US House Redistricting: California (user search)
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  US House Redistricting: California (search mode)
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jimrtex
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« on: November 23, 2010, 12:10:01 PM »

The SSP map in the OP link seems to focus too much on counties and compactness then it looks at partisan balance. I don't see any analysis of Hispanic representation. I think that may be more of a factor than many are giving thought towards. When I looked this summer using criteria from the commission I found that I could create 18 Hispanic-majority districts, 15 of which exceeded 60% Hispanic.

Maybe the Obama DOJ won't insist so much in California if there is a better chance for the Democrats to score gains without too many VRA districts.
If they want to appease Hispanics they can do that by demanding 3 new Hispanic majority districts in Texas and a second one in Arizona.

Well Arizona and Texas are actually pre-clearance states under the VRA. California isn't and the DOJ has basically no say there.
4 counties in California are pre-clearance jurisdictions, so California has to get preclearance for any change that affects those counties specifically or in general.  They have to still get preclearance to switch congressional redistricting placed under the jurisdiction of the redistricting commission, and will have to get preclearance for each redistricting plan.

Moreover, anybody can challenge a redistricting plan under Section 2 of the VRA.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #1 on: February 15, 2011, 03:20:18 PM »

One needs to start at the Mexican border and move north to do this map stuff. That will tell you exactly how much of OC will go to a CD that is also in San Diego County. The Commission is just not going to do that ridiculous appending of Imperial County to San Diego. That is DOA - especially since an Hispanic CD can be carved out of south San Diego, and another inland taking in Imperial County. And it makes no sense for CA-49 to go into Riverside County, given the Coachella Valley chop that is necessary to create an Hispanic CD, an Hispanic CD that might well be dictated by the VRA in fact.

If you do a subapportionment, it will be easier when going north and west from LA and San Bernadino:

Based on July 2009 estimates:

San Francisco Bay: 10.011 (8 counties, including Solano and Sonoma, but not Napa).  You can start at the Golden Gate and go CCW.

Far North: 1.010 (Colusa, Del Norte, Glenn, Humboldt, Lake, Lassen, Mendocino, Modoc, Shasta, Siskiyou, Tehama, Trinity)

North Valley: 1.033 (Butte, Napa, Sutter, Yolo, Yuba)

North Mountains: 0.984 (Amador, El Dorado, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, Sierra)

Sacramento: 2.009

San Joaquin: 0.968

Total to here is 16.015

Central Coast: 2.001 (Santa Cruz to Santa Barbara, including San Benito).

Modesto-Merced: 1.084 (Merced, Stanislaus)

Central Valley: 1.912 (Alpine, Calaveras, Fresno, Kings, Madera, Mariposa, Tuolumne)

These two will need to be handled together.   You could split between Modesto and Merced, but you would have to come pretty far south (to Madera) to get enough population, so it will be better to trim off some more remote areas of Merced and or Stanislaus).  You can draw a district right around Fresno (city), so you end up with a leftovers district.  If the commission decides to draw a Hispanic majority district, then you just draw the other two districts with what is left.  But I'm not sure that they will, since you still have large numbers of Hispanics in the "white" districts.

Total to here: 21.012

Central Leftovers: 1.817 (Inyo, Kern, Mono, Tulare)

Total to here: 22,829.

Lancaster and Palmdale together are too large to make up the deficit to get to 23 seats, so they either get split, or you try to piece together 120,000 people from the desert areas of San Bernadino Riverside, but there may not be enough population.  Kern has enough for its own district, but Tulare has enough for 3/5 of a district.  So Kern may get chopped up, but this could end up being in Bakersfield.  Or you end up with Visalia in a district with 29 Palms and Barstow.

Southern Coast: 23.992 (Ventura to San Diego). 

Incidentally, this is a loss of almost one whole district.

Ventura: 1.151
Los Angeles: 14.121
Orange: 4.340
San Diego: 4.379

So the LA-Orange district is about 1/4 in LA and the Orange-San Diego district is 3/5 in Orange.

Inland Empire: 6.180 (includes Imperial).

If the excess goes to Kern, then this is 6 districts, and would argue against significant border crossings between Los Angles-San Bernardino; Orange-Riverside; or San Diego-Riverside.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #2 on: February 15, 2011, 03:33:47 PM »

Why shouldn't Imperial County be appended to San Diego County?  It would seem to have very little in common with the Palm Springs area and more major transportation ties to San Diego County.  Does the new California law require racist gerrymandering be considered before all other considerations be taken into account?
Salton Sea is partially in Riverside County, and runs directly into Coachella Valley.

That direct transportation link takes you into El Cajon which means that you end up with Imperial in a suburban San Diego district.  You can't actually get from Imperial County to Chula Vista except by using the road along the border fence.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #3 on: February 15, 2011, 10:23:53 PM »

I think it might be better to give Napa County to the north coast district and give Glenn, Colusa, Tehama, Lassen and Modoc Counties to the north valley district. Or give Lassen and Modoc to the mountain district, and try to equalize population in the valley.

Just drew it. The north valley district lacks just 6,000 people, which it can get by dipping into some farmland or small town in a neighboring county.
I started out using the regions that the audit board had used in selecting members of the redistricting commission, which includes, Sonoma, Napa, and Solano.  It turned out that Napa had the right population to get the Bay Area to 10 seats.  It also happens that Sonoma-Marin is pretty close to the right size (a little high, so you can take a little excess and add it to Solano, and not really bypass Napa.

I'm pretty sure that I had Napa in a north coast district, and then moved it out.  I'm pretty sure that it has to do with Sacramento being perfect for 2 districts, and the foothill district which is really a Sacramento suburban district not having to come so far north.  It was probably when I realized that Yolo bordered on Napa that I decided that it wasn't too horrible.

So it was definitely a shift I made later on.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #4 on: February 15, 2011, 10:39:28 PM »

You have to consider how surrounding counties will be affected, too. Most notably, Marin and Sonoma Counties are more than one district together but are isolated from the rest of the state by your map. (I seriously doubt they would be connected across bridges to SF or Richmond.)
But not very much (legislative district close). 

Solano and Contra Costa together have enough for about 2 districts, a little more.  I'd probably start in the east of Contra Costa, and then include a narrow connector to get to the bridges to Vallejo.  The whole district in Contra Costa might be kind of ugly going from Richmond inland.  And they might ignore counties at the point, so you could have two districts crossing between Alameda and Contra Costa.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #5 on: February 15, 2011, 10:50:17 PM »

A district from San Francisco would only need to pick up about 25,000 people from Marin. Sausalito, Tiburon and Marin City would be the only Marin cities in that district.
That might work.  I had originally not considered going across the Golden Gate, because most of the population in Marin is further north, in the San Rafael area.  My thinking was that the only population near the bridge is in Sausalito and Tiburon and the like.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #6 on: March 08, 2011, 11:54:13 PM »

These are updated based on the 2010 censuses.  I did not adjust the districts from my original distribution.  The 2010 census pushes the population more to the east, even relative to the 2009 estimates.

One needs to start at the Mexican border and move north to do this map stuff. That will tell you exactly how much of OC will go to a CD that is also in San Diego County. The Commission is just not going to do that ridiculous appending of Imperial County to San Diego. That is DOA - especially since an Hispanic CD can be carved out of south San Diego, and another inland taking in Imperial County. And it makes no sense for CA-49 to go into Riverside County, given the Coachella Valley chop that is necessary to create an Hispanic CD, an Hispanic CD that might well be dictated by the VRA in fact.

If you do a subapportionment, it will be easier when going north and west from LA and San Bernadino:

Based on July 2009 estimates:

San Francisco Bay: 10.011 (8 counties, including Solano and Sonoma, but not Napa).  You can start at the Golden Gate and go CCW.

2010: 9.979 the deficit of about 15,000 can be made up from northern California, north of Sacramento.  The Bay Area + 23 counties including Napa is equivalent to 12.9993 districts.

Starting at the Presidio:

The ideal population is 702,905, so figure 10% equals 70,000 and 1% equals 7,000.

San Francisco: 1.000
San Francisco: 0.146 + San Mateo 0.854
San Mateo: 0.166 + Santa Clara 0.834
(San Mateo is at 1.022, but to create its own district you would have to push about 100,000 San Franciscans across a bridge.  The northern and southern ends of San Mateo are probably more closely tied to San Francisco and San Jose than to each other, so the split is OK).
Santa Clara 1.000
Santa Clara 0.701, Alameda 0.299
(Or you could create two whole districts in Santa Clara and wrap a district around the southern tip of the bay: San Mateo 0.166, Santa Clara 0.535, Alameda 0.299).
Alameda 1.000
Alameda 0.850, Contra Costa 0.150
Contra Costa 1.000
Contra Costa 0.342 + Solano 0.589 + Napa(?) 0.021 + Sonoma 0.048
(the portion of Contra Costa that is placed in the Solano-majority district around 240,000 people would best come from areas south of the bridges near Vallejo.  So it could make sense to not have an eastern district entirely in Contra Costa, but have it come further south in the inland area of Alameda County (Livermore, etc.), which would push the other Alameda-Contra district further north.  Basically, choose the Contra Costa portion that goes with Solano; put the area along the coast through Richmond with a Berkeley, Oakland district, and the area to east (Walnut Creek, etc., extend south into Alameda County).
Sonoma 0.640, Marin 0.359

Far North: 1.010 (Colusa, Del Norte, Glenn, Humboldt, Lake, Lassen, Mendocino, Modoc, Shasta, Siskiyou, Tehama, Trinity)

2010: 1.009

North Valley: 1.033 (Butte, Napa, Sutter, Yolo, Yuba)

2010: 1.030 (or 1.009 if Bay Area deficit is made up in Napa).

North Mountains: 0.984 (Amador, El Dorado, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, Sierra)

2010: 0.981

As discussed before, this could be rearranged to create a North Coast district, but overall the northern counties have a collective 3 districts.

Sacramento: 2.009

2010: 2.018

San Joaquin: 0.968

2010: 0.975

Sacramento and San Joaquin collectively are at 2.993

Total to here is 16.015

2010: 15.993

Central Coast: 2.001 (Santa Cruz to Santa Barbara, including San Benito).

2010: 2.029 (most of this is in Santa Barbara which was 3.4% over the 2010 estimate)

The split here would be just north of the Montery-SLO line, so basically a Monterey-Santa Cruz-San Benito district, and a Santa Barbara-San Luis Obispo district.

Modesto-Merced: 1.084 (Merced, Stanislaus)

2010: 1.096

Central Valley: 1.912 (Alpine, Calaveras, Fresno, Kings, Madera, Mariposa, Tuolumne)

2010: 1.927

These two will need to be handled together.   You could split between Modesto and Merced, but you would have to come pretty far south (to Madera) to get enough population, so it will be better to trim off some more remote areas of Merced and or Stanislaus).  You can draw a district right around Fresno (city), so you end up with a leftovers district.  If the commission decides to draw a Hispanic majority district, then you just draw the other two districts with what is left.  But I'm not sure that they will, since you still have large numbers of Hispanics in the "white" districts.

Total to here: 21.012

2010: 19.016 (but I left out the Central Coast, where the extra 20,000 or so can be taken from Santa Barbara and placed

Central Leftovers: 1.817 (Inyo, Kern, Mono, Tulare)

2010: 1.870 (Kern is up 3.2% over 2009 estimate)

Total to here: 22,829.

Total to here 20.886 (excluding Central Coast).

Lancaster and Palmdale together are too large to make up the deficit to get to 23 seats, so they either get split, or you try to piece together 120,000 people from the desert areas of San Bernadino Riverside, but there may not be enough population.  Kern has enough for its own district, but Tulare has enough for 3/5 of a district.  So Kern may get chopped up, but this could end up being in Bakersfield.  Or you end up with Visalia in a district with 29 Palms and Barstow.

2010: We are now only 80,000 short of the 21st  district, which can probably be picked up in the desert portions of San Bernardino, rather than the more populated areas of the Los Angeles High Desert (it may come down to how close you can come to creating a northern LA district (Santa Clarita, Palmdale, Lancaster, without dipping into the San Fernando Valley).

Southern Coast: 23.992 (Ventura to San Diego). 

2010: 23.826 (Los Angeles was 1.1% below the 2009 estimate, and Orange 1.4%, while Ventura and San Diego were up.  These weren't entirely due to bad estimates, since Los Angeles had already lost 0.774 seats from 2000 to 2009, so about 1/2 of the loss would just be a continuation of earlier trends.  With the continued loss in this area, we will need to make up about 100,000 additional persons, probably from San Bernardino (Ontario area).

Incidentally, this is a loss of almost one whole district.

Ventura: 1.151
Los Angeles: 14.121
Orange: 4.340
San Diego: 4.379

2010:

Santa Barbara: 0.029 (excess from Central Coast)
Ventura: 1.171
Los Angeles: 13.969
Orange: 4.283
San Diego: 4.404

So the LA-Orange district is about 1/4 in LA and the Orange-San Diego district is 3/5 in Orange.

2010: It is now 0.313 LA-0.687 Orange and 0.596 Orange-San Diego 0.404

Inland Empire: 6.180 (includes Imperial).

2010: 6.259

If the excess goes to Kern, then this is 6 districts, and would argue against significant border crossings between Los Angles-San Bernardino; Orange-Riverside; or San Diego-Riverside.

2010:  This is a significant excess, which would require some population going across the Los Angeles-San Bernardino line:

Alternatively, the excess is almost identical to the population of Imperial (0.248).  In addition, Riverside (3.115) and San Bernardino (2.895) are reasonably close to 3 districts each.  If one were wanting to roughly respect county boundaries, Imperial-San Diego-Orange (8.935), and Riverside-San Bernardino (6.010) are a better match.  

If you get the extra needed for a Kern County district from San Bernardino, then you would have to come across the Los Angeles-San Bernardino to include Pomona.

If I were advising a redistricting commission, I'd try both routes, placing Imperial with San Diego and Riverside, and drawing two sets of districts.  So you would have one path of districts coming up the coast, and another inland.  To see the full impact the two paths would continue into Los Angeles County (everything east of the city of Los Angeles).   And then choose the overall best alignment.  Whether Imperial County is a better fit with San Ysidro and Chula Vista or the Coachella Valley and Mareno Valley, or even a bad socioeconomic fit with El Cajon should not dictate the placement of 20+ districts in southern California.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #7 on: April 29, 2011, 01:37:52 AM »

VRA is a form of gerrymandering and should be abolished.

It restricts other forms of gerrymandering.

LOL
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jimrtex
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« Reply #8 on: June 06, 2011, 08:48:43 PM »

These maps look very odd to me, almost shocking. What on earth are they doing?

It was pretty obvious based on the commission makeup that race would be an important factor in drawing districts.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #9 on: June 12, 2011, 08:01:35 PM »

I like the fact that there are no numbers. It takes away from the idea that a particular district belongs to a particular incumbent.
I doubt they'll stay unnumbered. Unless that was part of the legislation? Anyways, unless they massively rename districts in 2020, this is a one-off effect.
The constitution dictates north to south numbering, but there are lots of ways to wander back and forth from inland to the coast.  They could also just go with the latitude of the center of population.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #10 on: July 18, 2011, 05:15:04 PM »

Previous redistricting maps were overturned in referendum.

500,000 signatures in 90 days would appear feasible.

If the petition drive is completed, then the plan is not implemented until after the next statewide election, the 2012 primary (unless the governor calls a special election).

The last time this happened, the legislative districts were conducted on existing boundaries, congressional elections were conducted based on the boundaries approved by the legislature, but that was only because the number of representatives had changed.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #11 on: July 18, 2011, 06:40:54 PM »


What does the legislature or governor have to do with redistricting in California?
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jimrtex
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« Reply #12 on: July 29, 2011, 10:07:20 PM »


One theme of the map overall it seems to me, is that it is very SES based. It is almost as if certain districts were drawn to maximize their median income. The CD that Silverlake was put in, for example, is part of another quite high income CD, that takes in Los Feliz, and then a very high income bit of Pasadena, and wealthy La Canada/Flintridge,  along with middle class (overall) Glendale and a bit of Burbank, and La Crescenta, and so forth. These CD's 40 years ago would have been Pubbie!  Smiley  My little CD hugging the coast of Orange County is probably one of the most wealthy in the nation.

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jimrtex
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« Reply #13 on: July 31, 2011, 01:04:51 AM »
« Edited: July 31, 2011, 01:46:25 AM by jimrtex »

The primary is now like Louisiana's, everyone runs on the same ticket and the top two advance. There will be several same party general election matchups.
Cajunifornia? Cool

Louisiana doesn't have such primaries anymore, though. (Also, I assume you'll have a top two G.E. even if the first received a majority of the vote?)
Louisiana calls their first election the open primary, even though it is actually the general election, with a runoff.  They have switched back to the open primary for federal elections starting with 2012 (and any specials before then).

California will always have the Top 2 general election, since otherwise they would have to have the first round in November.

The last few special elections have been conducted using the same system, but it doesn't look that much different than the old special election system.  The old system was actually a blanket primary where the voters were choosing the nominees of each party, even though voters could vote for any candidate in the special primary.  If a candidate got the majority of the primary vote, they were elected, and the same would happen if all candidates were from the same party.  Otherwise the top votegetter in each party and any independents would advance to the special general election, where no majority was needed.

Now the special general will be a runoff between the top  regardless of party, unless there is a majority winner in the special primary.  In other words the same as special elections in Texas.

California is switching their presidential primary back to June, so it will be coincident with the first open primary.  The presidential primary will still be limited to party voters, unless each party opens it up to non-affiliated voters.  Because the Democratic presidential race will be non-competitive, and the Republican presidential race will probably be over several months earlier, the turnout could be really poor, which could make any races with paired candidates pretty interesting.

BTW, Edwin Edwards got married again this weekend.


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jimrtex
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« Reply #14 on: July 31, 2011, 01:45:34 AM »

One would hope they do that in Louisiana as well, it solves the constitutional issue. I guess not, though?
The constitutional issue was the date of the election.  Congress has set the election date for congressional elections to the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.

Louisiana has traditionally held their elections on a Saturday in mid-October, besides having state and legislative elections in odd years.  So they set the runoff for statewide elections in mid-November.

For congressional elections they set the primary for early October, with the runoff, if needed, on federal election day, when there could also be a presidential election.  But if no runoff was needed, the winner was formally considered elected - prior to the date set for election by be Congress.  And usually, there was no congressional runoffs.  In Foster v Love, the US Supreme Court held that Louisiana could not have a decisive election before November.

The legislature dilly-dallied because the House wanted to simply change the date, while Cleo Fields and the senate wanted to go back to the closed primary.  Eventually, federal the district court set the "general election" to November, with an early December runoff.  The Love party challenged this decision arguing that Louisiana should go back to the last lawful procedure from the 1970s, which was the closed partisan primary.  So apparently the goal was to overturn the open primary, and the federal courts just bit on the date.  The 5th Circuit upheld the change in date Foster v Love

A few years later, Louisiana decided they didn't like the December runoff, and so they tried to modify the calendar a bit.  If there were one or two candidates they would run in November, and there would be no runoff.  If there were 3 or more candidates, there would the primary, and possibly a runoff.  So there was slightly less chance of a premature election.

This system was challenged in daughter of Love v. Blanco, and a federal court overturned that version.  At that point Cleo Fields talked them into going back to the partisan primary.  But being Louisianans they had to have a primary runoff, so ended up with 3 rounds.  There were two special elections in 2008, both went to 3 rounds.  And then Hurricane Gustav struck, and messed up the schedule of the 3 rounds, which was why the Anh Cao-William Jefferson race was in December.  So even though they had changed it to get rid of the December election they ended up with a December election.  And because there were several independent candidates, they ended up with non-majority winners, despite having primary runoffs to ensure majority nominations.

So in 2010, they switched back.  This time they claimed that the reason was to save money.  But I think they like the jungle primary.

Washington and California will always have a November election, even if a candidate gets a majority in the primary.  This should presumably resolve the date issue, but it might eventually be challenged on that ground that the election is too early.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #15 on: August 08, 2011, 06:51:04 PM »


"But given that so much of California's population growth over the last decade has occurred in the south and along the coast, it is inevitable that some distant rural areas will have to be married with Sacramento's suburbs."

That part of the editorial is absolutely wrong.  The population growth was eastward in to the Inland Empire and Central Valley.  There was almost no north to south shift.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #16 on: August 18, 2011, 03:21:18 AM »

The maps have been finalized. I don't see any major changes from when the commission first announced them.

http://wedrawthelines.ca.gov/maps-final-drafts.html

A referendum petition for the senate plan has been filed with the attorney general's office.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #17 on: August 30, 2011, 05:51:25 AM »

My first glance seems to still show that the districts are heavily weighted towards socioeconomic grouping without overly splitting counties. That's certainly a standard redistricting principle, but the natural tendency for socioeconomic groups to sort politically as well would tend to weaken competitiveness in such a plan. Is there a PVI analysis available online yet?

Yes, this might be coined the "class warfare" map. I was amazed how much economic segregation was emphasized really. In California class does not a community of interest make really. Malibu does not equal Hancock Park, and Silverlake/Los Feliz (gay young Hollywood hip) does not equal La Canada/Flintridge (Jet Propulsion Laboratory grayish haired brainiac nerd types), and on and on.

It was one of the fixups that got added when they added congressional redistricting.

Before it just said "community of interest".  The added language included income, and some of the other interests are less measurable.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #18 on: August 31, 2011, 04:15:03 AM »

A proposed petition for a referendum on the congressional plan has been filed with the AG.  If sufficient signatures are gathered, the plan would be suspended until after the next statewide election at which the referendum would be voted on, presumably at the June 2012 primary.

If the plans are suspended, then the primaries can not be used to choose the 2 candidates who advance to the general election.

Maybe they will be held as special elections in November 2012, like has been done in Texas.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #19 on: November 23, 2011, 09:20:23 PM »

A petition for a referendum on the senate districts has been filed:

http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/ballot-measures/pending-signature-verification.htm#1499
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jimrtex
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« Reply #20 on: April 20, 2012, 11:48:35 PM »

Which of these two versions of the CA-01-02-03-05 merry-go-round do you prefer, and why?  The CA-05 snake into Contra Costa follows with some changes the template of the Commission, and CA-03 doing the snake instead follows my original template. Is it half dozen one of the other, or is one clearly superior?  The question is framed in the context of a map which hews to best practice when it comes to generally accepted "good government" redistricting principles. Thanks.



I think the one on the right recognizes that Solano and Sonoma are contiguous and you shouldn't just arbitrarily cut across a county when it becomes convenient - even though Fairfield and Vacaville may not have that strong of tie to Vallejo.

Also, I'm not really fond of the coastal district coming all the way down into Marin.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #21 on: August 14, 2012, 04:14:49 PM »

The Republican convention is poised to do a 180 on its lame anti-senate-map referendum and encourage its defeat.

http://t.co/ODhK9IfT
They should have gone for the equal protection angle based on the staggered senate terms.

Referendum on redistricting plans don't really work since the same plan can simply be re-enacted over and over.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #22 on: August 16, 2012, 12:37:58 PM »

The Republican convention is poised to do a 180 on its lame anti-senate-map referendum and encourage its defeat.

http://t.co/ODhK9IfT
They should have gone for the equal protection angle based on the staggered senate terms.

Referendum on redistricting plans don't really work since the same plan can simply be re-enacted over and over.

In California, though, wouldn't it trigger a new commission process, where the results are unpredictable?
The California Constitution provides that in cases where a popular referendum vetoes a plan by a redistricting commission that the Supreme Court appoint special masters to redistrict.   The special masters are required to apply the same criteria as the redistricting commission (and approval by the public is not one of the criteria).

The redistricting commission would argue that their plan does comply with the California Constitution, and though the special masters might be able to draw another plan, there would be no basis for them doing so.  In effect, the veto by the people would be considered populist bigotry, and disregarded.

If the commission had failed to produce a plan, then the special masters could craft a plan, though they might give deference to partial plans that had failed to be approved (approval required 3 affirmative votes from the 5 Democrats, 3 of 5 Republicans, and 3 of 4 others).

Special masters would also produce a map if the Supreme Court found a commission plan unconstitutional.  Possible challenges to the senate plan could include:

(1) Non-Compliance with nesting.
(2) Violation of the north-south numbering requirement.
(3) Consideration of the residence of incumbents or political candidates.

But the nesting criteria (10 senate districts per BOE, 2 assembly districts per senate district) is the weakest criteria ("o the extent practicable, and where this does not conflict
with the criteria above").

I doubt that a court would sustain a claim that just because the commission implemented the numbering scheme differently for congressional districts than it did senate districts that it violated the constitution.   And even though the commission deliberately did put as many voters (and potential candidates) who currently live in odd-numbered districts, into new odd-number districts as possible, it is unlikely a court would rule that this was taking into consideration the residence of anyone.

Once the referendum petition was successful, the senate redistricting plan was suspended.  At that point, the current plan would be remain in effect (it was as if a referendum against any other legislation had been lodged).   But it is impossible not to have senate elections.  The California Supreme Court decided that the current plan based on the 2000 census violated equal protection.  But the redistricting commission argued successfully that their plan was the only one readily available that could be implemented before the 2012 primary.

So currently California is using an interim plan imposed by the California Supreme Court which is identical to that crafted by the redistricting commission.  If the referendum fails, the identical plan crafted by the redistricting commission will go into effect.  If the referendum succeeds it is quite likely that the special master will draw the same plan the redistricting commission did.

If the challenge had been made on the basis of the stagger violating equal protection, then the decision might have been differently.  3.6 million California residents who happen to live in odd-numbered districts now, have been assigned through official state action to even-numbered districts.   The terms of the senators that represent them end in December, and they will have no senate representation for the next two years.  Voters in these areas will be treated no differently than if they were felons, aliens, minors, or feeble-minded.

Under these circumstances, the Supreme Court could have ordered the existing map to be used for 2012, with odd-numbered senators elected to two-year terms; or that the entire plan be put into effect immediately.
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