2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: California

[lfromnj]

https://davesredistricting.org/maps#viewmap::64d5b36c-00a6-4a3d-900d-ad9b7c2711b4

Seems like one  iteration. Using uniform swing Levin would only have won by 1.2 points in 2020!

[lfromnj]

BEAVICAL is an abomination.

Basically Beavical takes in white areas in East Riverside which I think is the Coachella Valley but  SECAL takes in mixed exurbs in central Riverside. However said white areas are famously gay and very Democratic while the exurbs are actually R.

Basically an attempt to boost the hispanic population of SECAL.

Still quite streching a majority minority seat as a Coachella valley seat is way more compact and logical even if it may not fully maximize hispanic %

[lfromnj]

Sadhwani is the obvious Dem hack on the commission.

https://twitter.com/eqca/status/1469467044231860224

Seems like a large part of her map proposal came from this one.

[lfromnj]

Looking around, it seems possible that a few of these districts become new "IL-04"s: districts citied as examples of gerrymandering for the wrong reasons. There aren't any obvious partisan gerrymanders on this map, but there are plenty of legal oddities created to increase minority access, oddities that may not make sense to the average viewer.

IL04 was kept in that manner in 2010 to perhaps help IL03 just incase, and many of these districts were clearly drawn by Latino interest groups who as we see in Colorado care foremost about electing Democrats. They were mostly helped by Sara Sadhwani who is the obvious hack. The rest of the commision other than Toledo is more or less ignorant rather than malicious.(Which is the key difference between what happened in CO/CA where in CO there were some relatively knowledgeable Republicans who knew what a Dem gerrymander was and refused to accept it.

[lfromnj]

Looking around, it seems possible that a few of these districts become new "IL-04"s: districts citied as examples of gerrymandering for the wrong reasons. There aren't any obvious partisan gerrymanders on this map, but there are plenty of legal oddities created to increase minority access, oddities that may not make sense to the average viewer.

IL04 was kept in that manner in 2010 to perhaps help IL03 just incase, and many of these districts were clearly drawn by Latino interest groups who as we see in Colorado care foremost about electing Democrats. They were mostly helped by Sara Sadhwani who is the obvious hack. The rest of the commision other than Toledo is more or less ignorant rather than malicious.(Which is the key difference between what happened in CO/CA where in CO there were some relatively knowledgeable Republicans who knew what a Dem gerrymander was and refused to accept it.

I know that and you know that. But that didn't stop IL-04 appearing on redistricting reform advocates images of 'bad districts' along with ones in TX, OH, MD, etc. The Riverside seat, among others, seems ripe for this sort of thing.

It's a mix, not sure if they were smart enough to realize it but putting Palm Springs really does hurt Calvert a lot compared to some random diverse area west of the Coachella. Certainly has moderate partisan effects. I don't know who pushed it though. When I was drawing my Commisionmander, that is exactly what I did. to make the rest of Riverside blue after a Eastern San Diego/Riverside sink. Mine was around Clinton +3 or so though.



25 Would still be 53% VAP and 41 would be Trump +6.  If Sadhwani was the one behind this push I think we can obviously call this a partisan gerrymander for an opportunity seat.

[lfromnj]

Looking around, it seems possible that a few of these districts become new "IL-04"s: districts citied as examples of gerrymandering for the wrong reasons. There aren't any obvious partisan gerrymanders on this map, but there are plenty of legal oddities created to increase minority access, oddities that may not make sense to the average viewer.

IL04 was kept in that manner in 2010 to perhaps help IL03 just incase, and many of these districts were clearly drawn by Latino interest groups who as we see in Colorado care foremost about electing Democrats. They were mostly helped by Sara Sadhwani who is the obvious hack. The rest of the commision other than Toledo is more or less ignorant rather than malicious.(Which is the key difference between what happened in CO/CA where in CO there were some relatively knowledgeable Republicans who knew what a Dem gerrymander was and refused to accept it.

I know that and you know that. But that didn't stop IL-04 appearing on redistricting reform advocates images of 'bad districts' along with ones in TX, OH, MD, etc. The Riverside seat, among others, seems ripe for this sort of thing.

It's a mix, not sure if they were smart enough to realize it but putting Palm Springs really does hurt Calvert a lot compared to some random diverse area west of the Coachella. Certainly has moderate partisan effects. I don't know who pushed it though. When I was drawing my Commisionmander, that is exactly what I did. to make the rest of Riverside blue after a Eastern San Diego/Riverside sink. Mine was around Clinton +3 or so though.


25 Would still be 53% VAP and 41 would be Trump +6.  If Sadhwani was the one behind this push I think we can obviously call this a partisan gerrymander for an opportunity seat.

Your thinking too hard. This map's overall goal is clearly to significantly increase minority access. They wanted a Hispanic seat in the Coachella region, and when you are drawn Hispanic seats the preferred measure is CVAP. The district as drawn yanks out some 60-80% white cities from Palm Springs and tosses in Hemet and other Hispanic regions but is only 52.5% by CVAP. Swapping it around prevents such possibilities.

A lot of the peculiarities on the map have similar demographic explanations. You can accept that or you cannot, but accessibility was clearly the goal at almost every point.

Minority Access was the excuse used by Sadhwani and Toledo to therefore persuade the rest of the commission. I don't know if they did it in the Coachella region though.  Either way these seats are still are racial gerrymanders that in the end also are effectively a partisan gerrymander so not sure what exactly is wrong with using them as an example of actual gerrymandering considering that is what they did.

[lfromnj]

Anyway changes overall

-1 D in LA County but Garcia's gets a few points more blue.

CA01 to Kevin McCarthy

Josh Harder and Ami Bera get safe seats along with Costa.
McCarthy gets super packed while Nunes gets a bit more red at the cost of McClintock.


Socal- Issa/Calvert have similar seats rn but they effectively trade to make one Safe R and the other tossup presidentially.

OC-
Steele kinda gets a bit weird, not sure where she would run, Kim has a solid seat for her to the east and is really the only Republican to win some points not at the expense of another Republican(Eg Issa/Calvert).

Porter stays the same while Levin is the only Democrat that gets hurt.

[lfromnj]

...while Levin is the only Democrat that gets hurt.

I wouldn't really say that. Harder is put in an R+12 district with this map, whereas Levin's seat doesn't really change enough to endanger him IMO (D+12.7 to D+11.4).

Harder is in for a world of hurt. He either chooses to run in this new seat and loses or he tries to primary Costa or McNerney, which will likely be unsuccessful.

Nope harder got massively shored up.
Biden +10.. He still has an obvious CV seat to run in.

[lfromnj]

...while Levin is the only Democrat that gets hurt.

I wouldn't really say that. Harder is put in an R+12 district with this map, whereas Levin's seat doesn't really change enough to endanger him IMO (D+12.7 to D+11.4).

Harder is in for a world of hurt. He either chooses to run in this new seat and loses or he tries to primary Costa or McNerney, which will likely be unsuccessful.

Nope harder got massively shored up.
Biden +10.. He still has an obvious CV seat to run in.

I know Stanislaus was split but I thought Harder's home was now in the 5th district. 2/3 of Modesto seem to be in that seat. His congressional office is also in the new 5th.

Fair enough but its an obvious seat for him

[lfromnj]

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.

Why do you say that? LGBT exists as a category in discrimination / civil rights law and we have had unique political needs.

EQCA clearly just put out a dem gerrymander which was their only goal.

[lfromnj]

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.

Why do you say that? LGBT exists as a category in discrimination / civil rights law and we have had unique political needs.

EQCA clearly just put out a dem gerrymander which was their only goal.

Pfft, this isn’t that strong of a gerrymander. You can easily draw 1-3 republican seats without any really absurd tentacles

https://twitter.com/eqca/status/1470504796943699979

Socal wasn't that bad for the CA GOP, other than the Calvert Palm Springs stuff, and Mike Levin getting the last minute rescue most stuff was ignored from eqca. I wouldn't even call the Levin district a gerrymander per se except for the fact it was last minute changes encouraged by Sadhwani.

[lfromnj]

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

[lfromnj]

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

I don’t see any claim that the commission let LGBT communities be the driving factor in drawing maps nor any evidence they spent tons of time on keeping these communities together. The fact they did it with no one commenting on it until after the maps were passed shows it wasn’t a big time commitment to do.

Sara Sadhwani certainly wanted eqca to be the driving factor behind the maps if you dropped in on the late meetings. She introduced them too early IMO. Her smartest move was to push the best gerrymander's at the end such as by MALDEF/Levin so the rest of the commission didn't really discuss it.

Atleast EQCA seems a touch more serious than LULAC's Colorado map with 0 hispanic districts.

[lfromnj]

I'm not on expert on the LGBT community in Long Beach and specific choices there for maps so I'm not going to defend or debate details.

Long Beach with OC beaches has long been discussed  as one of the hallmark moves for a commisionmander. Its harder to do it for the purpose of any racial diversity arguments as the city of long Beach is just evenly diverse but the OC beaches are quite white. Therefore you have to argue its for an LGBT purpose. It seems the commission  was not interested too much in that argument though. For someone wanting racial diversity Long Beach would obviously go with some very minority heavy areas of LA to preserve a Latino seat.

[lfromnj]

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