2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: California

[ProgressiveModerate]

Anyone knows what happens is hypothetically the commission can’t agree?

[ProgressiveModerate]

Steel might not have anything south of Huntington Beach. That makes it bluer.

I feel like when people say this they forget something gotta take in those red parts of OC along the cost CA-48 sheds

[ProgressiveModerate]

Lol I'm watching the commissioners application videos.

"Independent" Antonio Le Mons literaaly said: "But what I love about CA besides the weather is the diversity and progressive politics"

Remember, in order for a map to pass a majority of Republicans must agree though, and while you def have some Rs that are basically Ds (Jane Andersen) some actually seem like pretty genuine Rs.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Honestly CA is too large to properly analyze. At least in say TX you can kinda break it down to segments of defined urban areas but CA is one urban slew

[ProgressiveModerate]

Overall this seems like a pretty good map. It seems pretty fair from both a COI perspective and partisanship standpoint. A reminder this is still a really early map just to give us a general idea; I bet a lot of issues that have been continually brought up about things such as Sacramento being laid out weird will come to the Commission's attention.

While some of the SoCal districts visually look ugly, you have to remember SoCal geography is kinda weird because you got really dense urban areas next to mountains where no one lives, meaning in some of these districts it's really just attached mountains causing most of the ugliness. Some of it is also to maximize minority representation too.

Also nice to see this Commission unanimously agreed to this map at least to start; it hasn't become a partisan mess.

Atlas just needs to remember this is an Independent Commission, and doing things like Cracking Sants Anna to try and make more likely/safe D seats in SoCal is not their job, it's to make a fair map taht tries it's best to represent all communities in an incredibly complex state.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Anyone know why in the proposed CD map precinct splitting is insane despite the large population deviations? Why would the commissioners go out of their way to make mostly seemingly random precincts in a draft map when their population deviations are often p far off?

[ProgressiveModerate]

Anyone know why in the proposed CD map precinct splitting is insane despite the large population deviations? Why would the commissioners go out of their way to make mostly seemingly random precincts in a draft map when their population deviations are often p far off?

Precincts seem to be nice and square, city lines on the other hand.

But I mean it’s not even like the precinct splits follow any sort of city or obvious road lines in a lot of cases. If you want an example look at the Fresno Clovis part of CA-23 where it borders the new 22. It just seems so random

As you’ve said California precincts are generally nice to work with too, with a few exception of the geographically large mountain precincts next to or in more developed areas, this isn’t a case where precincts splitting is even a must (unlike say Hamilton County Ohio)

[ProgressiveModerate]

Uh I wouldn’t exactly call Kim’s district a GOP vote sink; looks like it only went to Trump by 5 or so. Steele’s looks like Biden + 4ish and Porter like Biden + 14 or smtg

[ProgressiveModerate]

That Corona district looks like a child scribbled a blob.

I think they’re trying to create a COI which doesn’t really exist in this case causing that district to kinda become leftovers. SoCal is not an easy place to redistrict but they seriously need to fix that up

[ProgressiveModerate]

Honestly I feel like the way things are going whoever gets the “favorable” SoCal California configuration is left up to luck as the commission seems to change their minds every 5 minutes

[ProgressiveModerate]

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.

More than just her. Check out some of the others, for instance:

Isra is currently a Senior Research Evaluation Specialist with Santa Clara County’s Division of Equity and Social Justice. In this role, she leads the intersectional research efforts across the 7 different offices within the Division: Offices of Women’s Policy, Immigrant Relations, Cultural Competency, Labor Standard Enforcement, LGBTQ Affairs, 2020 Census and Gender-Based Violence Prevention. Previously, Isra served as the lead evaluator for the County’s Tobacco Control Program. She has worked for over 9 years in the community organizing, research and policy, to address the inequities related to adverse health impacts from tobacco products in a variety of places including, California Youth Advocacy Network, Stanford Prevention Research Center, Tobacco Related Disease Research Program at the University of California Office of the President, The Truth Initiative and her academic alma maters. Isra earned her A.A. from De Anza Community College, her B.S. in Health Science from San José State University, and her Masters in Public Health in Epidemiology/Biostatistics from U.C. Berkeley. In her free time, Isra enjoys hiking and spending time with her family and friends. She is registered to vote as No Party Preference and lives in San José.

A "independent" who works for the Santa Clara County Division of Equity and Social Justice

Linda Akutagawa is President and CEO of LEAP (Leadership Education for Asian Pacifics). A passionate social entrepreneur for over 25 years and beneficiary of LEAP’s leadership programming, she is a believer in the value, and urgent need, for diverse, equitable, and inclusive leadership. Through LEAP, Linda has dedicated herself to continuing the cycle of leadership development and inspiring Asian and Pacific Islanders to step up to leadership roles across sectors, industries, and communities.

She is the Chair of the Alliance for Board Diversity and an appointed member of the California Department of Insurance Diversity Task Force. She is also a member of the Asian/Asian American Institute Advisory Board at California State University at Los Angeles as well as a Board member of the Asian Pacific Planning and Policy Council.

She’s a nationally recognized speaker and facilitator on leadership, diversity, equity, and inclusion, nonprofits, and board governance. Linda received her B.S. in International Business with a minor in Economics from California State University at Los Angeles. She has a Certificate in Nonprofit Board Consulting through Boardsource. She is married and a furmom to her cockapoo and aunty to eleven nephews and nieces. She is registered as No Party Preference.

Another "independent" who leads the "Alliance for Board Diversity" and is a member of a state diversity task force.

A century ago, Dr. Yee’s ancestors left southern China for “Gum Saan” (“Gold Mountain”). They settled in Oakland, where his parents and then he and his brothers were all born and raised.

He graduated from Oakland High School, UC Berkeley (BS), Dallas Theological Seminary (ThM), and the Graduate Theological Union (PhD), where his research focused on sociolinguistic aspects of liturgical and free worship. He has taught mostly for Fuller Theological Seminary and especially enjoys teaching his class on Oakland for St. Mary’s College.

He’s the author of Worship on the Way (2012), which explores worship in Asian and South East Asian North American churches. He pastored a church for ten years and is active in his present multicultural church community, which wrestles tangibly with matters of social justice, class & race, cultural contextualization, community redevelopment, crime & safety, recovery, re-entry, and homelessness.

He’s a longtime history docent at the Oakland Museum of California, with a special interest in the state’s indigenous peoples. He was the first board secretary for Habitat for Humanity East Bay (now East Bay/Silicon Valley). An avid marathon runner, he volunteers with Running for a Better Oakland, a youth sports and scholarship program.

He lives in Oakland with his wife, Dr. Lisa Yee, who is a physician at a community health center. He is registered with the Republican Party.

A "Republican" who "wrestles tangibly with matters of social justice, class & race, cultural contextualization, community redevelopment, crime & safety, recovery, re-entry, and homelessness."

Oh, and fun follow-up: Sadhwani literally has Latinx in her bio

Sara Sadhwani is an assistant professor of politics at Pomona College specializing in American politics, racial and ethnic politics, and public policy. Her research has been published in the peer reviewed journals such as the Journal of Politics, Political Behavior, California Journal of Politics and Policy, and Politics, Groups, and Identities. Her analysis of Asian American and Latinx voting behavior in California elections has been featured in the Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Vox, NBC News, HuffPost and many others.

I intentionally didn't mention any of the Democrats here but when 2 of your independents are openly very left wing and one of your Republicans is clearly a Republican-In-Name-Only it should be no surprise that the commission is drawing maps like this.

If the commission actually wanted to draw a D gerrymander, then they wouldn't be leaving Issa in a winnable seat and moving Porter's seat well to the right.

I mean I don't think they're drawing a crazy map or anything but giving Porter a Biden +11 seat that she may lose anyway doesn't mean it's a fair map just because that seat might vote red in 2022. The commission is cutting an R seat in Fresno, cutting an R seat in Northern LA (admittedly, the Northern LA thing is a lot more justifiable), and turning a red district into a purple swinging left seat in Riverside. In other words, they're taking a 41-7-5 map and turning it into a 43-6-3. Now, admittedly, Republicans might still win some of those 43 blue seats in 2022 -- ie, SAVANAANA and NOCOAST, and SAVANAANA I could see getting redder by the end of the decade, but this is definitely a D leaning map.

I would argue though at least 1 of CA-42 and CA-50 was gonna have to get bluer since they both shared basically all of the reddest parts of SoCal.

As for CA-22 that seems to be more from the lens of VRA than partisanship. A good chunk of blue but non hispanic Fresno is thrown into CA-23.

Also the added 4th seat in NoCal is R leaning at least to start, so you still have 5 non-so cal R leaning rural seats. Seems like the map will go from 46Biden-7Trump to 45-7 depending upon what happens with the CA-42 replacement which is currently a mess

I don’t think the commissioners are even allowed to look at partisanship data.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Yikes.

On the bright side it seems like CA-22 was cleaned up a bit with negligible change in partisanship

[ProgressiveModerate]

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

[ProgressiveModerate]

If Republicans continue improving with the Hispanic vote, couldn't this map have like 20 R's by the end of the decade?

That would require the GOP to hold all remotely close suburban seats and start outright winning hispanic communities in urban areas which seems unlikely. Seats like 9, 13, 22 and 25 could fall but beyond that you’re stretching luck. 15 or 16 Rs would be the very max I could see

[ProgressiveModerate]

What’s the number of the Long Beach/Downey district?

Biden + 45.8

[ProgressiveModerate]

What’s the number of the Long Beach/Downey district?

Biden + 45.8

I meant the district number.

42

[ProgressiveModerate]

Here's my submission for a CA map that generally follows the commission while cleaning things up a lot.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/4bc23294-5049-4416-b503-27314060e423

Topline partisanship is simillar but quite a few districts change pretty significantly; namely central valley seats get redder, and some seats switch around a bit in SoCal. Really annoys me how messy much of the final map is; much of it might look gerrymandered to an outsider even though it's not and in urban areas they don't follow key highways or rivers but just do really jaggedy lines. They also took minority rights a bit too extremely in some places while still not applying that principle universally.

At the core I really don't think the commission's map is pretty good, it's just really rough around the edges and they really needed more time.

Below is shaded by 2020 Pres.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Question; do districts know North LA purposely take in a bit of rurals to the north just to keep the number of the districts the same as previously? All the districts have like half a precinct of rurals attached to an otherwise urban district when that seems a bit unnecessary and honestly they seem a bit random.

Also can anyone decipher the reasoning for what the commission did in San Jose? To me it looks terrible and like something a baby would draw.

And finally what was the logic behind CA-41? It seems like quite an odd marriage and a bit of a leftovers district. And yet they kept it nearly the same from the draft plan indicating they liked the district from the beginning as many others changed quite dramatically. Who’s idea was it to pair Palm Springs with Corona?

[ProgressiveModerate]

Anyone else like the orginal draft map much better than the final map? It just seems a lot cleaner and the districts make more sense. Like just look at how much better San Jose is?

[ProgressiveModerate]

Have been playing with a California map again and it seems like the crucial issue which a lot of SoCal comes down to is where you'll cross over into LA County from the Inland Empire. Is this district worth drawing? It's not too hard to do but basically forces an Inland Empire crossover in far north LA county.

What exactly is the COI of this district? Not rlly an expert on Cali geography tbh, but I’m not rlly grasping it.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Snip

That border between 23 and 24 is rally satisfying.

On a more serious note though, i like this map overall from a variety of perspectives.

At first I thought the Sacramento config was weird but now that I look at it, all 3 districts have clear purpose. In a fair map, Sacramento should get 3 seats because 2 seats leaves leftover suburbs and as we know the commission did a weird pairing of outer Sacramento suburbs/exurbs with Lake Tahoe and Inyo County.

For the Central Valley, I don't understand why no one ever does a True Fresno/Clovis seat? The communities are very interconnected and even if it technically dips below 50% Hispanic CVAP, it would still be functionally Hispanic given how R whites in Clovis are.

The sorting between 22 and 23 is also a bit too much for my liking, but def better than what the commission did.

In the Bay Area, you did a good job at using County lines to guide the districts which actually nest quite nicely. Also thank you for not butchering apart San Jose in the name of "minority opportunity" like the commission did.

The split of Oxnard isn't great and while it looks funny, the Kern County portion of CA-24 doesn't make much sense. If possible, I would try and find a way to shift CA-31 northwards to take in all of Oxnard, CA-25 then shifts to take in SLO, and CA-20 can also shift up a little bit. Tbf it would force a slight redo of the bay area but I think it's doable.

I like the LA area config quite a bit. To me 33 seems like a bit much to get the extra Asian population. I would just have 33 take in El Monte which still has a decent Asian population and should make it Asian functional.

Some may try and argue 40 is an illegal Hispanic pack but I think trying to bacon strip out LA is a bit ridiculous so I think it's fine. It also means Long Beach actually gets it's own clear seat.

In OC, I think pairing Garden Grove with the coast is a mistake because it essentially splits OC's Asian community down the middle. CA-45 on the commission map is actually quite a good seat if it were just cleaned up a bit because it represents a lot of these first/second generation Asian communities which are geopolitically unique. Yeah, it sucks to pair Irvine with Newport beach ig, but I thought overall the commission handled OC quite well.

Also thank you for not doing whatever tf that CA-41 the commission drew was, and giving Palm Springs/Palm Desert/Indio it's own seat.

I'm not a huge fan of district 5. Firstly, it spans just way too far, connecting the heavily Hispanic communities along the southern border with ski communities like Inyo. And secondly, it sort of dilutes the point of a Hispanic seat if it's just barely over 50% Hispanic and also leans R.

Overall very good job.

[ProgressiveModerate]

What are the odds depending upon SCOTUS rulings that California could be redrawn?

Couldn’t Dems put something on the ballot saying “Maps across the nation weaken our voice as a Dem heavy state - allowing us to draw maps that make our voice equal would help”

A potential California gerrymander would be a flip of around 16 seats. Making the map Dem friendly or fair at worst

If as part of ISL SCOTUS dimantles commissions, the Cali commission would be one of the first to go since it entirely cuts out the legislature’s participation.

I guess in theory a ballot initiative undoing the commission could happen, but it would be phrased differently

[ProgressiveModerate]

What are the odds depending upon SCOTUS rulings that California could be redrawn?

Couldn’t Dems put something on the ballot saying “Maps across the nation weaken our voice as a Dem heavy state - allowing us to draw maps that make our voice equal would help”

A potential California gerrymander would be a flip of around 16 seats. Making the map Dem friendly or fair at worst

If as part of ISL SCOTUS dimantles commissions, the Cali commission would be one of the first to go since it entirely cuts out the legislature’s participation.

I guess in theory a ballot initiative undoing the commission could happen, but it would be phrased differently

Yes, if an ISL decision reaches redistricting commissions (I still doubt this), it would pose the greatest danger to AZ/CA/CO/HI/ID/MI/MT because legislators are not on the commission.  This list is extremely favorable to Democrats.

Those with a legislative override (IA/NY/UT) are somewhat safer from SCOTUS.

The commissions with legislators on them (OH/NJ/VA/WA) are probably going to be fine.

CA and MI are the 2 where I think the legislature is the most removed from the process. Technically one could argue that in AZ at least the leaders get to each appoint a commissioner and such whereas CA and MI are literally just "ordinary" folks.