2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: California

[Oryxslayer]

What’s an access district?

Just a general all-encompasing term that covers all plurality, majority, majority by VAP, majority by actual voters (south valley), coalition, opportunity, and any other type of seat designed so that various minorities can access and participate in govt.

[Former President tack50]

What’s an access district?

Just a general all-encompasing term that covers all plurality, majority, majority by VAP, majority by actual voters (south valley), coalition, opportunity, and any other type of seat designed so that various minorities can access and participate in govt.

Come to think about it, considering that California is actually (narrowly) a plurality hispanic state these days, I wonder if whites would count as a minority or could ask for white majority seats and claim they are unfairly disadvantaged?

I guess that could be a way for the Republicans to try and make a comeback in the state lol

[Oryxslayer]

What’s an access district?

Just a general all-encompasing term that covers all plurality, majority, majority by VAP, majority by actual voters (south valley), coalition, opportunity, and any other type of seat designed so that various minorities can access and participate in govt.

Come to think about it, considering that California is actually (narrowly) a plurality hispanic state these days, I wonder if whites would count as a minority or could ask for white majority seats and claim they are unfairly disadvantaged?

I guess that could be a way for the Republicans to try and make a comeback in the state lol

We have had this discussion before in other threads, and the conclusion was the VRA doesn't work like that. Even if it did, Hispanic undervoting means whites still control the political field - see the Bay areas domination of the state political establishment.

On the other hand, even though it is not a thing, the commission already does something very similar to white VRA districts. One COI guideline the commission needs to try to follow is the harmonization of living standards and income. Uber rich areas like Atherton go with other rich areas, and poor communities in the valley go with other poor areas. In 99% of cases, whites and minorities are going to have extreme differences between each other in these statistics, leading to commission incentives to separate the two groups. This guideline basically explains Lieu's and Eshoo's seats for instance, both white strips with minorities on all sides. Unfortunately for the GOP, the harmonization rules didn't help them, since the areas where it was applied weren't the areas they could squeeze extra seats from, or were areas with already guaranteed GOP seats like the south valley.

[SevenEleven]

ERM your maps are kind of highlighting the importance of an LA-OC district.

[I’m not Stu]

ERM your maps are kind of highlighting the importance of an LA-OC district.

How? You mean my CA-25?

[Oryxslayer]

ERM your maps are kind of highlighting the importance of an LA-OC district.

Yes LA basically needs to eat from all of her neighbors to satisfy the pop needs of all her seats, most of which are locked in by minorities or geography. The other option of course is to give one AA seat the ax (it is the rational thing to do given AA decline, but the commission wont go against AA access) either to reorient it towards a different part of the state or make it the 53rd seat. In such case, LA county now feeds her neighbors.

To put this in perspective, LA county has about 14.3 districts currently based out of it, all neighbor trades like Pomona and Simi Valley being equal. Under 52 seats, LA is allotted 13.4 seats, and that's before we discuss major geographic barriers. However, the minority incentives are there to preserve all 14.x seats and force the cut elsewhere, so LA has to take in chunks from all sides.

[I’m not Stu]

How should I draw the Central Valley and LA? That's a hard one.

[SevenEleven]

ERM your maps are kind of highlighting the importance of an LA-OC district.

How? You mean my CA-25?

Yeah but more so I have issues with CA-38. Diamond Bar belongs with Yorba Linda or Pomona. No need to draw it all the way from Norwalk as if it's LA's last line of defense against OC.

[I’m not Stu]

ERM your maps are kind of highlighting the importance of an LA-OC district.

How? You mean my CA-25?

Yeah but more so I have issues with CA-38. Diamond Bar belongs with Yorba Linda or Pomona. No need to draw it all the way from Norwalk as if it's LA's last line of defense against OC.

My updated OC/IE map. I threw out the junky 2000s-era CA-25 and all of my LA County districts (except for Jimmy Gomez). An Asian candidate takes CA-44. Who takes CA-41?

Districts:
CA-31: Pete Aguilar
CA-35: Norma Torres
CA-36: Raul Ruiz
CA-41: ?
CA-42: Mark Takano
CA-43: Darrell Issa or Ammar Campa-Najjar
CA-44: ?
CA-45: Gil Cisneros
CA-46: Lou Correa
CA-47: Harley Rouda
CA-48: Ken Calvert

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

what if you do Riverside-Imperial but still have no SD-Riverside CD?

[Oryxslayer]

what if you do Riverside-Imperial but still have no SD-Riverside CD?

Two things happen if you do this:

1) SD-OC is necessary.
2) SB-Riv districts are needed in some capacity, though this is easy to accommodate thanks to towns like Calimesa and Yurupa Valley, which are somewhat oriented northwards.

If you can get the lines to work, its a fine alignment, especially since towns like Temecula and Murrieta belong in the I15 corridor seat. If you do SD-Riv, the preferred cut in my opinion is Hemet, since it's kinda an odd one out, not an I15 exurb, not a Hispanic town, and not aligned with the Coachella valley/Palm Springs COI.

[I’m not Stu]

what if you do Riverside-Imperial but still have no SD-Riverside CD?

I have SD-Riverside, CA-43. No OC-SD.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

what if you do Riverside-Imperial but still have no SD-Riverside CD?

Two things happen if you do this:

1) SD-OC is necessary.
2) SB-Riv districts are needed in some capacity, though this is easy to accommodate thanks to towns like Calimesa and Yurupa Valley, which are somewhat oriented northwards.

If you can get the lines to work, its a fine alignment, especially since towns like Temecula and Murrieta belong in the I15 corridor seat. If you do SD-Riv, the preferred cut in my opinion is Hemet, since it's kinda an odd one out, not an I15 exurb, not a Hispanic town, and not aligned with the Coachella valley/Palm Springs COI.

What to do with SE Riverside here?

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

The other option of course is to give one AA seat the ax (it is the rational thing to do given AA decline, but the commission wont go against AA access) either to reorient it towards a different part of the state or make it the 53rd seat. In such case, LA county now feeds her neighbors.

Can you seriously argue that two districts which are 30%  AA (and like 60% Latino) are AA opportunity districts anymore? I think one has to be cut and a Baldwin Hills to Watts 40% AA (but 54% AA CVAP) district has to be drawn instead.

[SevenEleven]

The other option of course is to give one AA seat the ax (it is the rational thing to do given AA decline, but the commission wont go against AA access) either to reorient it towards a different part of the state or make it the 53rd seat. In such case, LA county now feeds her neighbors.

Can you seriously argue that two districts which are 30%  AA (and like 60% Latino) are AA opportunity districts anymore? I think one has to be cut and a Baldwin Hills to Watts 40% AA (but 54% AA CVAP) district has to be drawn instead.

Karen Bass doesn't need 30% AA. Realistically though there is only one truly AA district in LA

[Oryxslayer]

The other option of course is to give one AA seat the ax (it is the rational thing to do given AA decline, but the commission wont go against AA access) either to reorient it towards a different part of the state or make it the 53rd seat. In such case, LA county now feeds her neighbors.

Can you seriously argue that two districts which are 30%  AA (and like 60% Latino) are AA opportunity districts anymore? I think one has to be cut and a Baldwin Hills to Watts 40% AA (but 54% AA CVAP) district has to be drawn instead.

I'm not going to argue for it. I think it should happen. In 2010 CA dropped an LA AA seat while she was gaining a 53rd seat, making everyone's totals smaller. If CA loses a seat, it should be easy to destroy CA43 when CA is net losing AA population. It's been 30 years since the LA riots. Most AA's from then have either died, or sold their property and cashed in on the CA land boom. What AA population remains in CA is more or less dispersed across the state, as families moved to the suburbs. Or they just packed up and headed for Atlanta and other southern cities like the rest of the nation.

This should also be a no-brainier because Waters will likely be retiring. Even if she doesn't Bass is probably progressive enough to win in a white Westside seat if she doesn't want to primary Waters.

However, Inertia is the big problem. Even as most of the west side loses it's AA majority, the politicians in control still remain AAs. Why retire when everyone's still going to vote for the D incumbent. The Hispanic families over here are also younger than those to the east of the city, meaning that even if they can legally vote, AA's still are going to have a higher turnout capacity. The AAs are older, and are some of the most reliable D voters by turnout in the nation. If the commission desires to preserve the twin 'no majority for anyone, but 30% of your VAP is AA' seats, then they will probably return AA legislators for the next decade.

The fact that it is a commission drawing the lines is why the mappers will likely not have the balls to go against the regional inertia. In 2010, the commission kept the twins because they wanted AA's to have some opportunity in a state where they would normally have very little because of the dispersion. The living standards rules basically force the beach towns to be separated from the minorities, meaning the seats favor going inwards and grabbing more low-turnout or demographically mixed voters. Finally, the big reason why the commission won't cut an AA seat even though it should is because of the commissioners. If the commission was made to represent the demographics of the state, there should only be about 4 AA commissioners in the pool of 60 and only 1 should be in the final 14. As of now there are nine AA potential commissioners (4 D, 2 R, 3 I), and their dispersal among the groups suggests more than 1 could get in.The AA community is politically active after all. The fact that only 4 of the AAs are from LA (one of each group and an extra I) gives them even more chance to make it in, since the six 'chosen' commissioners are selected to ensure the comission matches the state geographically, racially, and culturally. Even though they may not be from LA, the AA commissioners will like to see opportunity, just like their forebears in 2010.

[I’m not Stu]

I got LA, Santa Barbara, and Ventura done.

Districts:
CA-23: Salud Carbajal
CA-24: Brad Sherman
CA-25: Mike Garcia or Christy Smith
CA-26: Tony Cardenas
CA-27: Julia Brownley
CA-28: Adam Schiff
CA-29: Karen Bass
CA-30: Judy Chu
CA-32: Maxine Waters
CA-33: Ted Lieu
CA-34: ?
CA-37: Jimmy Gomez
CA-38: ?
CA-39: Linda Sanchez
CA-40: Nanette Barragan

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/9bde2f0f-d655-4548-990f-0e03bba14587
thoughts on this CA map? It is partially done.

[I’m not Stu]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/9bde2f0f-d655-4548-990f-0e03bba14587
thoughts on this CA map? It is partially done.

I would prefer to get the Latino VAP to at least 55% in Juan Vargas' district. It also doesn't make sense to have La Habra in the Santa Ana district. I also don't like OC-SD splits, unless they prevent LA-OC splits. LA-OC splits are fine if they prevent OC-SD splits. Will the OC-SD split If Aguilar is CA-40, Takano is CA-45, and Cisneros is CA-42; who takes CA-41?

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/9bde2f0f-d655-4548-990f-0e03bba14587
thoughts on this CA map? It is partially done.

The general regional blocs of your San Diego and Inland Empire districts are really good. However, you need to clean up along municipal lines and more natural boundaries in general. Corona and some of the San Diego lines are particularly awkward. I really, really don't like districts which connect OC to the Inland Empire or the San Gabriel Valley, so I'd prefer you reconfigure OC to get rid of your CA-42 district.

[cvparty]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/9bde2f0f-d655-4548-990f-0e03bba14587
thoughts on this CA map? It is partially done.

I would prefer to get the Latino VAP to at least 55% in Juan Vargas' district. It also doesn't make sense to have La Habra in the Santa Ana district. I also don't like OC-SD splits, unless they prevent LA-OC splits. LA-OC splits are fine if they prevent OC-SD splits. Will the OC-SD split If Aguilar is CA-40, Takano is CA-45, and Cisneros is CA-42; who takes CA-41?

how is an orange-riverside district better than OC-LA or OC-SD

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/9bde2f0f-d655-4548-990f-0e03bba14587
thoughts on this CA map? It is partially done.

I would prefer to get the Latino VAP to at least 55% in Juan Vargas' district. It also doesn't make sense to have La Habra in the Santa Ana district. I also don't like OC-SD splits, unless they prevent LA-OC splits. LA-OC splits are fine if they prevent OC-SD splits. Will the OC-SD split If Aguilar is CA-40, Takano is CA-45, and Cisneros is CA-42; who takes CA-41?

how is an orange-riverside district better than OC-LA or OC-SD

IMO it definitely isn't. To be fair, OC-SD isn't the greatest pairing but doing it allows for much better Orange County districts so I usually include it. However, northwest Orange County and southeast LA County absolutely blend together and should have splits concentrated there. IMO, districts which cross the hills (so OC to Riverside, San Bernardino, or LA's San Gabriel Valley) should always be avoided.

[I’m not Stu]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/9bde2f0f-d655-4548-990f-0e03bba14587
thoughts on this CA map? It is partially done.

I would prefer to get the Latino VAP to at least 55% in Juan Vargas' district. It also doesn't make sense to have La Habra in the Santa Ana district. I also don't like OC-SD splits, unless they prevent LA-OC splits. LA-OC splits are fine if they prevent OC-SD splits. Will the OC-SD split If Aguilar is CA-40, Takano is CA-45, and Cisneros is CA-42; who takes CA-41?

how is an orange-riverside district better than OC-LA or OC-SD

It allows me to split OC and SD each just once.

[Oryxslayer]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/9bde2f0f-d655-4548-990f-0e03bba14587
thoughts on this CA map? It is partially done.

I would prefer to get the Latino VAP to at least 55% in Juan Vargas' district. It also doesn't make sense to have La Habra in the Santa Ana district. I also don't like OC-SD splits, unless they prevent LA-OC splits. LA-OC splits are fine if they prevent OC-SD splits. Will the OC-SD split If Aguilar is CA-40, Takano is CA-45, and Cisneros is CA-42; who takes CA-41?

how is an orange-riverside district better than OC-LA or OC-SD

IMO it definitely isn't. To be fair, OC-SD isn't the greatest pairing but doing it allows for much better Orange County districts so I usually include it. However, northwest Orange County and southeast LA County absolutely blend together and should have splits concentrated there. IMO, districts which cross the hills (so OC to Riverside, San Bernardino, or LA's San Gabriel Valley) should always be avoided.

Definitely agree with all of this. LA and OC blend a bit so cuts there can be go either ways - remember that while counties are important, the shear size of SoCal counties means that county cuts matter less, and municipality groupings are more improtant.

On the topic of SD though, there is no real good option, it's just stuck there in the corner behind Pendleton and the montains. In my opinion, the best SD pairings are:

- SD-Imperial IF AND ONLY IF you need to get the SD Hispanic seat over 50% by VAP. 2018 numbers say that this pairing is no longer needed, but one may prefer to give the present CA52/53 some of those hispanics, so that they don't need to take in the suburbs.
- SD-Riverside if you are going for Hemet. Like I said above, Hemet is kinda a jack of all trades but master of none when it comes to the three major Riverside demographic groupings. it's whiteish but not white enough or GOP enough nor alligned with the I15 for that grouping. It's not Liberal enough or in the Low Desert for the Palm Springs seat. It's not Hispanic enough for the Riverside and Farmworker seat. Therefore, it can be tossed wherever is best desired, including in SD. TBH I think the Hemet grouping is going to end up traumatized in some form on the final 2020 map because of this reason.
- SD-OC depending on how the groupings work out. For example, just grabbing Pendleton and attaching it to OC for Pop won't ruffle any feathers. Similarly, taking ALL the south hills of OC and putting them with SD will create a south hills seat with an SD tumor attachment.

OC-Riverside should be avoided when possible.

Because everything moves in tandem and nothing can be changed without adjusting something else, I should also note that any map probably needs 3 47%+ by CVAP Hispanic seats in the San Bernardino-Riverside-Fontana-Ontario region. Making the present CA31 a performing Hispanic seat is the most obvious change happening once the commission gets down to business.

[I’m not Stu]

My SD-Imperial map. I only split SD once (with Riverside).