2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: California

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Which of these configurations is better?

In general, I much prefer the second to the first but that Lassen-Gold Country seat hurts.

First is better. Clear minority seats in the bay, avoids the weird backcountry and estuary seats.

Just realized I flipped the two in my head as I typed it. Yup. The first is better (particularly in the LA Area), although there are components of the second I prefer (a sane CA-10, not putting Oceanside with East County, I don't care for the Santa Cruz/Monterey minority carve-up, etc.)

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

[img width=760

I'm going to advocate for Diamond Bar-OC as the best connection here.

The natural population divisions in the SGV, as well as the gateway cities, separate this area from the rest of LA County. You know you have to have an Asian seat (CA-27), which is optimized here. If you don't split the Puente Hills region from the SGV, you end up having to put Pomona in an Inland Empire district with Rancho Cucamonga, which is far from ideal.

Is it though? So far as I'm concerned, once you pass La Verne you're basically in the Inland Empire. That said, I do get your case here as there is no way to avoid crossing the Puente Hills, either from Brea or Whittier, unless you tear up the SGV Asian district which is obviously a non-starter. I suppose you could rotate population from Pomona to San Bernardino to Riverside to SD to South OC but that's less than ideal.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

[img width=760

I'm going to advocate for Diamond Bar-OC as the best connection here.

The natural population divisions in the SGV, as well as the gateway cities, separate this area from the rest of LA County. You know you have to have an Asian seat (CA-27), which is optimized here. If you don't split the Puente Hills region from the SGV, you end up having to put Pomona in an Inland Empire district with Rancho Cucamonga, which is far from ideal.

Is it though? So far as I'm concerned, once you pass La Verne you're basically in the Inland Empire. That said, I do get your case here as there is no way to avoid crossing the Puente Hills, either from Brea or Whittier, unless you tear up the SGV Asian district which is obviously a non-starter. I suppose you could rotate population from Pomona to San Bernardino to Riverside to SD to South OC but that's less than ideal.

Dude, Pomona has the Fairplex. I'm not giving the LA County Fair to f'ing San Bernardino.

I've actually never been.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Orange and San Diego.

Are your 28th, 29th, and 30th on that map VRA compliant?

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Orange and San Diego.

Are your 28th, 29th, and 30th on that map VRA compliant?

I don't know about 28th or 29th, but 30th is. Does 28 or 29 need to be? My 39 (Ontario) and 41 (San Bernardino) are VRA compliant. 28 still likely elects a Hispanic candidate. If it isn't a VRA seat, it likely still doesn't dilute any votes. It's 50% Hispanic CVAP. My 29th is Pasadena.

That's fine. What's the Asian percentage in 29?

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Orange and San Diego.

Are your 28th, 29th, and 30th on that map VRA compliant?

I don't know about 28th or 29th, but 30th is. Does 28 or 29 need to be? My 39 (Ontario) and 41 (San Bernardino) are VRA compliant. 28 still likely elects a Hispanic candidate. If it isn't a VRA seat, it likely still doesn't dilute any votes. It's 50% Hispanic CVAP. My 29th is Pasadena.

That's fine. What's the Asian percentage in 29?

CA-29 is 34% Asian.

Thought that might be a problem. It should be possible to hit 40% Asian CVAP in that district if it's reconfigured.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Orange and San Diego.

Are your 28th, 29th, and 30th on that map VRA compliant?

I don't know about 28th or 29th, but 30th is. Does 28 or 29 need to be? My 39 (Ontario) and 41 (San Bernardino) are VRA compliant. 28 still likely elects a Hispanic candidate. If it isn't a VRA seat, it likely still doesn't dilute any votes. It's 50% Hispanic CVAP. My 29th is Pasadena.

That's fine. What's the Asian percentage in 29?

CA-29 is 34% Asian.

Thought that might be a problem. It should be possible to hit 40% Asian CVAP in that district if it's reconfigured.

Yes, but it isn't a VRA seat. I thought 34% was fine. I thought my CA-29 was more of a jack of all trades seat that could elect any Democrat.

The commission won't go for that. The SGV Chinese population is easily one of the most recognizable ethnic blocs in Southern California and it needs it's own seat even if you can't get to 50% CVAP.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Map 4 probably is the best by COI but I prefer map 3, just because the lines make a lot more sense at the neighborhood and arterial level. Like sure, La Habra might make the most sense with thr gateway cities but at the end of the day you're squiggling all over the place becaise of a pretty small population which won't change your larger ethic group blockings. Any map that doesn't slpit Anaheim Hills from Anaheim is a bad map so 1 and 2 are out. One thing: I would encourage you to take in more of Industry and West Covina and drop Hacienda Heights if possible.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Map 4 probably is the best by COI but I prefer map 3, just because the lines make a lot more sense at the neighborhood and arterial level. Like sure, La Habra might make the most sense with the gateway cities but at the end of the day you're squiggling all over the place because of a pretty small population which won't change your larger ethic group blockings. Any map that doesn't split Anaheim Hills from Anaheim is a bad map so 1 and 2 are out. One thing: I would encourage you to take in more of Industry and West Covina and drop Hacienda Heights if possible.

Why would you drop Hacienda. Honest Question here. IF you are building an Asian access seat in the region, then HH has to be in there. It's literally got the largest Buddhist Temple in the US. Since you guys seem in favor of La Habra going in with the seat then that also covers all road arteries.

As far as West Covina goes, that would require splitting La Habra Heights from La Habra itself, or cutting Lakewood.

Also, here's a pro-tip to everyone who Maps CA using DRA: the Industry Block groups are lying to you. Only 1K people live in Industry. The Block groups that build the city are all built out of a street or two from other communities which then take in a bit of Industry. This is one of the many reasons why I always convert my maps into GIS form, since you can clearer see the lines that I was going for. It is also why I always allocate pop so that if I take in a micro-region not included in the DRA map, I also have a micro-region that will be dropped so as to balance everything. For example, I take in the arm of Industry, but I drop that growth outside of Hacienda, among other swaps made.

I thought Hacienda had a higher Latino population than it does and that it should be lumped in with the Latino VRA district to its north. However, I've come to realize that it's very easy to draw a map without a San Diego-Orange split which forces you to drop Hacienda regardless:



Alternatively, you can flip CA-36 around and put Diamond Bar and Walnut up in CA-37. Regardless, i would split city lines before putting that weird arm of Industry in CA-36. It's population is immaterial and it ruins district compactness.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

This is where the map could use some assistance. CA48 takes most of the beating and has to have most of the OC South Hills. CA41 can't cut into SD for the back hills like it should, and nobody should really be splitting Temecula and Murrieta again by sending CA49 north. With all exits from SD blocked, rural and suburban SD has to get their seat, unless I revive that South Hills - Rural SD pairing. CA50 is clean, and CA52 is shoved Northwards.

In this region, SD and South OC, I wouldn't mind tips. Perhaps keeping CA48 entirely to the coast - both in OC and SD? I could send it to Escondito instead of Oceanside (which was put in the seat because of it's connections to Pendleton), but that in turn would mean CA49 cutting SD proper. Decisions...

Trading Laguna Niguel for Lake Forest would definitely be appropriate. If you don't mind splitting Mission Viejo, putting Laguna Beach and Aliso Viejo in with the OC-SD seat would clearly be more appropriate.

Three other things stand out:

1. The Inland Empire is really awkward. I don't like crossing Cajon pass and I don't like splitting Corona. There has to be a better way of doing things, even if it means rotating population through SD.

2. Downtown LA, Pico-Union, and USC belong in CA-33. CA-39 can take in Commerce/Montebello/East LA to compensate. Hell, I'd even start cutting Boyle Heights if necessary.

3. Pacific Palisades and Brentwood belong in CA-32. Take it up to Mulholland and move things around. The populations aren't that large so it shouldn't shift too much.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

2. I don't disagree with you here. This grouping is almost too perfect to be ignored. (the weird border south of downtown here is just to balance out the pop for demonstration purposes)




Except...well...it's illegal.

 

The CA33 as described while bordering the CA39 as described would be ruled unconstitutional under racial packing guidelines. So we have a South Florida or South Texas situation where seats need to be stripped in order to compensate. With the understanding that both seats must run east-west, are there any recommendations would you suggest?

Ideally, you'd keep that perfect Downtown district and change around the various districts in the Gateway Cities. Barring that, my first instinct is to give the Montebello/Huntington Park district Boyle Heights and push the Downtown district as far into South Central as needed to compensate. If the numbers still don't work, I'd swap NELA precincts for Huntington Park and use the LA River as more of a dividing line. Regardless, it seems inappropriate to wrap around Downtown.

3. Actually, there are a lot of people there. 65K to be precise if we include Bel Air which is also part of the west side and would be cut off by just removing PP and Brentwood. And I don't exactly disagree with you. So here is the million dollar question: what gets replaced, because I couldn't answer that question, so I ended up with this product. The first thing that would be removed is Del Ray, since there are actually some AAs there, but that only gets us 29.5K out of the hole. From there we have a bunch of bad options. Mar Vista is the next most diverse community, but it is A: Large, B: also on the west side, C: still majority middle-income White, D,: lacks AAs, and E: kinda crucial in connecting the whole West Side together on a geographic level. I have already cut all the minorities from Westchester, if I were to follow the present CA33 it would be a case of dropping wealthy whites. finally there is the case of cutting Torrance...which only really makes sense you you are cutting the coastal strip from to connect with Palos Verdes and putting the bult of the suburb elsewhere. If we are axing CA44 then there is no need to put Torrance in an AA seat where there aren't even 8K in the entire city.

I would try rotating population from CA-29 through CA-28, CA-27, CA-33, CA-37, and CA-46 to Palos Verdes and Torrance. Of course, it isn't ideal to cut Palos Verdes from the rich white communities to its north but the map will be imperfect and I assume you could maintain all your performing minority districts. It might actually help out with the Latino packs in the Gateway Cities.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

The LA map gets a lot better if you condense the AA districts into one heavily plurality district.

It's actually pretty easy to get a majority AA district (by CVAP), which is perhaps a more compelling rationale as a lot of 40% AA districts in LA are also 50% Latino.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

What's considered an illegal racial pack?

When there is enough Pop in a region to produce a certain number of districts, but you pack one seat to more than capacity to dilute the neighbors. This is best demonstrated in south texas, when the most rather orientation ends up with two uber-hispanic seats along the border and one barely Hispanic seat just to their north. It's very vague in description, but you know it when you see it.

Another good case study is Virginia. The GOP maintained a tentacle that went from Richmond to Norfolk grabbing AAs along the way and making her neighbors whiter. However, there was enough AA voters in the region to elect two candidates of their choosing, but they were being packed into one seat. So the court threw out map.

It's why the GOP in 2010 aimed for just under their states AA% in the south when drawing the number of AA seats on their maps at various levels, since then they could try to dodge this line of attack.

What percentage would count as illegal?

There is no clear percentage. It's a you know it when you see it kind of thing. A African American seat in Mississippi would be fine and legal with 62% of a district being AA, but that would be laughed out in Virginia who is good with something 20 points lower. In CA, the South Valley needs a 71% Hispanic seat (by Pop) to elect a candidate of choice because Hispanics don't vote, but in the Inland Empire you can get away with 58% or so. It's fluid.

If that's so, then are you sure that 80-soemthing % Latino district in the Gateway Cities qualifies? After all, the Downtown district is still majority Latino by CVAP, so it isn't hard to argue that both will elect Latino candidates and the Gateway Cities district therefore is not reducing the electoral influence of the Latino community.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

What's considered an illegal racial pack?

When there is enough Pop in a region to produce a certain number of districts, but you pack one seat to more than capacity to dilute the neighbors. This is best demonstrated in south texas, when the most rather orientation ends up with two uber-hispanic seats along the border and one barely Hispanic seat just to their north. It's very vague in description, but you know it when you see it.

Another good case study is Virginia. The GOP maintained a tentacle that went from Richmond to Norfolk grabbing AAs along the way and making her neighbors whiter. However, there was enough AA voters in the region to elect two candidates of their choosing, but they were being packed into one seat. So the court threw out map.

It's why the GOP in 2010 aimed for just under their states AA% in the south when drawing the number of AA seats on their maps at various levels, since then they could try to dodge this line of attack.

What percentage would count as illegal?

There is no clear percentage. It's a you know it when you see it kind of thing. A African American seat in Mississippi would be fine and legal with 62% of a district being AA, but that would be laughed out in Virginia who is good with something 20 points lower. In CA, the South Valley needs a 71% Hispanic seat (by Pop) to elect a candidate of choice because Hispanics don't vote, but in the Inland Empire you can get away with 58% or so. It's fluid.

If that's so, then are you sure that 80-soemthing % Latino district in the Gateway Cities qualifies? After all, the Downtown district is still majority Latino by CVAP, so it isn't hard to argue that both will elect Latino candidates and the Gateway Cities district therefore is not reducing the electoral influence of the Latino community.

How do you know it doesn't though? The law assumes the worst without proof. Proof is easier obtained when there is a partisan divide between the groups. It's not just dems who need to abide by this - check out the Hispanic Percentage in each the Miami Hispanic seats. In the absence of proof, you must start with the must basic standards and work from there.

I don't but the way you described it makes me think it only becomes a problem if drawing compact districts with an exceptionally high minority % is only a problem if it means minorities miss out on control of districts they would otherwise have. It doesn't seem so clear to me that margins matter as long as they're all majority Latino. For example, drawing that 85% Latino district seems like it would be okay since the Downtown district is over 50%, but if it dropped Downtown to 40%, then it would become a problem.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

I don't understand why there is this fascination among a few people for keeping Madera whole. The county has been split for a while on multiple levels because everyone recognizes that it's COIs are better served split rather than whole. The NE of the county has more in common with the rest of the Sierra foothill counties, and the SW of the county is part of the agricultural valley. Keeping the county whole either cracks the foothills, because you paired the it all with the Valley, or you sink Hispanics into what will be a white seat.

Fair enough for the split of Madera. It looks like a smart logical split.
4 has a CVAP of 53.5% with the split of Madera and is Clinton +18
2 is 56.5% and Clinton +9
blue is Trump +9 and purple is Trump +24

That's perfectly a reasonable map. However, it might break down once you fit it into the larger map. It's very hard to make the Central Valley look nice without doing some weird things in the Bay Area and Los Angeles.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Ergh. This is such an obvious starting point for Far Northern California:



The counties work together so well and the 101 corridor is so distinct from the 5 corridor. I strongly encourage you start with this, block out your Sac Districts, and do the two Emerald Coast/Sonoma/Marin districts. Those shouldn't change much no matter what you do with the rest of the map, and they're just so logical.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

There's nothing wrong with pushing San Joaquin district into Sacramento. You're going to pull West Sacramento from Yolo anyway, so it's not a perfect two districts. I'm not a fan of that Sacramento split you did. It looks partisan and probably is if you're using the data to map.

Yep. That said, another good trick is to pull Tracy from San Joaquin and pair it with the Tri-Valley.

Why are you mapping with the partisan data turned on? California is not allowed to consider political affiliation or incumbency by law.

There's nothing wrong with pushing San Joaquin district into Sacramento. You're going to pull West Sacramento from Yolo anyway, so it's not a perfect two districts.

Then if you push 200k into Sacramento county where do you take the main suburban Sacramento district?

You can do something like this:


I don't particularly like it, but basically you have City of Sac district, the Eastern suburbs district, and then you can put the balance with Solano or San Joaquin. The other good option is to draw Sac+West Sac, put the rest of the county into another district, and pull precincts out of that into the Tahoe district until the population is fine. You end up needing to play around with the southern border of the Tahoe district but that way you have no Sac/San Joaquin cuts.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Tracy can certainly go with the Tri-Valley, but doesn't have to.

And while that district 5 might appear ugly to the naked eye, I don't see any harm in creating a "delta" district. It makes sense.

That's true, but dealing with both Vacaville and Fairfield gets awkward. I am happy, though, that this allows me to keep all of Stockton intact.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Tracy can certainly go with the Tri-Valley, but doesn't have to.

And while that district 5 might appear ugly to the naked eye, I don't see any harm in creating a "delta" district. It makes sense.

That's true, but dealing with both Vacaville and Fairfield gets awkward. I am happy, though, that this allows me to keep all of Stockton intact.

Yeah splitting them sucks but there's going to have to be splits we don't like and this area is as good as any.

Del Norte-Humboldt-Mendocino-Sonoma is a perfect four three county district with COI relevance but we break that up to avoid San Francisco.

Not that your original post was wrong, but Marin-Sonoma is as perfect as it gets.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Tracy can certainly go with the Tri-Valley, but doesn't have to.

And while that district 5 might appear ugly to the naked eye, I don't see any harm in creating a "delta" district. It makes sense.

That's true, but dealing with both Vacaville and Fairfield gets awkward. I am happy, though, that this allows me to keep all of Stockton intact.

Yeah splitting them sucks but there's going to have to be splits we don't like and this area is as good as any.

Del Norte-Humboldt-Mendocino-Sonoma is a perfect four three county district with COI relevance but we break that up to avoid San Francisco.

Not that your original post was wrong, but Marin-Sonoma is as perfect as it gets.

then have the Humboldt district go into Napa, like it used to.  

Of course. That's the logical option. I always start Northern CA with this:

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

That's a really solid map, except 18 seriously needs to drop the precincts in Santa Clara. You could probably rotate pop through 3, 11, 15, and 17 although I don't know if that'll screw up your municipal lines. The other thing I'd do is throw the Camp Pendleton precincts in CA-49, just for coastal contiguity. I personally disagree with some other pairings but they all seem justifiable. I'd be curious to see a LA area zoom.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

I like this grouping, so I tried it out - and I ended up what a red district that was 69K underpopulated. I assume Glenn belongs with it, since that makes things work out for the other districts. However, that 69K is still a problem. So in essence, this map commits to a imperfect Solano cut (the perfect one would be a cut along borders between Vallejo, Benicia and the northeast of the county, but this overpopulates the north), yes?

Exactly. I intentionally left red underpopulated because at this point you have two choices: carve up Vallejo, Fairfield, or Vacaville; or take most of Sutter County (splitting Yuba City), and pushing blue and green south into Sacramento. They're both worth experimenting with and each have their drawbacks, but ultimately I think this has to be the starting point, given Marin/Sonoma, the Emerald Coast, Tahoe/Sac Exurbs, and the Northern Sacramento Valley are such obvious COIs.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

I think you should have done the OC population rotation counterclockwise instead of clockwise. Also, I think splitting Fremont is much less of a problem than crossing Cajon Pass, but that's up to you.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

I like this grouping, so I tried it out - and I ended up what a red district that was 69K underpopulated. I assume Glenn belongs with it, since that makes things work out for the other districts. However, that 69K is still a problem. So in essence, this map commits to a imperfect Solano cut (the perfect one would be a cut along borders between Vallejo, Benicia and the northeast of the county, but this overpopulates the north), yes?

Exactly. I intentionally left red underpopulated because at this point you have two choices: carve up Vallejo, Fairfield, or Vacaville; or take most of Sutter County (splitting Yuba City), and pushing blue and green south into Sacramento. They're both worth experimenting with and each have their drawbacks, but ultimately I think this has to be the starting point, given Marin/Sonoma, the Emerald Coast, Tahoe/Sac Exurbs, and the Northern Sacramento Valley are such obvious COIs.

One possibility here is moving American Canyon into the Vallejo district. American Canyon is a lot more connected to Vallejo than to Napa anyway. Then move Colusa into the Redding district. Together, that leaves enough room to get all of Vacaville into the Davis-Coast district. That's not perfect (Fairfield still ends up in a Bay-based district), but it's much better than splitting Vacaville or Yuba City.

(I also eliminated the split of Trinity County.)

That...actually works incredibly well.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Finished my map: https://davesredistricting.org/join/5180a8ee-d24e-48b4-8e6f-83d0f5a041d9


Recommendations welcome, I know that the 10th is ugly, mostly because it was my leftover seat, also the Inland Empire mess is to try to draw more minority access seats.

The 4th is an abomination that should be destroyed in it's entirety, the 13th should drop Half Moon Bay, the 3rd should go all the way to Del Norte County, the 32nd should drop either Long Beach or Venice/Mar Vista, the 26th needs to drop Claremont and Glendora, and the 35th, 41st, 46th, and 48th should be drawn over again from scratch. You don't need to do these insane pairings to get sufficient minority access.