2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: California

[Sol]

There's been a lot of discussion about SoCal, but I've been playing around a bit with Northern California on a 52-district map and I was wondering if folks had any input.

I've been particularly struggling with the configuration of CA-02. The current district stretches from Del Norte County to Marin, with a chomp out of Sonoma around Santa Rosa. It seems to me that Marin, as a Bay Area suburban county, might be better suited to be excised from a North Coast district. I've been playing with a map which does that, but I've found figuring out what to do with the rest of Marin difficult. Getting the remainder of Sonoma and Napa seem pretty intuitive, but getting the rest of the population is hard. Jumping over to SF is very ugly, but putting any of Solano into it also seems like a bad CoI since Vallejo is pretty different in terms of class, race, etc. and the rest of the county is more remote from the Bay Area.

Input is much appreciated as I do not know California well at all!

[Sol]

My preference on that alignment is to draw one district that is Marin and enough of Sonoma to reach a full district, then another district that is the Coast region, the rest of Sonoma, all of Napa and maybe extending to inland Solano (I don't recall exactly what is needed to reach full population). I think that respects communities of interest better than the current map, keeping one district that is wealthy SF suburbs and one district that is clearly rural/remote areas. That is, you start with drawing the Marin-Sonoma district and then you draw the Coast district around it.

I also think Siskiyou could plausibly be put into the Coast district without issue. It's mountainous and not agricultural at all (more of a logging/fishing/hunting/tourism-type area, like the Northern Coast), thus very different from Redding and points south and fits as well into the Northern Coast COI as it does into the Northern Central Valley COI.

Doesn't that kind of cut weirdly across the terrain though? IIRC it does need a good bit of population, even if you have fairly generous allocations up north. (i.e. Trinity and Del Norte in the district)

[Sol]

Edit: Here is what I would do with the six districts of Northern California on a 52-seat map:

https://davesredistricting.org/join/79e296df-a40b-404d-9e42-fdf67d0652fc

Very nice map!

Wrt: the Sacramento issue, you could probably just add West Sacramento into the 5th and then take the 3rd deeper into Sacramento County suburbs no?

[Sol]

I did Lake Elsinore. Where should I start in San Diego County?

Why not decide for yourself? There is is a lot of information on the net, not to mention in the archives of the forum. The 2010 redistricting threads are a good resource.

[Sol]

Are those districts equally populated?

[Sol]

How can I do San Diego similarly to one of these? I need help here.




This is what I have for San Diego.

You can do it!

[Sol]

How should I do San Diego? I only really know how to do the VRA district.



I have Huntington Beach and OC VRA.



Victor Valley and Central Valley. Should I pair Inyo and Mono with San Bernardino or Kern?

I think drawing a map and posting it for discussion is usually a lot more useful and helpful than constantly posting cries for help on how to draw districts. You can look at other folks' maps which you like if you need guidance, but spamming like this isn't useful. Sorry to be rude.

[Sol]

Have been playing a little bit with California. Gotta say, redrawing CA is pretty intensive--so apologies if this isn't up to par. Just have NorCal, the Bay, and the Valley done thus far. link







CA-17, CA-22 are majority Latino by CVAP, while CA-21 is majority Latino (but not by CVAP).

CA-16 and CA-15/CA-19 are majority and plurality Asian, respectively.

CA-10 and CA-11 are both plurality Latino. You could just as easily switch turf between the two to create a Latino influence district but it probably wouldn't (?) be fully performing due to CVAP disparities.

[Sol]

Here's an improved version.

[Sol]

I'm fairly certain that you're Central Valley alignment is in violation of the VRA, and I'm not sure what's going on up in Sacramento...

I can trade territory in Bakersfield in exchange for Tulare if you're not happy with the amount of Latino control in 22, though it is majority Latino by CVAP.

I split Placer/Nevada/El Dorado because the population map is such that there has to be a split, and I figured I ought to keep the Lake Tahoe area in one seat and Sacramento exurbs in the other.

Why start at the bottom?

[Sol]

Starting from the bottom gives you more control over your VRA districts.

How so? I'm not sure I understand.

What's the problem with the yellow seat? It's Sacramento suburbia+Davis basically, and Davis is kind of already in the Sacramento sphere of influence.

[Sol]

Starting from the bottom gives you more control over your VRA districts.

How so? I'm not sure I understand.

What's the problem with the yellow seat? It's Sacramento suburbia+Davis basically, and Davis is kind of already in the Sacramento sphere of influence.

My problem with it is largely just the shape, i.e. non-compactness.

Anyway, by starting from the top you've locked some areas off. For example, you're district 8 may eat too deep into the IE, putting stress on the Latino districts. By only having room to push east or south from LA, you may end up with districts that are leftover scraps instead of CoIs after you draw the VRA districts. So that's why I prefer to start from the bottom.

I mean, that 8th is basically a miniscule number of people--I could transfer it to the 3rd pretty easily if necessary, and take the excess off of either the 23rd or 21st.

[Sol]

Wrt: the yellow district, is it ok to not have an Asian seat in San Jose? The Green district is only plurality. I know the California metrics are pretty aggressive about making minority districts. (FYI, it's very hard to make a majority asian Green district without some population shifted out of the central valley.)

The other points are well taken and I'll shift the districts--though unfortunately in the case of the Salinas district that probably means it will no longer be majority Latino.

I'll be happy if I never have to look at Contra Costa County ever again--it seems like every precinct splits three cities and has an ugly shape.

[Sol]

Here's what I've been playing with--the tricky thing then is that it requires a massive chop of Kern, but that seems ok?

[Sol]

Here's what I've been playing with--the tricky thing then is that it requires a massive chop of Kern, but that seems ok?

The chop of Kern isn't a problem at all and something like it is usually demanded for VRA purposes. Some of your other lines, however, are a bit wacky.

Just to clarify--wrt: Kern I'm not talking about the split of Bakersfield, but slicing off the eastern and southern portions.

Which lines do you have an issue with, btw? I'm not a huge fan of my 18/21 line of course (though it's probably necessary for the VRA?) and the split of Santa Barbara is cruddy but probably necessary to avoid bad outcomes in the East Bay (and partly an effect of dumb precinct shapes).

[Sol]

CA really is the place where bad redistricting takes start to show. I'm still looking at that yellow sacramento district and asking myself who in their right mind thought this was okay. "Suburbs" are not a CoI; I don't know how many times this point needs reiterated.

lol

[Sol]

Here's what I've been playing with--the tricky thing then is that it requires a massive chop of Kern, but that seems ok?

The chop of Kern isn't a problem at all and something like it is usually demanded for VRA purposes. Some of your other lines, however, are a bit wacky.

Just to clarify--wrt: Kern I'm not talking about the split of Bakersfield, but slicing off the eastern and southern portions.

Which lines do you have an issue with, btw? I'm not a huge fan of my 18/21 line of course (though it's probably necessary for the VRA?) and the split of Santa Barbara is cruddy but probably necessary to avoid bad outcomes in the East Bay (and partly an effect of dumb precinct shapes).

Okay. There's nothing wrong with a tri-cut of Kern in principle--the part in the Mojave may as well be another county anyway--but I do find cutting the areas west of Mojave (Tehachapi, Maricopa, Taft, etc.) pretty awkward. Ideally, you'd move those into either CA-22 or CA-23. However, once you get into drawing Southern California, I think you may regret the tri-chop of Kern--not on fairness grounds, but because there's usually a half-district of population left over in the Antelope/Victor Valleys.

My biggest issues are with the Sacramento/Tahoe areas. Connecting Yolo County over to south/east Sacramento County is just awkward--especially since you can fit a suburban district in Sacramento County alone. Personally, I favor putting Yolo (and Colusa and Glenn) in with CA-01, giving Siskiyou to CA-02, and keeping all of Solano together.

Can that coincide with including West Sacramento in with Sacramento? It seems like a no-brainer to put the two together on CoI grounds.

Not really sure why it's preferable to go over the mountains to scoop up Glenn/Yolo/Colusa rather than Solano/Siskiyou.

[Sol]

Wrt: the yellow district, is it ok to not have an Asian seat in San Jose? The Green district is only plurality. I know the California metrics are pretty aggressive about making minority districts. (FYI, it's very hard to make a majority asian Green district without some population shifted out of the central valley.)

No, it's absolutely not ok. You don't have to have an Asian majority to create an Asian district though. Even in Orange County, your Hispanic district there will only be around 48% by CVAP. However, you need to make major changes in the Central Valley to have a district that is VRA acceptable.

Have you looked at my updated map? The Kings-Tulare-Fresno-Kern County seat should be VRA compliant.

[Sol]

Here's what I've been playing with--the tricky thing then is that it requires a massive chop of Kern, but that seems ok?

The chop of Kern isn't a problem at all and something like it is usually demanded for VRA purposes. Some of your other lines, however, are a bit wacky.

Just to clarify--wrt: Kern I'm not talking about the split of Bakersfield, but slicing off the eastern and southern portions.

Which lines do you have an issue with, btw? I'm not a huge fan of my 18/21 line of course (though it's probably necessary for the VRA?) and the split of Santa Barbara is cruddy but probably necessary to avoid bad outcomes in the East Bay (and partly an effect of dumb precinct shapes).

Okay. There's nothing wrong with a tri-cut of Kern in principle--the part in the Mojave may as well be another county anyway--but I do find cutting the areas west of Mojave (Tehachapi, Maricopa, Taft, etc.) pretty awkward. Ideally, you'd move those into either CA-22 or CA-23. However, once you get into drawing Southern California, I think you may regret the tri-chop of Kern--not on fairness grounds, but because there's usually a half-district of population left over in the Antelope/Victor Valleys.

My biggest issues are with the Sacramento/Tahoe areas. Connecting Yolo County over to south/east Sacramento County is just awkward--especially since you can fit a suburban district in Sacramento County alone. Personally, I favor putting Yolo (and Colusa and Glenn) in with CA-01, giving Siskiyou to CA-02, and keeping all of Solano together.

Can that coincide with including West Sacramento in with Sacramento? It seems like a no-brainer to put the two together on CoI grounds.

Yes it can and you absolutely should do that. Especially since the rest of Yolo is disconnected and not really a part of metro Sacramento at all. Start by drawing six districts (North Coast-Yolo, Marin/Sonoma, Shasta-Sacramento Valley, City of Sacramento, Sacramento Suburbs, Sacramento Exurbs/Tahoe.) These should be easy to lock down because you'll never need them to trade population if you reconfigure the Bay/Central Valley/Southern California.

The North Coast+Yolo/Glenn/Colusa but without West Sacramento is pretty short on people, even if you add Siskiyou and the overflow from Sonoma.

[Sol]

Gotta say, having played with it--I don't think this makes sense. The North Coast is isolated enough that it has to go with an area which is fairly different--but that configuration basically forces you to deeply chop up the Northern Central Valley when it can easily fit in one seat.

[Sol]

I dunno, I'd still be worried about losing that district if I'm Ami Bera, given his rather corrupt track record and the tendency of affluent historically Republican suburbs to go back to their roots, as seen in Orange County last year.

[Sol]

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

link

[Sol]

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

[Sol]

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.

Does this make more sense?



Sorry about the North San Diego-El Cajon-East County thing, but it does make everything else very logical and tidy.

Also apologies to San Bernardino and the Victor Valley. Doesn't seem like there's a good place for the Victor Valley to go in general--too big for the Imperial County-Palm Springs-Mojave seat, most like the Antelope Valley but then prevents a really nice and attractive Antelope Valley and Santa Clarita seat.

[Sol]

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.

Does this make more sense?



Sorry about the North San Diego-El Cajon-East County thing, but it does make everything else very logical and tidy.

Also apologies to San Bernardino and the Victor Valley. Doesn't seem like there's a good place for the Victor Valley to go in general--too big for the Imperial County-Palm Springs-Mojave seat, most like the Antelope Valley but then prevents a really nice and attractive Antelope Valley and Santa Clarita seat.

The Riverside districts do look better, although I'd reiterate my suggestion to follow the highways, connecting eastern Riverside (and Temecula?) with Apple Valley feels very awkward, and what appears to be an attempt at drawing an Asian district linking Pasadena to Chino Hills is unnecessary and should be done more compactly--you can easily get around 44% just staying within the Western SGV.

What about this