2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: California

[S019]

I was wondering is it possible to keep CA-16 as 52%+ Hispanic VAP with 2018 population if you just use Merced, Madera, and Fresno city in Fresno, because it doesn't seem so, and you can't expand west into Fresno County, because those Hispanic precincts are needed for CA-21, so I'm interested as to how you guys got around this, unless you took the seat apart or just changed it into a minority coalition one.

[S019]

I created two San Diego maps. Which one is better?

Map 1:


Map 2:

Map 1, the 48th crossing three counties in the second map is just unnecessary

[S019]

I created two San Diego maps. Which one is better?

Map 1:


Map 2:

Map 1, the 48th crossing three counties in the second map is just unnecessary

I guess, but the county split into a sparsely populated area is minimal (the real 1990s map did that too). There’s a highway connection. You prefer my first map, which has Calvert’s district covering parts of OC?

Yes, but that can be avoided by moving the 47th north into southern Orange County.

[S019]

I'm currently working on a map and was wondering which seat did you guys choose to cut?

[S019]

I'm currently working on a map and was wondering which seat did you guys choose to cut?

The LA metro and Jefferson are the natural places to cut seats, since those areas are shrinking even as the state gains population. However, both areas have issues. CA01 is up against the border, so there will always have to be something like up there, and LA would be cutting a minority seat which has a bunch of problems around it. The solution to this issue appears to be to cut CA44 in LA and then create more Hispanic seats in the Inland Empire and the Valley, so that there is still a net gain in representation. Or you revive a tool of the days when the GOP actually had some say and cut Long Beach along racial lines, but that seems like a bridge too far.

In truth, CA is going to lose two/three seats in 2020, but gains one/two of them right back - just in different regions. The state is that big. CA05 or CA03 is going to have to become a Bay Oriented seat, there is just too little pop in the north to support four seats these days.

So, then could you also choose to cut a white seat in LA County, such as the 28th, 30th, or 33rd? As for the Inland Empire scenario, I guess the 52nd or 50th would change substantially. As for the valley, isn't it easier just to chop one white seat, rather than dismantle both the 28th and 30th to make what would seem to be only a minority coalition seat, this also doesn't address the issue that some of the Hispanics in these seats probably need to be added to the successor of the 29th to keep it as a Hispanic majority seat?

[S019]

Remember that list I posted a few pages back? Well, i'm going to add to it, since I forgot something. Legal COI priority goes:

- Local lines (counties, cities, neighborhoods)
- Ethnicity, Rage and it's correlating statistics
- Recognized cultural groupings of the previous two groups
- Partisan interests and competitiveness

In fact, the GOP is in a tight place when it comes to the ethnicity category. Since the state likes to maximize racial opportunity, GOP whites often end up as those unintentionally tossed in the minority districts to prevent packing. Thanks to the commission defining COIs as including living standards and income groups, this unintentionally (I believe..) legalizes and encourages the creation and preservation of white packs to facilitate more minority access. Those white packs are most likely to GOP packs.

White packs could benefit the GOP now.  1 in eastern SD, Inland/South OC, SW Riverside, and rural/edurban san bernardino.  Also 3 white packs in the central valley to then draw 3 minority electorate seats (3-3 is fair, the valley voted Trump).  

You aren't getting that Inland/South OC district unless you do something ridiculous like connecting Yorba Linda to San Clemente. Also, any republican SD district will be in North County, not East County. Where is your third valley seat coming from? Your districts should be something like white Bakersfield (GOP), Latino Bakersfield (Dem), Fresno (Dem), Clovis/Visalia/Foothills (GOP), Merced (Dem), and Modesto (Dem).

Yorba to San Clemente isn't any more ridiculous than the current map which puts SD suburbs with OC and Temecula.  Plus it's only fair.  OC deserves at leas 1 GOP seat.  My 3rd valley GOP  district takes part of Harder's district and puts it with the mountains, and then pairs minority stanislaus areas with Stockton to create a 3rd minority seat in the valley.  3-3 is fair, the valley voted Trump overall.

Pairing San Diego suburbs with San Clemente or Temecula isn't ideal, but it's literally unavoidable because San Diego doesn't have the population for a perfect four congressional districts. It's quite easy, on the other hand, to avoid pairing cities at literal opposite ends of Orange County, and OC deserving a GOP district isn't valid redistricting rationale.

Can you show me a map of what you did with Harder's district?

This is his map😂


He is literally only here to troll just like the Virginia thread

Ergh. That's bad. Regarding the Central Valley specifically, putting Mono County, Elk Grove, and parts of Stockton/Modesto/Merced in one district is....wrong. I'd really like to look at that with a map underlay to see what is happening in San Joaquin/Stanislaus Counties but the general groupings north of Fresno are weird AF.

Elk Grove is in Sacramento county.

It's very hard to tell where certain suburbs are on your map without transparency reduced, your map overlay turned on, and your county lines turned on. If you'd post a new screenshot with all of this, it would be much appreciated.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/14c07950-05ff-4f60-92d9-61d9f07870c0

From a quick glance, that map has a bunch of municipality splits, which really is not ideal at all

[S019]

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.

[S019]

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.

How do we have a district that connects a northern Sacramento suburb to San Bernandino.

The old 4th had to be cut, because of geography issues, so that is what resulted as the main eastern seat

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.

The 4th is an abomination that should be destroyed in it's entirety, the 13th should drop Half Moon Bay, the 3rd should go all the way to Del Norte County, the 32nd should drop either Long Beach or Venice/Mar Vista, the 26th needs to drop Claremont and Glendora, and the 35th, 41st, 46th, and 48th should be drawn over again from scratch. You don't need to do these insane pairings to get sufficient minority access.

do you have any recommendations about better pairings for those specific seats (35, 41, 46, 48)?

[S019]

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.

The 4th is an abomination that should be destroyed in it's entirety, the 13th should drop Half Moon Bay, the 3rd should go all the way to Del Norte County, the 32nd should drop either Long Beach or Venice/Mar Vista, the 26th needs to drop Claremont and Glendora, and the 35th, 41st, 46th, and 48th should be drawn over again from scratch. You don't need to do these insane pairings to get sufficient minority access.

I mostly made these changes but given Claremont and Glendora are in the current 27th, which is basically my 26th, I'm unsure where exactly they belong and which cities I should exchange for them.  The 9th was my leftover seat, and some advice on how to fix that would be helpful, also I'd like to know if the 35th could still use some cleaning up. Made all of the other changes that you suggested.


Map link: https://davesredistricting.org/join/5180a8ee-d24e-48b4-8e6f-83d0f5a041d9

NorCal:

Inland Empire:

[S019]

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.

The 4th is an abomination that should be destroyed in it's entirety, the 13th should drop Half Moon Bay, the 3rd should go all the way to Del Norte County, the 32nd should drop either Long Beach or Venice/Mar Vista, the 26th needs to drop Claremont and Glendora, and the 35th, 41st, 46th, and 48th should be drawn over again from scratch. You don't need to do these insane pairings to get sufficient minority access.

I mostly made these changes but given Claremont and Glendora are in the current 27th, which is basically my 26th, I'm unsure where exactly they belong and which cities I should exchange for them.  The 9th was my leftover seat, and some advice on how to fix that would be helpful, also I'd like to know if the 35th could still use some cleaning up. Made all of the other changes that you suggested.


Map link: https://davesredistricting.org/join/5180a8ee-d24e-48b4-8e6f-83d0f5a041d9

This is better, but you still have some work to do.

1. Inyo and Mono counties can only attach to San Bernardino or Kern. This is literally mandated by California state law and any map which connects them west or north is a non-starter. You'll just have to live without that white sink.

2. Pasadena to Glendora to Claremont without including Monrovia/Azusa/San Dimas is also a no go. Just push your 31st district into Monrovia and Claremont and drop precincts in El Monte and Monrovia to compensate.

3. Don't split Long Beach. Just don't.

4. Santa Monica, Sawtelle, Pacific Palisades, Brentwood, and Venice should all be in the same district which should under no situation connect to Burbank and Glendale.

5. Your pairings in Orange County are very awkward.

6. As a general rule, your district borders are very messy. Try to follow straight lines or natural borders for the most part. You have a tendency to excessively create minority access districts at the expense of logical neighborhood and city pairings.

I think this should address 1-4, I'm unsure how to fix 5, also most of these fixes probably worsened my lines, so some feedback on that would be helpful

Southern LA County:



Eastern CA:



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

Further feedback is also welcome, as well as feedback as to whether these changes have addressed the concerns.

[S019]

So, I cleaned up the Perris snake and I also managed to clean up the ugly Stanislaus district, though this pushed the 7th into Placer. Also making the 24th more compact would probably result in city splitting, and the current one goes from Palmdale to Simi Valley, so I don't see what's wrong with this:

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

[S019]

Figuruing out how the commission can get as many seats as possible. OC probably needs half an R sink really so mashed CA 39/42/50 for 2 R sinks.

Levin and Porter get Obama 08 districts too and splits the GOP bases of CA 48th of Newport/Huntington beach by putting the Asians in a LA seat thats Clinton +18 although prob only mid single digit Biden as it was Mccain +1.

The white base of CA 48th gets shoved with Long Beach. A decent number of county splits but I am relatively following city lines.

The commission will not go out of its way to create these ugly lines and create a Democratic gerrymander, it's a nonpartisan commission

[S019]

I think this is a far better way to create a D leaning map in OC, looks clean and the only Trump seat (Trump+3) was the successor to the 49th (Levin) (South OC/North SD), though that one is definitely trending D



Only part I don't like here is the split of Newport Beach, but that was necessary for population equivalency purposes.

[S019]

I think this is a far better way to create a D leaning map in OC, looks clean and the only Trump seat (Trump+3) was the successor to the 49th (Levin) (South OC/North SD), though that one is definitely trending D



Only part I don't like here is the split of Newport Beach, but that was necessary for population equivalency purposes.

Not gonna lie, that's an incredibly attractive map and it groups COIs extremely well. It's certainly a fair OC map--not D-leaning per-se. Although personally, I might so a few splits in Anaheim and Garden Grove to clean up the edges and shore up each district's target demographic.

So what happened is 47 being cut forces everything west, and since the successor to the 45th took up a good chunk of what used to be 48th share of the shore when I pushed it into the Asian cities, a lot of what used to be 45's part of south OC got pushed into the 49th's successor, which had to drop Carlsbad, Encinitas, etc. in SD as a result, this moved the 49th substantially to the right, but as a result, 50 picked up those cities and is now a narrow Clinton seat, so other than Calvert's Riverside seat, the successor to the 49th is the only Trump seat in Southern California

[S019]

I think this is a far better way to create a D leaning map in OC, looks clean and the only Trump seat (Trump+3) was the successor to the 49th (Levin) (South OC/North SD), though that one is definitely trending D



Only part I don't like here is the split of Newport Beach, but that was necessary for population equivalency purposes.

Not gonna lie, that's an incredibly attractive map and it groups COIs extremely well. It's certainly a fair OC map--not D-leaning per-se. Although personally, I might so a few splits in Anaheim and Garden Grove to clean up the edges and shore up each district's target demographic.

What happens if the commission asks their staff to put all of Newport Beach into the Irvine district, and gives a +/- 2% leeway (15,000) to avoid city splits?

15,000 is an absurd amount of deviation and would mess with the rest of the map, you usually want as close to 0 deviation as possible, so that's a nonstarter.

[S019]

35, 36, 28, 41, and 51 are majority Hispanic. 27, 42, 21, 52, 38, 34, 33, and 19 are plurality Hispanic. A lot more are 35>%

31 is majority Black.

11, 39, 12, and 44 are plurality Asian. 14 and 38 are >35%.

Hopefully that's enough VRA wise, but I don't know. I made some ugly borders trying to boost Asian percentage. California is a really hard to state to draw a map for. Hopefully some CA experts in this thread can tell me where I messed up lol.

No, that is an illegal map. There's no Hispanic VRA district in Orange County on that map. Irvine and Garden Grove shouldn't be in the same district! Seal Beach belongs with Garden Grove, Cypress, and Westminster, not Laguna Beach or Long Beach. I like my CA-47 equivalent because it keeps all but two cities whole (the splits of Garden Grove and Anaheim are needed for VRA compliance). It's also compact. Why do blue avatars always draw illegal racial gerrymanders of California?

From my CA experience, it’s tough to get the VRA seats right unless you draw them exactly as they are in the current map, given how sometime a large chunk of Hispanic votes supports 2 or even 3 50-60% Hispanic seats. That’s my tip generally for any states with VRA seats, draw them first and then do the rest of the map in a logical order, in CA’s case: north to south.

[S019]

San Diego is so hard to draw except for the VRA district. Any suggestions on where to put Escondido? I don't like putting it with East County.

CA-50 is the best answer, I don't really think it makes sense with 49, which should move north anyways, since you cut a seat to its north (or should have)

[S019]

San Diego is so hard to draw except for the VRA district. Any suggestions on where to put Escondido? I don't like putting it with East County.

CA-50 is the best answer, I don't really think it makes sense with 49, which should move north anyways, since you cut a seat to its north (or should have)

CA-47 was cut. CA-49 moves north. Would it be fine to have Escondido in a district between CA-49 and CA-52 (think something similar to the 90s map).?

That 1990s seat looks awkward, I'd just put it in the 50th, that's where it best fits.

[S019]

San Diego is so hard to draw except for the VRA district. Any suggestions on where to put Escondido? I don't like putting it with East County.

CA-50 is the best answer, I don't really think it makes sense with 49, which should move north anyways, since you cut a seat to its north (or should have)

CA-47 was cut. CA-49 moves north. Would it be fine to have Escondido in a district between CA-49 and CA-52 (think something similar to the 90s map).?

That 1990s seat looks awkward, I'd just put it in the 50th, that's where it best fits.

What about Santee/Lakeside, should it go with Lemon Grove and San Diego State University? I feel it should. Alpine should either be in CA-50 or CA-36 (with Imperial County and Palm Springs).

My map moved Santee/Lakeside to Scott Peters' seat but currently, it's in CA-50, keep it away from Vargas' seat to keep the Hispanic percentage up, maybe you could try Sara Jacobs' seat, but probably not. Lemon Grove is currently in Sara Jacobs' seat, and I kept it there in my map as well. SD State can go with either Jacobs or Peters.

[S019]

https://thecoastnews.com/redistricting-commissioners-dismiss-contractors-partisan-connection/

As expected. They are using the firm that drew the Arizona 2010 map.

Arizona is on a reverse course as most of us found out.

Yeah I doubt they take both AZ and CA, which means we're going to get the short end of the stick in AZ, oh well RIP O'Halleran, FF. This hopefully means the map in CA should be somewhat good for us, but the fact that they also helped with the FL and PA court maps means they might just focus on competitive seats.

[S019]

Seen basically no discussion about California since the new census release.  This really seems like a state where Democrats could pick up a few seats.  I'm assuming Dem areas grew faster than GOP areas and the GOP already has a lot of marginal seats to defend.

There are a lot of Dem seats in L.A. County which are short of people and adjacent to other underpopulated Dem districts.

It's hard to talk about California because no one knows what the commission will do. I remember 10 years ago how unpredictable it all felt especially because the geography permits so many combinations.

I'd hope that the commission is somewhat lean Democratic at least.  You'd assume that in a state as Dem and liberal as California that even if you just get random people on a commission they'd have a Dem bias.

The CW indicates that it is, and the consulting firm that they hired, is at well. You'd probably get some COI that favors Democrats. In the only commission to have filed draft maps so far, Colorado, the maps seemed to be heavily influenced by public input. Now there is no guarantee that California follows public input as much, or even will at all, but if they do, there is some good news for Democrats, first a request to keep Ventura County together, which would eliminate the arm into Ventura County of District 25, which almost certainly saved Mike Garcia last fall. Another interesting one was a request to pair the Republican cities of Temecula and Murrieta with the rest of Riverside, currently they are paired with San Diego County and may have made the difference in keeping District 50 red last fall. While these would both be good news for Democrats if they occurred, and I'm not saying they will, it's not all sun and shine for Democrats. For one, the cut seat will likely come from LA county, which has a grand total of 1(!) Republican, the aforementioned Garcia, who is incredibly unlikely to be cut, meaning that in all likelihood Democrats will need to lose a seat, which seat they cut could obviously influence the map. Also the Democrats currently hold some seats, notably District 10, that could be very vulnerable in 2022, even if the lines don't change much. The Republicans also hold their fair share of these, notably the aforementioned District 25, District 21, and District 39, it's very possible some of these, especially District 39 could get more Republican simply due to the sheer amount of possibilities in LA county (District 39 spans Orange, LA, and Riverside county, and there's a chance it could get pushed further south or west towards more redder territory), it could also get more Democratic by picking up blue leaning cities in LA county. We don't know much, and they will probably make some decisions to favor Democrats, but they may also be forced to make some decisions favoring Republicans simply due to sheer geography. The safest bet is to probably bet on no party emerging with a clear advantage.

[S019]

California could singlehandedly solve the Republican reign of terror by gerrymandering. 

Is that what we're expecting or does CA have some type of independent commission as well?

It has a commission but one that is probably D favored. So we won’t see ugly gerrymanders but a 47-5 map or so is not out of the question.

[S019]

I’ll also note Democrats were able to get somewhat decent maps out of the 2012 cycle, by managing to manipulate community input, etc., a quick glance through the public comments indicates a similar dynamic at play. Also for all of the talk of CO’s bad map, it was heavily influenced by public input, I’ve had a glance through it (CA) before and there were numerous comments calling for Simi Valley with Ventura and an elimination of the 50th’s arm into Riverside, either one would be very bad news for Republicans.

[S019]

California could singlehandedly solve the Republican reign of terror by gerrymandering.  

Is that what we're expecting or does CA have some type of independent commission as well?

It has a commission but one that is probably D favored. So we won’t see ugly gerrymanders but a 47-5 map or so is not out of the question.

I would love to believe this, but do we really think it will be that good?  I mean that's almost as close to a max Dem gerrymander as you can get (which people here say is 49-3).

well I'll start by saying you need a minimum of 4 GOP seats without doing ugly spirals (1, 4, 23, 42), a legislative map would probably move to eliminate two of those, but with a commission it's practically impossible, especially since going after say 4 or 42 would endanger neighboring seats. Now with those 4 out of the way, we face a bunch of issues, namely seats like CA-07 and CA-10 which need to expand into surrounding red turf, and if we get through that without making a Trump seat, we end up with the tricky area of SoCal, if the choice is made to pull the 50th out of Riverside, yes it'd make the 50th bluer, but where would it go? It can't really go south since the southern seats are all squeezed between 50 and the Mexican border, so you turn north, where surprise, surprise, there turns out to be a sizably Republican (though less so now than in 2020) chunk of towns collectively known as south OC. Democrats got very lucky that this area got split in 2012, it seems unlikely they can have that happen again and get the favorable 50th configuration. So imo the 5th GOP seat comes from SoCal, though as I showed we could very well get 6 or 7 GOP seats, you absolutely need 4 though, the ugly gerrymanders required to eliminate LaMalfa or McCarthy are not happening, and as you see in Calamity and leecannon's maps, eliminating Calvert and McClintock is particularly ugly and very unlikely. best you can hope for is 4 Trump seats, though realistically it's more like 6-8 probably. It should be noted this is still very D favorable (as is CA geography), Trump won 34% of the vote in CA in 2020, I challenge someone to draw me a clean map where he wins 34% of the seats (18 seats). Geography hurts Democrats in many states (WI and MI come to mind), but it is their friend in CA.

[S019]

California could singlehandedly solve the Republican reign of terror by gerrymandering. 

Is that what we're expecting or does CA have some type of independent commission as well?

It has a commission but one that is probably D favored. So we won’t see ugly gerrymanders but a 47-5 map or so is not out of the question.

What is the most extreme gerrymander that can be done when not using partisan data? The commission bans the use of partisan data.

Biden did better in south OC than I thought, so you can get them down to 1 Republican south OC seat (Calvert) with pretty clean lines. Also they can't use partisan data yes, but the people providing public input can, and both parties are infamous for using this as a vehicle to get their supporters to argue for pairings that would help them.