads, Southern OC and Riverside really shouldn't be paired that way.

I think that seeing Sol post this has inspired me to get back into mapping a bit. I'm going to toy with what the seats might look like if you do such a crossing.

Try to avoid the looping, it seems politically motivated.

Looping? Where?
EDIT: Do you mean what was done in San Bernardino and Riverside?

Yes, particularly linking western riverside with eastern riverside

With how Latino the Inland Empire is getting at this point, it wouldn't be too insane to draw it without much concern for drawing specifically Latino-influenced seats (as long as Imperial is drawn into a Riverside-based seat). The Latino CDs basically draw themselves.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Looping's not politically motivated fwiw, was just trying to up the Latino % in the other Riverside district.

I didn't really think it was. It'd be at least somewhat out of character for you to do that.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Anyway, I've done a SoCal map covering Los Angeles, San Bernardino, and everything south of these two counties. Will post shortly.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The Victor Valley seat remains within San Bernardino County.
https://davesredistricting.org/join/6cf96996-122a-458d-bb2d-7dc125ad96ba

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The Victor Valley seat remains within San Bernardino County.
https://davesredistricting.org/join/6cf96996-122a-458d-bb2d-7dc125ad96ba

This looks much better from a CoI and compactness POV. Main thing I would try is realigning the two Riverside districts differently. Try to follow the I-15 corridor south in one district.

I'm interpreting this to mean that Corona should be in the same district as Temecula and Hemet should be in the same district as Riverside (city).

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The Victor Valley seat remains within San Bernardino County.
https://davesredistricting.org/join/6cf96996-122a-458d-bb2d-7dc125ad96ba

This looks much better from a CoI and compactness POV. Main thing I would try is realigning the two Riverside districts differently. Try to follow the I-15 corridor south in one district.

I'm interpreting this to mean that Corona should be in the same district as Temecula and Hemet should be in the same district as Riverside (city).

Putting Corona with Riverside is fine, but with the alignment you have it's probably preferable to split vertically. Not a fan of pairing Corona with Moreno Valley for example. So yes, that would be my recommendation if you could make it work out.

Does this work?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The Victor Valley seat remains within San Bernardino County.
https://davesredistricting.org/join/6cf96996-122a-458d-bb2d-7dc125ad96ba

This looks much better from a CoI and compactness POV. Main thing I would try is realigning the two Riverside districts differently. Try to follow the I-15 corridor south in one district.

I'm interpreting this to mean that Corona should be in the same district as Temecula and Hemet should be in the same district as Riverside (city).

Putting Corona with Riverside is fine, but with the alignment you have it's probably preferable to split vertically. Not a fan of pairing Corona with Moreno Valley for example. So yes, that would be my recommendation if you could make it work out.

Does this work?

Yes, this is perfect. Your map looks great so far. Feel free to share Los Angeles zooms as you finish that area.

You can check out what I have in LA through the DRA link. Feel free to explore!

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

They undid roughly 50% of my work and I had to work from scratch.

Thoughts on this?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Northern California

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

So yeah, playing with it, moving Mono and Inyo is pretty easy, as is slicing San Jose a different way, but avoiding a district that links Hayward/Fremont etc. with the Tri-Valley is almost impossible without either splitting Oakland or completely overhauling the map (which might force an equivalent ugliness to the north). What do you think is preferable?

Yeah, that's rough. I think that there's a case for splitting out the Hispanic parts of Oakland in the south and putting them in with Hayward, but keeping Oakland whole is obviously pleasing and splitting the city would also have the side effect of splitting out its black population. On the other hand, the Hayward-to-Livermore district is really displeasing, so it might be worthwhile to try to change the map more broadly. (I'll admit that I don't know a lot about areas north of Oakland, so the effect might be ugliness there that I don't notice.)

I may be missing something but it seems that the only reasonable option if you want to avoid splitting Oakland or drawing that CA-11 is for the Antelope Valley to take a huge bite out of Kern County, and not just the area east of the Sierras--it also has to take in Tehachapi and some of the area around Onyx too. Arguably this is the best option depending on the number of people affected but it's still fairly rough. 



This kind of thing is what makes California especially unpleasant to draw imo; the sheer number of mountain ranges that wall off areas from each other means there's very little flexibility and you sometimes have to choose between several bad options.

Interested in folk's takes on this--is drawing the lines like this worth it to make the Bay Area better, or is it better to link Fremont to the Tri-Valley to avoid this?

Personally, I'm fine with Fremont being linked with the Tri-Valley.