2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: California

[Coastal Elitist]

This is cool. What district did you put the Tri-Valley in?

[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?

[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.

[Coastal Elitist]

This is my first time doing this and this is what I came up with for a 52 district map: https://davesredistricting.org/maps#viewmap::3f4e8b37-a2a7-400b-8587-91dff40799b1

I tried to just alter the current districts for the most part. Are the districts supposed to be similar in size because I made them that way which is why some look weird?

[Coastal Elitist]

This is my first time doing this and this is what I came up with for a 52 district map: https://davesredistricting.org/maps#viewmap::3f4e8b37-a2a7-400b-8587-91dff40799b1

I tried to just alter the current districts for the most part. Are the districts supposed to be similar in size because I made them that way which is why some look weird?

I can't access your map, check the link. Either way, I can answer your Question: districts are supposed to be as close as possible to the same population numbers, usually maps in place are very near zero though they use precinct cuts which cannot be done on DRA. Districts should not be equal land size, land does not vote, people vote. Some districts will be tiny, others will be huge.

Since this is your first map, here's some beginner tips that people often aren't aware of. If you know this stuff, just ignore this.

- There are check boxes for counties and city lines in the lower left. You should be mindful of these if you are making fair or reasonable maps, especially in CA.
- Make sure you selected the 2018 data at the start. You can change the colors of your districts and the partisan data displayed anytime with the gear in the upper left, use it to your advantage.
- The VRA is a thing and accessibility districts are expected. Do your research beforehand and if a seat is not 50% white, chances are it should be kept that way. Also, especially in CA, you tend to get brownie points for making more minority districts and minority access districts where a minority can control a primary. Obviously VRA districts should be sensible, don't tentacle between communities just to get a high minority%.
- In certain states it pays to go on wikipedia and take notes of where incumbents live.
- Water continuity is illegal in 95% of circumstances. Similarly, a road connection between all parts of the district is necessary, be it by bridge, trail, highway, or pass. This sounds obvious, but sometimes neat county pairings are separated by a national park with no through roads.

Thanks. I did try to keep cities together. I'll be honest some of mine probably breaks the rules. Does this link work: https://davesredistricting.org/join/665b4ab7-db3a-4d59-870e-bd5087931ccb

[Coastal Elitist]

This is my first time doing this and this is what I came up with for a 52 district map: https://davesredistricting.org/maps#viewmap::3f4e8b37-a2a7-400b-8587-91dff40799b1

I tried to just alter the current districts for the most part. Are the districts supposed to be similar in size because I made them that way which is why some look weird?

I can't access your map, check the link. Either way, I can answer your Question: districts are supposed to be as close as possible to the same population numbers, usually maps in place are very near zero though they use precinct cuts which cannot be done on DRA. Districts should not be equal land size, land does not vote, people vote. Some districts will be tiny, others will be huge.

Since this is your first map, here's some beginner tips that people often aren't aware of. If you know this stuff, just ignore this.

- There are check boxes for counties and city lines in the lower left. You should be mindful of these if you are making fair or reasonable maps, especially in CA.
- Make sure you selected the 2018 data at the start. You can change the colors of your districts and the partisan data displayed anytime with the gear in the upper left, use it to your advantage.
- The VRA is a thing and accessibility districts are expected. Do your research beforehand and if a seat is not 50% white, chances are it should be kept that way. Also, especially in CA, you tend to get brownie points for making more minority districts and minority access districts where a minority can control a primary. Obviously VRA districts should be sensible, don't tentacle between communities just to get a high minority%.
- In certain states it pays to go on wikipedia and take notes of where incumbents live.
- Water continuity is illegal in 95% of circumstances. Similarly, a road connection between all parts of the district is necessary, be it by bridge, trail, highway, or pass. This sounds obvious, but sometimes neat county pairings are separated by a national park with no through roads.

Thanks. I did try to keep cities together. I'll be honest some of mine probably breaks the rules. Does this link work: https://davesredistricting.org/join/665b4ab7-db3a-4d59-870e-bd5087931ccb

CA-45 is quite ugly extending into southern Riverside County.

If it's actually his first map then I'm cutting some slack.

Yes it is and what happened was I started at the top of the state and worked my way down, but as I was doing that I decided to do Orange County which was fine at the time. However when I got most of the way through Los Angeles I realized that my OC districts wouldn't fit and then when I got down to San Diego I didn't have enough population left to make the last district complete so I had to go back and adjust from the top to the bottom which produced some weird shapes.

Oryxslayer, do you start at the top of the state and work your way down or how do you do it?

[Coastal Elitist]

How come you are all keeping the CA-21 gerrymander largely intact?

[Coastal Elitist]

How come you are all keeping the CA-21 gerrymander largely intact?

I didn’t. my CA-21 is the Central Coast seat.

The old CA-21 shape which I think is the 20th on your map.

[Coastal Elitist]

How come you are all keeping the CA-21 gerrymander largely intact?

You have to have a district here that can elect a candidate of choice for the Latino community.

Yep, and since about half of the Hispanic population of Kern, Tulare, and Kings are not part of the CVAP eligible voter pool, you still need to get aggressive in order to ensure Hispanics have a seat that can elect a candidate of their choice. Like if more hispanic citizens voted and the 116K voters from 2012 doubled in subsequent years to match it's it's brethren in the rest of the state then maybe things wouldn't need to be so aggressive. However, only 20K voters were added in 2016, and things would need to change significantly in 2020 to adjust the inevitable trajectory.

Ok, I just figured that the idea was to have no gerrymanders.

[Coastal Elitist]

Here's my state senate map. It's dumb that California hasn't increased the size of our assembly or senate. It's ridiculous that nearly a million people are represented by one person in the state senate.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/f5c1404b-24d0-4e44-bb92-1a101565fd17

[Coastal Elitist]

Seven Eleven your map is clearly skewed towards democrats like mine is towards Republicans. For everyone I don't think that UC Irvine should be connected to Newport Beach and coastal OC.

[Coastal Elitist]

Seven Eleven your map is clearly skewed towards democrats like mine is towards Republicans. For everyone I don't think that UC Irvine should be connected to Newport Beach and coastal OC.

Where is my map biased?

And where would you take population from to replace UC Irvine?

You can't take any population from the Hispanic or Asian district, and it has to come from somewhere. Splitting Irvine is the only logical approach here.

You only have four districts that lean Republican it's obviously biased.

[Coastal Elitist]

In addition, the point of reworking the bay area is to avoid the ugly cut of Fremont...not make it worse. Also the essential West Sacramento and Truckee cuts.

The point was to eliminate the Marin-SF district, since everyone hated it, myself included. I re-did it again to not cut Fremont and I think it's better now. What about West Sacramento and Truckee?

he probably wants you to keep west sac with sac, and the lake tahoe area together

Adds additional county splits, but should be easy enough. Actually might be better so that Placer can remain whole.

I still like Marin-San Francisco. I also like the plurality-Asian seat in San Francisco.

There's no reason the 11th should be crossing the bay when you can make a district that makes up the majority of San Francisco

[Coastal Elitist]

In addition, the point of reworking the bay area is to avoid the ugly cut of Fremont...not make it worse. Also the essential West Sacramento and Truckee cuts.

The point was to eliminate the Marin-SF district, since everyone hated it, myself included. I re-did it again to not cut Fremont and I think it's better now. What about West Sacramento and Truckee?

he probably wants you to keep west sac with sac, and the lake tahoe area together

Adds additional county splits, but should be easy enough. Actually might be better so that Placer can remain whole.

I still like Marin-San Francisco. I also like the plurality-Asian seat in San Francisco.

There's no reason the 11th should be crossing the bay when you can make a district that makes up the majority of San Francisco

It's to create an Asian seat with CA-12.

Seven Eleven your map is clearly skewed towards democrats like mine is towards Republicans. For everyone I don't think that UC Irvine should be connected to Newport Beach and coastal OC.

Where is my map biased?

And where would you take population from to replace UC Irvine?

You can't take any population from the Hispanic or Asian district, and it has to come from somewhere. Splitting Irvine is the only logical approach here.

You only have four districts that lean Republican it's obviously biased.

How does that indicate bias? Republicans choose to live in Republican enclaves.

It's not that hard to get 3 in Northern CA, 3 in the Central Valley and 3 in Southern California

[Coastal Elitist]

In addition, the point of reworking the bay area is to avoid the ugly cut of Fremont...not make it worse. Also the essential West Sacramento and Truckee cuts.

The point was to eliminate the Marin-SF district, since everyone hated it, myself included. I re-did it again to not cut Fremont and I think it's better now. What about West Sacramento and Truckee?

he probably wants you to keep west sac with sac, and the lake tahoe area together

Adds additional county splits, but should be easy enough. Actually might be better so that Placer can remain whole.

I still like Marin-San Francisco. I also like the plurality-Asian seat in San Francisco.

There's no reason the 11th should be crossing the bay when you can make a district that makes up the majority of San Francisco

It's to create an Asian seat with CA-12.

Seven Eleven your map is clearly skewed towards democrats like mine is towards Republicans. For everyone I don't think that UC Irvine should be connected to Newport Beach and coastal OC.

Where is my map biased?

And where would you take population from to replace UC Irvine?

You can't take any population from the Hispanic or Asian district, and it has to come from somewhere. Splitting Irvine is the only logical approach here.

You only have four districts that lean Republican it's obviously biased.

How does that indicate bias? Republicans choose to live in Republican enclaves.

It's not that hard to get 3 in Northern CA, 3 in the Central Valley and 3 in Southern California

What 3 in Northern CA? You should have the Tahoe seat and the Far North CA seat. That's it.

CA-1: Del Norte, Siskiyou, Modoc, Trinity, Shasta, Lassen, Tehama, Butte, Plumas, Glenn, Colusa, Lake, Sierra, parts of Nevada
CA-3: Sutter, Yuba, Placer, rest of Nevada, Sacramento suburbs
CA-4: Sacramento suburbs, El Dorado, Amador, Calaveras, Tuolumne and Mariposa

[Coastal Elitist]

You can definitely make an R district in Orange County by taking in mostly coastal OC towns and it makes sense to do this. Avoiding city splits I took in Los Alamitos, Seal Beach, Huntington Beach, Fountain Valley, Costa Mesa, Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, Laguna Niguel, Dana Point, San Juan Capistrano, San Clemente and Aliso Viejo. It also packs in whites and is 55R-45D. Then you can have a Riverside district and a San Diego district. So you can definitely get 3 fair R districts in Socal.

[Coastal Elitist]

You can definitely make an R district in Orange County by taking in mostly coastal OC towns and it makes sense to do this. Avoiding city splits I took in Los Alamitos, Seal Beach, Huntington Beach, Fountain Valley, Costa Mesa, Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, Laguna Niguel, Dana Point, San Juan Capistrano, San Clemente and Aliso Viejo. It also packs in whites and is 55R-45D. Then you can have a Riverside district and a San Diego district. So you can definitely get 3 fair R districts in Socal.

My coastal district went for Clinton by less than 600 votes. I put Fountain Valley in the Asian district. You can make Republican districts but there is no reason to pursue that over other concerns outside of partisanship.

It takes in like communities, most precincts in Fountain Valley are majority white and I wanted to avoid city splits

[Coastal Elitist]

You can definitely make an R district in Orange County by taking in mostly coastal OC towns and it makes sense to do this. Avoiding city splits I took in Los Alamitos, Seal Beach, Huntington Beach, Fountain Valley, Costa Mesa, Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, Laguna Niguel, Dana Point, San Juan Capistrano, San Clemente and Aliso Viejo. It also packs in whites and is 55R-45D. Then you can have a Riverside district and a San Diego district. So you can definitely get 3 fair R districts in Socal.

My coastal district went for Clinton by less than 600 votes. I put Fountain Valley in the Asian district. You can make Republican districts but there is no reason to pursue that over other concerns outside of partisanship.

It takes in like communities, most precincts in Fountain Valley are majority white and I wanted to avoid city splits

I don't think adding Fountain Valley would change my district much outside of making the Irvine split uglier.

Let's face it, Republicans are going to get railroaded by this commission and it's going to be glorious. The composition and function of the commission is pretty unfavorable to Republicans given the current political geography. Republicans were handed a major win last time with that bullsh**t CA-47, that won't be the case this time. Population changes have really hurt the GOP. Democrats have no reason to compromise as the Supreme Court is now Democratic. At best, Dems will allow Nunes to stay for a 45-5-2 map.

So whats your goal here?
making a truly non partisan/fair map or is to make what you think the commission will D gerrymander?

Im saying this everyone make your map's intentions clear when you draw it and the scenario it has.

My map is based on the guidelines the commission is bound to follow. It's not a gerrymander. Basically you have to account for ethnicity, income, localities, and CoIs. Partisanship and incumbency do not play a role.

The commission's map needs the support of 3 Democrats, 3 Republicans, and 3 NPPs. I suspect that a Central valley district might be given to the Republicans at the expense of Valley Hispanics to prevent a court drawn map similar to how they sucked OC Democrats into Los Angeles at the expense of the Asian community.

My point is that Republicans have no cards to play here. California has basically had two decades of GOP gerrymanders, followed by a fair map. They lost a lot of ground over the course of the fair map and population shifts basically lock them in where they are now.

lol that's the dumbest thing I've heard. R's won the popular house vote back in the 90s and didn't wind up with a majority of districts. You're map is clearly a partisan gerrymander look at how many districts you have between 50% and 55% D. You're making a map that would fail under an R wave.

[Coastal Elitist]

You can definitely make an R district in Orange County by taking in mostly coastal OC towns and it makes sense to do this. Avoiding city splits I took in Los Alamitos, Seal Beach, Huntington Beach, Fountain Valley, Costa Mesa, Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, Laguna Niguel, Dana Point, San Juan Capistrano, San Clemente and Aliso Viejo. It also packs in whites and is 55R-45D. Then you can have a Riverside district and a San Diego district. So you can definitely get 3 fair R districts in Socal.

There is no post-2018 scenario where that coastal district votes republican. Cut your losses and try and make sure your North San Diego and South Riverside districts don't flip as well.

Um Rouda could easily lose the district he has right now so that's not true. The one I made is even stronger R than that one and voted for Trump. The San Diego and Riverside ones are even more solid.

[Coastal Elitist]

You can definitely make an R district in Orange County by taking in mostly coastal OC towns and it makes sense to do this. Avoiding city splits I took in Los Alamitos, Seal Beach, Huntington Beach, Fountain Valley, Costa Mesa, Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, Laguna Niguel, Dana Point, San Juan Capistrano, San Clemente and Aliso Viejo. It also packs in whites and is 55R-45D. Then you can have a Riverside district and a San Diego district. So you can definitely get 3 fair R districts in Socal.

I posted a previous one way earlier in this thread, but I'm working on a new one.

There is no post-2018 scenario where that coastal district votes republican. Cut your losses and try and make sure your North San Diego and South Riverside districts don't flip as well.

Um Rouda could easily lose the district he has right now so that's not true. The one I made is even stronger R than that one and voted for Trump. The San Diego and Riverside ones are even more solid.

Where is your map?

And no, Rouda is not losing to a Republican in the near future. He is a perfect fit and the GOP is freefalling.

[Coastal Elitist]

Finished my map: https://davesredistricting.org/join/5180a8ee-d24e-48b4-8e6f-83d0f5a041d9


Recommendations welcome, I know that the 10th is ugly, mostly because it was my leftover seat, also the Inland Empire mess is to try to draw more minority access seats.

This is a hideous gerrymander. The 4th, 7th, 9th, 35th, 41st, 46th and 48th are all abominations.

[Coastal Elitist]

How should I draw San Diego/Orange? I am only sold on my drawing of the VRA districts and Huntington Beach. I'm not sure what to do with the rest of San Diego Or Orange County.





Is this a good Central Valley map?

CA-19: 51% Clinton; 40% HCVAP


CA-20: 51% Clinton; 52% HCVAP
CA-21: 51% Clinton; 55% HCVAP

No the central valley is terrible district 18 is ridiculous

[Coastal Elitist]

Wow California could actually end up losing two house seats: https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/07/08/study-in-a-first-california-poised-to-lose-house-seats/

[Coastal Elitist]

Here is my finished map. I ended up with 37 Democratic districts and 9 Republican with six deemed competitive within the 55-45 range. I tried my best to keep cities together. Also there's no reason to split Bakersfield and I was able to fit Kern County into two districts that are still Hispanic without having the CA-21 gerrymander.



Here's a zoomed in look at the Bay Area.


and a zoomed in look at Southern California


The competitive districts are 7, 16, 25, 41, 44 and 45

[Coastal Elitist]

That map is very, very not legal. And by that I mean very illegal.

How? I maximized the number of minority districts.