2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: California

[Coastal Elitist]

On to serious discussion


The California Redistricting Commission has selected the final 60 names: 20 of each pool from which the final commissioners will be selected. You can access the lists here:

Republicans
Democrats
Unaffiliated

With these fairly detailed lists, we can begin to discern the shape of the commission. The most common characteristic of everyone is their comfortable income. This is unsurprising - those most willing to participate in redistricting are stable enough to give up time to political activism.

Demographically, the ethnic distribution is what one would expect but with some exceptions. The democrats have more minorities than whites, and the opposite is true for the GOP. The biggest demographic standout is in the Indie group, which is very diverse. It also has a lot of Asians, and we know how that group has moved in the past 4 years. It leads on to potentially conclude that there are D-leaners in both the GOP group and especially in the Indie pool considering the nature of the coalitions. This however should be unsurprising given California's Trend.

The most interesting thing though are the cross-cutting geographic identities selected by the California commission. There are A LOT of Bay Area Republicans, and Los Angeles dominates the democratic pool. This has seems to have been done to temper partisan attachment to ones home region - Bay Area republicans have nothing to present for the GOP in the region, and LA democrats are surrounded by more democrats and will be more concerned with ethnic communities. The problem I am sensing though is that the playing field is not level; this is California and the California Democratic Party has more tools at their disposal. If the Republican contingency is dominated by NorCal, then they won't have the on-the-ground knowledge that would help them preserve Red opportunities in Orange and her environs. I you only have a birds eye view then you may just see a Blue OC and consider it lost.

You're making a lot of assumptions here. Don't you think that someone who signs up for a redistricting commission would know a lot about the state and be interested enough to know these things?

[lfromnj]

On to serious discussion


The California Redistricting Commission has selected the final 60 names: 20 of each pool from which the final commissioners will be selected. You can access the lists here:

Republicans
Democrats
Unaffiliated

With these fairly detailed lists, we can begin to discern the shape of the commission. The most common characteristic of everyone is their comfortable income. This is unsurprising - those most willing to participate in redistricting are stable enough to give up time to political activism.

Demographically, the ethnic distribution is what one would expect but with some exceptions. The democrats have more minorities than whites, and the opposite is true for the GOP. The biggest demographic standout is in the Indie group, which is very diverse. It also has a lot of Asians, and we know how that group has moved in the past 4 years. It leads on to potentially conclude that there are D-leaners in both the GOP group and especially in the Indie pool considering the nature of the coalitions. This however should be unsurprising given California's Trend.

The most interesting thing though are the cross-cutting geographic identities selected by the California commission. There are A LOT of Bay Area Republicans, and Los Angeles dominates the democratic pool. This has seems to have been done to temper partisan attachment to ones home region - Bay Area republicans have nothing to present for the GOP in the region, and LA democrats are surrounded by more democrats and will be more concerned with ethnic communities. The problem I am sensing though is that the playing field is not level; this is California and the California Democratic Party has more tools at their disposal. If the Republican contingency is dominated by NorCal, then they won't have the on-the-ground knowledge that would help them preserve Red opportunities in Orange and her environs. I you only have a birds eye view then you may just see a Blue OC and consider it lost.

You're making a lot of assumptions here. Don't you think that someone who signs up for a redistricting commission would know a lot about the state and be interested enough to know these things?

https://www.propublica.org/article/how-democrats-fooled-californias-redistricting-commission
Its mostly boomer retirees.

[Oryxslayer]

On to serious discussion


The California Redistricting Commission has selected the final 60 names: 20 of each pool from which the final commissioners will be selected. You can access the lists here:

Republicans
Democrats
Unaffiliated

With these fairly detailed lists, we can begin to discern the shape of the commission. The most common characteristic of everyone is their comfortable income. This is unsurprising - those most willing to participate in redistricting are stable enough to give up time to political activism.

Demographically, the ethnic distribution is what one would expect but with some exceptions. The democrats have more minorities than whites, and the opposite is true for the GOP. The biggest demographic standout is in the Indie group, which is very diverse. It also has a lot of Asians, and we know how that group has moved in the past 4 years. It leads on to potentially conclude that there are D-leaners in both the GOP group and especially in the Indie pool considering the nature of the coalitions. This however should be unsurprising given California's Trend.

The most interesting thing though are the cross-cutting geographic identities selected by the California commission. There are A LOT of Bay Area Republicans, and Los Angeles dominates the democratic pool. This has seems to have been done to temper partisan attachment to ones home region - Bay Area republicans have nothing to present for the GOP in the region, and LA democrats are surrounded by more democrats and will be more concerned with ethnic communities. The problem I am sensing though is that the playing field is not level; this is California and the California Democratic Party has more tools at their disposal. If the Republican contingency is dominated by NorCal, then they won't have the on-the-ground knowledge that would help them preserve Red opportunities in Orange and her environs. I you only have a birds eye view then you may just see a Blue OC and consider it lost.

You're making a lot of assumptions here. Don't you think that someone who signs up for a redistricting commission would know a lot about the state and be interested enough to know these things?

https://www.propublica.org/article/how-democrats-fooled-californias-redistricting-commission
Its mostly boomer retirees.

Yes. When one is signing up for the role of a commissioner, it is essentially glorified Jury Duty. The people who are going to self select themselves need to have both time and money available. Unlike Jury Duty though nobody starts in the pool, you have to add your own name. One needs to want to be a commissioner, which requires some level of political engagement.  These criteria have led to older, wealthier, and more educated commissioners than the average citizen.

Commissioners though are not all knowing. In fact, the state explicitly removes anyone like us with detailed knowledge of the state's politics down to the granular level. Political activism means that you have donated to candidates and probably joined a protest, but the only knowledge one probably possesses of the state's electoral geography are the maps on wikipedia and the regions with competitive races that you donated to.

[Coastal Elitist]

On to serious discussion


The California Redistricting Commission has selected the final 60 names: 20 of each pool from which the final commissioners will be selected. You can access the lists here:

Republicans
Democrats
Unaffiliated

With these fairly detailed lists, we can begin to discern the shape of the commission. The most common characteristic of everyone is their comfortable income. This is unsurprising - those most willing to participate in redistricting are stable enough to give up time to political activism.

Demographically, the ethnic distribution is what one would expect but with some exceptions. The democrats have more minorities than whites, and the opposite is true for the GOP. The biggest demographic standout is in the Indie group, which is very diverse. It also has a lot of Asians, and we know how that group has moved in the past 4 years. It leads on to potentially conclude that there are D-leaners in both the GOP group and especially in the Indie pool considering the nature of the coalitions. This however should be unsurprising given California's Trend.

The most interesting thing though are the cross-cutting geographic identities selected by the California commission. There are A LOT of Bay Area Republicans, and Los Angeles dominates the democratic pool. This has seems to have been done to temper partisan attachment to ones home region - Bay Area republicans have nothing to present for the GOP in the region, and LA democrats are surrounded by more democrats and will be more concerned with ethnic communities. The problem I am sensing though is that the playing field is not level; this is California and the California Democratic Party has more tools at their disposal. If the Republican contingency is dominated by NorCal, then they won't have the on-the-ground knowledge that would help them preserve Red opportunities in Orange and her environs. I you only have a birds eye view then you may just see a Blue OC and consider it lost.

You're making a lot of assumptions here. Don't you think that someone who signs up for a redistricting commission would know a lot about the state and be interested enough to know these things?

https://www.propublica.org/article/how-democrats-fooled-californias-redistricting-commission
Its mostly boomer retirees.

Yes. When one is signing up for the role of a commissioner, it is essentially glorified Jury Duty. The people who are going to self select themselves need to have both time and money available. Unlike Jury Duty though nobody starts in the pool, you have to add your own name. One needs to want to be a commissioner, which requires some level of political engagement.  These criteria have led to older, wealthier, and more educated commissioners than the average citizen.

Commissioners though are not all knowing. In fact, the state explicitly removes anyone like us with detailed knowledge of the state's politics down to the granular level. Political activism means that you have donated to candidates and probably joined a protest, but the only knowledge one probably possesses of the state's electoral geography are the maps on wikipedia and the regions with competitive races that you donated to.

Ok, thanks didn't know that.

[I’m not Stu]

What might happen in the Inland Empire? I don't know very much about that area.

[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!

[Oryxslayer]

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!

My explorations with NorCal and the Bay have basically come to the conclusion that Solano and it's anchored seat are going to turn inwards towards the bay, since the Northern seats need population. Once Solano and west Sacramento are lopped, you are left with near enough population for three district north of SF, Sacramento, and their surrounding communicates. 

The question then becomes what COIs should have preference. When concerning the CA02, Mendocino, Humbolt, Trinity, and Del Norte are it's core. The first three make up the Redwoods/Emerald Triangle COI and the latter only connects south by road. They are separated from the east by mountains and parks, so it makes sense to head south. CA05's main COI appears to be Wine County in Lake and Napa, but it cannot take in all of the COI's Sonoma for pop reasons. If we accept that CA05 is a Wine Country seat, it makes little sense to put Marin in the district and instead one should go for as much of the Sonoma wine cities as possible.

Marin does not go with SF, both for pop reasons and for COI stuff. SF has the communities and people for a individual district, which means the hypothetical Marin-SF seat would then have to go down the peninsula and probably be the successor to Eshoo's or Spier's seat. While there are some parts of San Mateo that are similar in community to Marin, they lack the population and the district would weird connecting three counties by the Golden Gate.

Now how you sort out the rest of the northern block is up to you. Right now my 52 district CA map has CA05 (03 actually) go north through Yolo and up the agricultural valley - a decision based on the fact Ag regions would want to be with Ag regions. It is also because nearly all of Yuba and Sutter's population centers are inseparable from each other, making the northern lines all that more complicated.

[Tintrlvr]

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.

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

I don't love the Yolo-Butte district, but I tried Yolo-Placer and it just didn't work out properly population-wise. Yolo-Butte does have the advantage of combining the two main college towns of northern California and keeping the agricultural areas of the northern Central Valley mostly in that one seat. To the extent the commission is interested in competitiveness, that's a nice seat, too: just Clinton+4.

Edit II: Another alternative, this time with crossing of the Coast Range (not ideal either) and exchanging the competitive Yolo-based seat for a competitive Coast-based seat: https://davesredistricting.org/join/d41afb5f-7192-4f19-9b0f-e69538d3199b

Edit III: A third alternative: I don't think the commission would do this, but this creates two Likely-to-Safe R seats in northern California: https://davesredistricting.org/join/9aabce23-1ed5-4b4c-ae2a-505e28989e67

[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)

[Tintrlvr]

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)

See the map I just posted in my edit: It actually works out perfectly with Fairfield/Vacaville to leave Vallejo and the other Bay-adjacent parts of Solano available for an East Bay-based district.

Not totally ideal but Fairfield-Vacaville are pretty closely tied to Napa, which in turn is pretty closely tied to the Northern Coast. It's not totally ideal, but I think it's better than Marin with the Northern Coast, and there is no obvious alternative population-wise.

[Oryxslayer]

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)

See the map I just posted in my edit: It actually works out perfectly with Fairfield/Vacaville to leave Vallejo and the other Bay-adjacent parts of Solano available for an East Bay-based district.

Not totally ideal but Fairfield-Vacaville are pretty closely tied to Napa, which in turn is pretty closely tied to the Northern Coast. It's not totally ideal, but I think it's better than Marin with the Northern Coast, and there is no obvious alternative population-wise.

Considering there are other more vital COI's getting busted in your map (Sutter+Yuba, The Yolo bit of Sacramento and Sacramento City) it's probably better to keep CA02 going into Marin. even if the coastline COI is weak, it plus Wine County and the other two mentioned are better than the presented alternative.

[Tintrlvr]

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)

See the map I just posted in my edit: It actually works out perfectly with Fairfield/Vacaville to leave Vallejo and the other Bay-adjacent parts of Solano available for an East Bay-based district.

Not totally ideal but Fairfield-Vacaville are pretty closely tied to Napa, which in turn is pretty closely tied to the Northern Coast. It's not totally ideal, but I think it's better than Marin with the Northern Coast, and there is no obvious alternative population-wise.

Considering there are other more vital COI's getting busted in your map (Sutter+Yuba, The Yolo bit of Sacramento and Sacramento City) it's probably better to keep CA02 going into Marin. even if the coastline COI is weak, it plus Wine County and the other two mentioned are better than the presented alternative.

West Sacramento is not going to go with Sacramento when you can draw two districts entirely within Sacramento County.

Sutter and Yuba are together on my primary proposal so not sure what you are talking about there. I did split them on the alternative that crosses the Coast Range, which is not a map I love anyway. It's not an essential split either way; just change where you cut in from Plumas to Tehama and then switch Yuba for parts of Placer.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Personally, I think something like this works better. It pairs the North Coast (blue) with Napa, non-Sac Yolo, Vacaville, and some of the Central Valley. That way, you can keep Santa Rosa and Marin together, which makes a very cohesive district. Sure, there is nothin tying Vacaville to Mendocino, but this map doesn't split any important COIs (sure, it would be nice to keep Vacaville and Fairfield together, but whatever) and lets you keep the North Bay intact.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

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)

See the map I just posted in my edit: It actually works out perfectly with Fairfield/Vacaville to leave Vallejo and the other Bay-adjacent parts of Solano available for an East Bay-based district.

Not totally ideal but Fairfield-Vacaville are pretty closely tied to Napa, which in turn is pretty closely tied to the Northern Coast. It's not totally ideal, but I think it's better than Marin with the Northern Coast, and there is no obvious alternative population-wise.

Considering there are other more vital COI's getting busted in your map (Sutter+Yuba, The Yolo bit of Sacramento and Sacramento City) it's probably better to keep CA02 going into Marin. even if the coastline COI is weak, it plus Wine County and the other two mentioned are better than the presented alternative.

West Sacramento is not going to go with Sacramento when you can draw two districts entirely within Sacramento County.

I agree on Sutter-Yuba but that's not an essential split; I did it because I prefer Placer with Davis.

Looking at it from a COI perspective, there isn't that strong a case to keep the various Sacramento County suburbs paired with each other instead of other suburban counties.

[Tintrlvr]

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)

See the map I just posted in my edit: It actually works out perfectly with Fairfield/Vacaville to leave Vallejo and the other Bay-adjacent parts of Solano available for an East Bay-based district.

Not totally ideal but Fairfield-Vacaville are pretty closely tied to Napa, which in turn is pretty closely tied to the Northern Coast. It's not totally ideal, but I think it's better than Marin with the Northern Coast, and there is no obvious alternative population-wise.

Considering there are other more vital COI's getting busted in your map (Sutter+Yuba, The Yolo bit of Sacramento and Sacramento City) it's probably better to keep CA02 going into Marin. even if the coastline COI is weak, it plus Wine County and the other two mentioned are better than the presented alternative.

West Sacramento is not going to go with Sacramento when you can draw two districts entirely within Sacramento County.

I agree on Sutter-Yuba but that's not an essential split; I did it because I prefer Placer with Davis.

Looking at it from a COI perspective, there isn't that strong a case to keep the various Sacramento County suburbs paired with each other instead of other suburban counties.

This would be the case if you could clearly draw three Sacramento-area districts, but because of the way Sutter County splits Yolo from Placer, this isn't really possible without extra county splits that would be frowned on. Even then I think Yolo-Placer + 2 Sacramento County districts would be the proper alignment. Your map is huge mess. Elk Grove out to South Lake Tahoe is not a COI, nor is Antioch-Galt. I'm sympathetic to putting northeastern Sacramento County with Placer, too, but it doesn't work with the rest of the map.

[I’m not Stu]

What would a map with no LA/OC splits look like (on a 52 district map and a 53 district map)? I can't use DRA.

[Oryxslayer]

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)

See the map I just posted in my edit: It actually works out perfectly with Fairfield/Vacaville to leave Vallejo and the other Bay-adjacent parts of Solano available for an East Bay-based district.

Not totally ideal but Fairfield-Vacaville are pretty closely tied to Napa, which in turn is pretty closely tied to the Northern Coast. It's not totally ideal, but I think it's better than Marin with the Northern Coast, and there is no obvious alternative population-wise.

Considering there are other more vital COI's getting busted in your map (Sutter+Yuba, The Yolo bit of Sacramento and Sacramento City) it's probably better to keep CA02 going into Marin. even if the coastline COI is weak, it plus Wine County and the other two mentioned are better than the presented alternative.

West Sacramento is not going to go with Sacramento when you can draw two districts entirely within Sacramento County.

I agree on Sutter-Yuba but that's not an essential split; I did it because I prefer Placer with Davis.

Looking at it from a COI perspective, there isn't that strong a case to keep the various Sacramento County suburbs paired with each other instead of other suburban counties.

Yes West Sacramento is not a suburb, it is more or less part of the city, even though municipal lines cut them in twain. It is also the only part of Yolo connected to Sac, though other rural areas may be necessary for pop. Sac has suburbs to the east that can also be pared fine with the extraneous pop. Think of it like Lansing, a multicounty COI that takes precedence over county lines.

Reminder, counties are default COI but most anything else will take precedence over them.

It's literally paired with Sac on all current statewide district maps, even though on all of them Sacramento county then gets cut in the east.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

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)

See the map I just posted in my edit: It actually works out perfectly with Fairfield/Vacaville to leave Vallejo and the other Bay-adjacent parts of Solano available for an East Bay-based district.

Not totally ideal but Fairfield-Vacaville are pretty closely tied to Napa, which in turn is pretty closely tied to the Northern Coast. It's not totally ideal, but I think it's better than Marin with the Northern Coast, and there is no obvious alternative population-wise.

Considering there are other more vital COI's getting busted in your map (Sutter+Yuba, The Yolo bit of Sacramento and Sacramento City) it's probably better to keep CA02 going into Marin. even if the coastline COI is weak, it plus Wine County and the other two mentioned are better than the presented alternative.

West Sacramento is not going to go with Sacramento when you can draw two districts entirely within Sacramento County.

I agree on Sutter-Yuba but that's not an essential split; I did it because I prefer Placer with Davis.

Looking at it from a COI perspective, there isn't that strong a case to keep the various Sacramento County suburbs paired with each other instead of other suburban counties.

This would be the case if you could clearly draw three Sacramento-area districts, but because of the way Sutter County splits Yolo from Placer, this isn't really possible without extra county splits that would be frowned on. Even then I think Yolo-Placer + 2 Sacramento County districts would be the proper alignment. Your map is huge mess. Elk Grove out to South Lake Tahoe is not a COI, nor is Antioch-Galt. I'm sympathetic to putting northeastern Sacramento County with Placer, too, but it doesn't work with the rest of the map.

I disagree. South Lake Tahoe's strongest link to the rest of the world is the US-50 corridor, so an Elk Grove+Folsom+South Lake Tahoe district makes a lot of sense. Similarly, Nevada+Placer+that bit of NE Sacramento County makes one district. That leaves the North Coast-Wine Country-Davis/Vacaville District and the 10 county far northern California district. Sure, there's nothing tying Galt to Antioch, but it's as tied to Lodi and Stockton as it is to Elk Grove and Sacramento so it's necessary for population adjustment.

[Tintrlvr]

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)

See the map I just posted in my edit: It actually works out perfectly with Fairfield/Vacaville to leave Vallejo and the other Bay-adjacent parts of Solano available for an East Bay-based district.

Not totally ideal but Fairfield-Vacaville are pretty closely tied to Napa, which in turn is pretty closely tied to the Northern Coast. It's not totally ideal, but I think it's better than Marin with the Northern Coast, and there is no obvious alternative population-wise.

Considering there are other more vital COI's getting busted in your map (Sutter+Yuba, The Yolo bit of Sacramento and Sacramento City) it's probably better to keep CA02 going into Marin. even if the coastline COI is weak, it plus Wine County and the other two mentioned are better than the presented alternative.

West Sacramento is not going to go with Sacramento when you can draw two districts entirely within Sacramento County.

I agree on Sutter-Yuba but that's not an essential split; I did it because I prefer Placer with Davis.

Looking at it from a COI perspective, there isn't that strong a case to keep the various Sacramento County suburbs paired with each other instead of other suburban counties.

This would be the case if you could clearly draw three Sacramento-area districts, but because of the way Sutter County splits Yolo from Placer, this isn't really possible without extra county splits that would be frowned on. Even then I think Yolo-Placer + 2 Sacramento County districts would be the proper alignment. Your map is huge mess. Elk Grove out to South Lake Tahoe is not a COI, nor is Antioch-Galt. I'm sympathetic to putting northeastern Sacramento County with Placer, too, but it doesn't work with the rest of the map.

I disagree. South Lake Tahoe's strongest link to the rest of the world is the US-50 corridor, so an Elk Grove+Folsom+South Lake Tahoe district makes a lot of sense. Similarly, Nevada+Placer+that bit of NE Sacramento County makes one district. That leaves the North Coast-Wine Country-Davis/Vacaville District and the 10 county far northern California district. Sure, there's nothing tying Galt to Antioch, but it's as tied to Lodi and Stockton as it is to Elk Grove and Sacramento so it's necessary for population adjustment.

To Folsom makes sense, but not to Elk Grove. South Lake Tahoe more properly belongs with the rest of Lake Tahoe and/or other mountain areas. Combining with Placer and NE Sacramento County is not crazy as a result (though I think this doesn't work for population with the rest of the areas north of Sacramento/Davis), but diving that far into Sacramento County is not reasonable.

[SevenEleven]

Oof, yeah, Sacramento County got violated by that map lol.

Personally, I like putting Morgan Hill/Gilroy/Hollister with the Central Valley. It moves the map better for the more upstate districts.

[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?

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

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)

See the map I just posted in my edit: It actually works out perfectly with Fairfield/Vacaville to leave Vallejo and the other Bay-adjacent parts of Solano available for an East Bay-based district.

Not totally ideal but Fairfield-Vacaville are pretty closely tied to Napa, which in turn is pretty closely tied to the Northern Coast. It's not totally ideal, but I think it's better than Marin with the Northern Coast, and there is no obvious alternative population-wise.

Considering there are other more vital COI's getting busted in your map (Sutter+Yuba, The Yolo bit of Sacramento and Sacramento City) it's probably better to keep CA02 going into Marin. even if the coastline COI is weak, it plus Wine County and the other two mentioned are better than the presented alternative.

West Sacramento is not going to go with Sacramento when you can draw two districts entirely within Sacramento County.

I agree on Sutter-Yuba but that's not an essential split; I did it because I prefer Placer with Davis.

Looking at it from a COI perspective, there isn't that strong a case to keep the various Sacramento County suburbs paired with each other instead of other suburban counties.

This would be the case if you could clearly draw three Sacramento-area districts, but because of the way Sutter County splits Yolo from Placer, this isn't really possible without extra county splits that would be frowned on. Even then I think Yolo-Placer + 2 Sacramento County districts would be the proper alignment. Your map is huge mess. Elk Grove out to South Lake Tahoe is not a COI, nor is Antioch-Galt. I'm sympathetic to putting northeastern Sacramento County with Placer, too, but it doesn't work with the rest of the map.

I disagree. South Lake Tahoe's strongest link to the rest of the world is the US-50 corridor, so an Elk Grove+Folsom+South Lake Tahoe district makes a lot of sense. Similarly, Nevada+Placer+that bit of NE Sacramento County makes one district. That leaves the North Coast-Wine Country-Davis/Vacaville District and the 10 county far northern California district. Sure, there's nothing tying Galt to Antioch, but it's as tied to Lodi and Stockton as it is to Elk Grove and Sacramento so it's necessary for population adjustment.

To Folsom makes sense, but not to Elk Grove. South Lake Tahoe more properly belongs with the rest of Lake Tahoe and/or other mountain areas. Combining with Placer and NE Sacramento County is not crazy as a result (though I think this doesn't work for population with the rest of the areas north of Sacramento/Davis), but diving that far into Sacramento County is not reasonable.

Other Mountain Areas is not a serious population base. Regardless, the bulk of the population is going to be in the Sacramento Metro, so you have to decide what parts are most appropriate to pair with Tahoe.

You can make a district with Nevada, Placer, El Dorado, Amador, and Alpine, but I'm not sure if you can make a case that Folsom is significantly more tied with Lincoln than Elk Grove. Regardless, I think the Sac suburbs don't have some natural grouping so I prefer to start with the city and go from there. So far as I'm concerned, the best map pairs West Sac and the City of Sacramento to start with, and then chops up the suburbs from there.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

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.

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

Pairing Placer, Tahoe, and Redding is....very flawed. Also, this splits Tahoe which you just opposed. There are no links of significance between Tahoe and the Northern Sacramento Valley. You're just going to have to chop us Sacramento some more.

[Oryxslayer]

Guess I'll post what I got so far for NorCal...California is slow to map because every now and again the map fails to save to server and I have to refresh to save my work.

Now there are a few things that guide this from the start. The Bay Area (SF + San Mateo + Santa Cruz + Santa Clara + Alameda + Contra Costa + Solano) along with Monterrey, San Benito, and San Joaquin are very near a round 11 districts when combined. So near in fact you can just grab the delta arm from Sac like presently and it comes to a whole.

Locking at counties to the north of this grouping, they are also very near a nice round total. Everything to the North of the Bay, Sacramento, Placer, and the COI towns of Truckee (should be with Lake Tahoe) and West Sacramento (with Sac) comes close to 3 CDs. The problem is that there is about 11-12K which can't neatly be removed. Cutting deeper into Yolo requires piercing the towns, and American canyon in Napa is 19K pop. The choice then is a cut in eastern Nevada.



The Second Remains coastal but takes in Rural Siskiyou which could be seen as part of the greater Triangle COI. Adding Siski to the first also neatly squares the First's circle, allowing it to be compact. Sutter is cut, but none of the essential precincts connected or around Yuba City are in the Third. The Third's COI is mostly agriculture; North Valley farms and Wine Country near the bay.



The other reason why I like this alignment is what happens in Sacramento. Look at how neatly the lines work out. Every near suburb can fit in the Seventh, and all the unincorporated land goes in the fourth. The only ugly bit is the fact that there is a 9k pop precinct that reaches way out of Elk Grove and into the unincorporated land...but precinct cuts would clean up all the municipal lines.

[I’m not Stu]

What might CA-25 be like after 2022?