2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: California

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

My Bay Area map. CA-06 and CA-14 are open seats. CA-14 is a new San Jose seat.



My Orange County map. Plurality-Asian CA-44, Lowenthal’s old district, is an open seat. CA-47, Cisneros’ seat, loses LA and San Bernardino counties and extends further south. CA-45, Rouda’s seat, extends further inland and loses parts of Huntington Beach.

You're really going to attach Redwood City to Hollister? Bad choice.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

That CA-27 might be the single most frustrating district I have ever seen.

(snip)

I mean yeah, maybe I throw Hancock Park in the seat, but it would be dropping Central and Downtown Hollywood to do that, and we can't have the movie seat be without those two.

Reminder that the San Fernando valley is only 27K over two districts, and has two perfect COIs, so no whites can come from there other than the 27K.

That's fair until you realize you're pairing the rich white bits of four fundamentally different LA regions: The Westside, Arroyo Verdugo, SFV, and Central LA. They just don't belong together even if demographic metrics make that seem superficially sensible. If would be like attaching the white bits of Berkley to Marin via the San Rafael Bridge. It just doesn't work. There is a very, very obvious regional COI in Los Angeles which supersedes ethnic concerns: The Westside. It's its own region with exactly 760k people, and it has obvious barriers cutting itself off from other parts of the area: LAX Airport, the ocean, the Santa Monica Mountains, and the Baldwin Hills. La Cienega Boulevard acts as a final barrier of sorts between the richer areas to its west and poorer areas to its east. Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Malibu, Westwood, Century City, Brentwood, Venice, Marina Del Rey, Culver City, Mar Vista, and West LA just make sense together, even if it means putting the (not particularly large) South Bay beach cities in with their more diverse neighbors. No reasonable person would argue Santa Monica belongs more strongly with Redondo Beach than with Beverly Hills.

This should be the core of a district:

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

snip

If you're going for two AA seats, they should look something like this.

CA-43 is a 41.4% AA-plurality district. CA-37 is a 33.5% AA-plurality district. There's absolutely no justification for your highest AA% district being less than either of these districts.

I broadly agree, except in the pursuit of an intact Westside and an unbutchered Downtown I would propose something more like this:



Blue is 67% white.
Green is 37% black.
Purple is 39% black.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

The only problem with that layout is it'll force an ugly split of Long Beach

Changed a few things around:


Purple at 34% black, orange at 44% black.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

That CA-27 might be the single most frustrating district I have ever seen.

(snip)

I mean yeah, maybe I throw Hancock Park in the seat, but it would be dropping Central and Downtown Hollywood to do that, and we can't have the movie seat be without those two.

Reminder that the San Fernando valley is only 27K over two districts, and has two perfect COIs, so no whites can come from there other than the 27K.

That's fair until you realize you're pairing the rich white bits of four fundamentally different LA regions: The Westside, Arroyo Verdugo, SFV, and Central LA. They just don't belong together even if demographic metrics make that seem superficially sensible. If would be like attaching the white bits of Berkley to Marin via the San Rafael Bridge. It just doesn't work. There is a very, very obvious regional COI in Los Angeles which supersedes ethnic concerns: The Westside. It's its own region with exactly 760k people, and it has obvious barriers cutting itself off from other parts of the area: LAX Airport, the ocean, the Santa Monica Mountains, and the Baldwin Hills. La Cienega Boulevard acts as a final barrier of sorts between the richer areas to its west and poorer areas to its east. Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Malibu, Westwood, Century City, Brentwood, Venice, Marina Del Rey, Culver City, Mar Vista, and West LA just make sense together, even if it means putting the (not particularly large) South Bay beach cities in with their more diverse neighbors. No reasonable person would argue Santa Monica belongs more strongly with Redondo Beach than with Beverly Hills.

This should be the core of a district:

The strangely comes off as the type of NIMBY post that would occur if you live in the Westside, but your location says downtown so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . Residents of the present CA18 probably find it weird that the one half of the district is cut off from another half by mountains and the San Jose city line, but it works because they are all  wealthy whites.

Anyway, lets start from the beginning, and this goes for everyone that has replied since.

Cutting a Hispanic seat is verboten because California is gaining Hispanics, even while losing a seat, so CA44 is safe. You want your hispanic seats in LA to have similar levels of HVAP if possible, based of the structural rules of the VRA. Essentially, if you have more that enough pop for two seats, but one is packed full and the other just barely crosses the line, this is considered unequal representation. So you should try for balance.

Lets also remember that nothing works in a vacuum. District changes cascade across the map. For example, the best thing for the LA region could be the dropping of SLO from CA23 and sending it north. This allows you then to have both a Hispanic seat in SB and Ventura, and the suburban seat in Santa Clarita and the hill suburbs. This is an ideal pairing, but it didn't work for pop reasons and the ethnic makeup of what was leftover. However doing this in effect destroys whatever Hispanic opportunity seat can be created from Monterrey and San Benito. The other option is to pair Kern and SLO, but unless you tell me that is a COI of some kind.... Therefore, CA23 has to stay. Which in turn means Ventura is left with 66K over the limit. Sure, you can just do a bit of trading by giving Simi or TO LA and then grabbing the Malibu suburbs...but A: this separates Simi and TO, and B: destroys whatever potential Hispanic opportunity seat you had in the Oxnard Plain.

So I don't want you to show me "oh X seat can be like this," of course it can. I want you to show me your entire region. If you don't want to draw the whole map, that's fine, just create some groupings like I did in the Bay Area where you can get to X districts with Y counties. I wish to see what tradeoffs were made to favor one group over another. In effect, I'm trying to think like a commissioner here, and while the commission likes local lines such as cities or communtiies, the next most important COI is ethnicity with whites at the back of the line. Treat neighborhoods as your building blocks, and build your ethnic access seats, because that is whats most important legally in big cities.

Yeah, I live Downtown and I'm certainly no NIMBY but I do thing the Westside is a real community that needs to be respected. Same goes for CA-18 and I would never draw the district like you did, but that's another matter. My current map only has one AA seat so I was trying a quick experiment to keep the Westside, South Bay, and two AA seats intact. You can see it below. With this new map, I'd cascade my 34th, 3th, 36th, 31st, and 29th districts towards the SFV and make the 28th into some version of Schiff's current district with Glendale and Hollywood.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

your map seems to take the approach that "LA doesn't really have communities of interest", which I certainly have to disagree with.

Absolutely. LA is very big but it has natural internal divisions beyond just ethnic considerations. I consider the LA Times' 16 divisions in the Mapping LA project to be equivalent to individual counties and give them according weight when redistricting.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Anyway, I found a cycle of about 422K. Allows me to redraw most of LA. The only predictable outcome of this cycle though is that the Burbank seat is going to take to north side of the Hollywood Hills and make the Sherman seat into an outer LA (Chatsworth, Granada Hills, West Hills, etc) and Suburbs seat. The downside is that sticking Lily white Malibu in the Ventura seat ends the chance of this becoming a Hispanic opportunity seat. Also cuts the TO-Simi grouping. Any objections before I peruse?

Seems like a generally good idea. I'd encourage is a complete rethinking of how you drew the Koreatown/Downtown/Historic South Central and the East Hollywood/NELA/Boyle Heights seat to pair South Central, Boyle Heights, and Downtown while keeping Koreatown, Pico-Union, Echo Park, and NELA together. It's cleaner and should still leave you with two Latino seats in the area. Second, I'd encourage you to ensure both the AA seats, regardless of their configuration, stay east of La Cienega and the Baldwin Hills which is the commonly accepted western border of South LA.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Can Riverside be paired with Imperial without splitting San Diego with Riverside?

Yep. Just look at Oryx's map on page 19.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Can Riverside be paired with Imperial without splitting San Diego with Riverside?

Yep. Just look at Oryx's map on page 19.

I hate that district almost as much as the Burbank-Beverly Hills district.

Yeah. I don't like it much either, but the relevant takeaway is that Imperial+the Coachella Valley can be one district, you can keep the Inland Empire self-contained, and you can attach the remaining balance of San Diego to South Orange County. I prefer to split off Oceanside, San Marcos, Vista, and Encinitas instead of drawing a weird Escondido to Mission Viejo snake but the broader point remains clear.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Do not connect SF and Marin. Just don't.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

I really like it. I think if you're going to make any other changes you should consider reworking the SGV districts.

Updated:

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

That looks really nice. Is district 36 an Asian opportunity or is it too Hispanic?

Both? It's 56% Latino and 23% Asian. So it's a Hispanic VRA which simultaneously provides a pretty good Asian opportunity.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

That looks really nice. Is district 36 an Asian opportunity or is it too Hispanic?

Both? It's 56% Latino and 23% Asian. So it's a Hispanic VRA which simultaneously provides a pretty good Asian opportunity.

I think you drew us into the same district. 👀

CA-31? Nice.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

That looks really nice. Is district 36 an Asian opportunity or is it too Hispanic?

Both? It's 56% Latino and 23% Asian. So it's a Hispanic VRA which simultaneously provides a pretty good Asian opportunity.

I think you drew us into the same district. 👀

CA-31? Nice.

Yeah I like how you have all the cool parts of LA concentrated there. I put myself in CA-30 (westside) even though it's not a great fit. I wanted to keep the Sunset corridor whole if I could.

I really like that breakdown of the SFV. That's perfect

Yup! I take it you're in Silver Lake/Los Feliz then? It wasn't even my original goal, but once I realized I could have 2 AA districts, an intact Westside district, and not pair Hollywood with the valley then I just had to draw it like that. Downtown, Hollywood, Los Feliz/Silver Lake/Echo Park, NELA, Koreatown and Boyle Heights all fit together well and, as you said, are invariably cool.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

That looks really nice. Is district 36 an Asian opportunity or is it too Hispanic?

Both? It's 56% Latino and 23% Asian. So it's a Hispanic VRA which simultaneously provides a pretty good Asian opportunity.

I think you drew us into the same district. 👀

CA-31? Nice.

Yeah I like how you have all the cool parts of LA concentrated there. I put myself in CA-30 (westside) even though it's not a great fit. I wanted to keep the Sunset corridor whole if I could.

I really like that breakdown of the SFV. That's perfect

Yup! I take it you're in Silver Lake/Los Feliz then? It wasn't even my original goal, but once I realized I could have 2 AA districts, an intact Westside district, and not pair Hollywood with the valley then I just had to draw it like that. Downtown, Hollywood, Los Feliz/Silver Lake/Echo Park, NELA, Koreatown and Boyle Heights all fit together well and, as you said, are invariably cool.

Technically East Hollywood, but right near Silver Lake. I definitely spend more time in Silver Lake and Downtown than anywhere to the west.

What's your percentages on the AA districts?

38% and 41%.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

That looks really nice. Is district 36 an Asian opportunity or is it too Hispanic?

Both? It's 56% Latino and 23% Asian. So it's a Hispanic VRA which simultaneously provides a pretty good Asian opportunity.

I think you drew us into the same district. 👀

CA-31? Nice.

Yeah I like how you have all the cool parts of LA concentrated there. I put myself in CA-30 (westside) even though it's not a great fit. I wanted to keep the Sunset corridor whole if I could.

I really like that breakdown of the SFV. That's perfect

Yup! I take it you're in Silver Lake/Los Feliz then? It wasn't even my original goal, but once I realized I could have 2 AA districts, an intact Westside district, and not pair Hollywood with the valley then I just had to draw it like that. Downtown, Hollywood, Los Feliz/Silver Lake/Echo Park, NELA, Koreatown and Boyle Heights all fit together well and, as you said, are invariably cool.

Technically East Hollywood, but right near Silver Lake. I definitely spend more time in Silver Lake and Downtown than anywhere to the west.

What's your percentages on the AA districts?

38% and 41%.

Ooh that's lovely. I presume your Long Beach/San Pedro split has something to do with that. Is your Long Beach district majority Hispanic?

Yeah. Both the Long Beach and San Pedro districts are minority coalition districts though.

By CVAP, Long Beach is 35% Latino, 34% white, 17% Asian, and 13% black. San Pedro is 43% white, 30% Latino, 20% Asian, and 6% black.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Started shifting some things around in Ventura and ended up redrawing a big chunk of my map. Ended up with a 42D-6R map which includes 14 Latino districts, 2 AA districts, and 3 Asian districts.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

What's Bakersfield doing in the rural San Bernardino district?

I don't like it much either. However, I really wanted to keep my Victor Valley/Eastern Sierra district on the far side of Cajon pass which made this a necessity. I could have it take in Palmdale/Lancaster instead, but then that forces me to do weird things with Santa Clarita and Ventura County.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Your map is not compact lol, Kern to El Dorado is ridiculous.  Also combining SD suburbs with Riverside and cutting up rural San Bernardino are not keeping to COIs.  as for my valley map, it's 3-3 (very fair, as the valley voted Trump overall), and 2 districts are hispanic+minority opportunity seat in stickton.  3 hispanic vra seats in the valley isn't possible because they have to be over 60% hispanic.

El Dorado is with Placer where it belongs.

SD subrubs have their own district, not paired with Riverside at all.

I have 4 majority Hispanic seats in the valley and a minority coalition in Stockton. The two southern valley districts are both over 50% Hispanic by CVAP.

Have you ever even been to California?

I'm from there. also, 50% isnt necessarily good enough.  My map puts eldo and placer together as well.  Admittedly I know norcal better than socal.  Hence why people hate on my norcal districts less.  

Yup. Your biggest problem is drawing insane lines in LA County to produce more VRA seats than necessary. Connecting Mar Vista to La Canada-Filntridge or Hermosa Beach to Belmont Shores is just ridiculous. And never, ever cross the San Gabriel Mountains. You need 1-2 AA seats in South LA, 1 Asian seat in the San Gabriel Valley, and maybe 4 Latino seats (2 in the Gateway Cities, 1 in Downtown/EastLA, and 1 in the San Fernando Valley. Beyond that, pair minority communities rationally but don't prioritize that over drawing rational, compact districts which adhere to natural geographic lines. Also, I hate maps which pair San Diego and Imperial but that's just me. You can still get your Latino VRA district by pairing Imperial and Palm Springs.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Creating that SF Asian seat isn't worth it. The Bay Area is easy. You literally just ring the bay with seven adjacent districts from San Francisco down to San Jose and back up to Hercules. Make sure the Fremont/Milpitas one is Asian VRA and you're set.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

In addition, the point of reworking the bay area is to avoid the ugly cut of Fremont...not make it worse. Also the essential West Sacramento and Truckee cuts.

The point was to eliminate the Marin-SF district, since everyone hated it, myself included. I re-did it again to not cut Fremont and I think it's better now. What about West Sacramento and Truckee?

he probably wants you to keep west sac with sac, and the lake tahoe area together

Adds additional county splits, but should be easy enough. Actually might be better so that Placer can remain whole.

I still like Marin-San Francisco. I also like the plurality-Asian seat in San Francisco.

There's no reason the 11th should be crossing the bay when you can make a district that makes up the majority of San Francisco

It's to create an Asian seat with CA-12.

Seven Eleven your map is clearly skewed towards democrats like mine is towards Republicans. For everyone I don't think that UC Irvine should be connected to Newport Beach and coastal OC.

Where is my map biased?

And where would you take population from to replace UC Irvine?

You can't take any population from the Hispanic or Asian district, and it has to come from somewhere. Splitting Irvine is the only logical approach here.

You only have four districts that lean Republican it's obviously biased.

How does that indicate bias? Republicans choose to live in Republican enclaves.

It's not that hard to get 3 in Northern CA, 3 in the Central Valley and 3 in Southern California

What 3 in Northern CA? You should have the Tahoe seat and the Far North CA seat. That's it.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

In addition, the point of reworking the bay area is to avoid the ugly cut of Fremont...not make it worse. Also the essential West Sacramento and Truckee cuts.

The point was to eliminate the Marin-SF district, since everyone hated it, myself included. I re-did it again to not cut Fremont and I think it's better now. What about West Sacramento and Truckee?

he probably wants you to keep west sac with sac, and the lake tahoe area together

Adds additional county splits, but should be easy enough. Actually might be better so that Placer can remain whole.

I still like Marin-San Francisco. I also like the plurality-Asian seat in San Francisco.

There's no reason the 11th should be crossing the bay when you can make a district that makes up the majority of San Francisco

It's to create an Asian seat with CA-12.

Seven Eleven your map is clearly skewed towards democrats like mine is towards Republicans. For everyone I don't think that UC Irvine should be connected to Newport Beach and coastal OC.

Where is my map biased?

And where would you take population from to replace UC Irvine?

You can't take any population from the Hispanic or Asian district, and it has to come from somewhere. Splitting Irvine is the only logical approach here.

You only have four districts that lean Republican it's obviously biased.

How does that indicate bias? Republicans choose to live in Republican enclaves.

It's not that hard to get 3 in Northern CA, 3 in the Central Valley and 3 in Southern California

The Central Valley is majority Hispanic, whites are only 34.5%.

My map has two VRA seats in the south valley, a Hispanic majority seat based in Fresno, a Hispanic majority seat based in Modesto, a white seat based in Bakersfield, and a coalition seat that is plurality white based in Stockton. This is a better representation of the Central Valley than a configuration that creates three Trump districts at the expense of minority representation.

Just because you "can" draw Republican districts, does not mean you "should" and creating districts that reflect the composition of a community is not bias, it's literally the commission's job.

You would have to gerrymander very hard to get 3 Northern CA districts or 3 Central Valley districts.

Yep. A fair CA map has anywhere from 5-7 GOP districts. The GOP is guaranteed a seat in Far Northern CA, a seat in the Tahoe/Sierra foothills area, a San Joaquin Valley seat, a Eastern Sierra/Victor Valley seat, and a South Riverside/North San Diego seat. Reasonable configurations could add a second San Joaquin Valley seat, and another seat in South Orange/North San Diego/South Riverside. That's it.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

In addition, the point of reworking the bay area is to avoid the ugly cut of Fremont...not make it worse. Also the essential West Sacramento and Truckee cuts.

The point was to eliminate the Marin-SF district, since everyone hated it, myself included. I re-did it again to not cut Fremont and I think it's better now. What about West Sacramento and Truckee?

he probably wants you to keep west sac with sac, and the lake tahoe area together

Adds additional county splits, but should be easy enough. Actually might be better so that Placer can remain whole.

I still like Marin-San Francisco. I also like the plurality-Asian seat in San Francisco.

There's no reason the 11th should be crossing the bay when you can make a district that makes up the majority of San Francisco

It's to create an Asian seat with CA-12.

Seven Eleven your map is clearly skewed towards democrats like mine is towards Republicans. For everyone I don't think that UC Irvine should be connected to Newport Beach and coastal OC.

Where is my map biased?

And where would you take population from to replace UC Irvine?

You can't take any population from the Hispanic or Asian district, and it has to come from somewhere. Splitting Irvine is the only logical approach here.

You only have four districts that lean Republican it's obviously biased.

How does that indicate bias? Republicans choose to live in Republican enclaves.

It's not that hard to get 3 in Northern CA, 3 in the Central Valley and 3 in Southern California

The Central Valley is majority Hispanic, whites are only 34.5%.

My map has two VRA seats in the south valley, a Hispanic majority seat based in Fresno, a Hispanic majority seat based in Modesto, a white seat based in Bakersfield, and a coalition seat that is plurality white based in Stockton. This is a better representation of the Central Valley than a configuration that creates three Trump districts at the expense of minority representation.

Just because you "can" draw Republican districts, does not mean you "should" and creating districts that reflect the composition of a community is not bias, it's literally the commission's job.

You would have to gerrymander very hard to get 3 Northern CA districts or 3 Central Valley districts.

Yep. A fair CA map has anywhere from 5-7 GOP districts. The GOP is guaranteed a seat in Far Northern CA, a seat in the Tahoe/Sierra foothills area, a San Joaquin Valley seat, a Eastern Sierra/Victor Valley seat, and a South Riverside/North San Diego seat. Reasonable configurations could add a second San Joaquin Valley seat, and another seat in South Orange/North San Diego/South Riverside. That's it.

My Victor Valley seat is paired with Antelope Valley. CA-25 voted for Hillary Clinton by 2.5 points in 2016.

That seems weird. Desert San Bernardino+Inyo+Mono is like 80% of a district to start with, so it's natural to use it as a base.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Remember that list I posted a few pages back? Well, i'm going to add to it, since I forgot something. Legal COI priority goes:

- Local lines (counties, cities, neighborhoods)
- Ethnicity, Rage and it's correlating statistics
- Recognized cultural groupings of the previous two groups
- Partisan interests and competitiveness

In fact, the GOP is in a tight place when it comes to the ethnicity category. Since the state likes to maximize racial opportunity, GOP whites often end up as those unintentionally tossed in the minority districts to prevent packing. Thanks to the commission defining COIs as including living standards and income groups, this unintentionally (I believe..) legalizes and encourages the creation and preservation of white packs to facilitate more minority access. Those white packs are most likely to GOP packs.

Is my CA-47 a white pack? It allows me to get more Asian access in CA-43, CA-44, and CA-46.

No but it is kind of an awkward way of drawing the split, instead of just doing Lagunia Niguel+San Clemente+San Juan Capistrano+Dana Point. There's no need to carve up the Mission Viejo/Rancho Santa Margarita area like that.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

SD-OC pairing is always bad and if done, should never go further than San Clemente.

Nah. It's better than OC-San Gabriel Valley or OC-Riverside which is usually the alternative. The ideal would be to do just two county splits in the area: San Diego-Riverside and Orange-Gateway Cities but I haven't worked out a good way to do that yet.