By Jeanne Kuang, CalMatters
There’s no query that the proponents of Proposition 50 have a partisan objective.
By in search of to undertake a map to place extra Democrats in energy in areas at the moment represented by Republicans, they’re asking voters to briefly bypass the state’s unbiased, nonpartisan redistricting fee, which for the previous 20 years has prioritized maps that preserve comparable communities collectively and supply extra electoral alternatives for communities of shade.
RELATED: As Nov. 4 nears, ballot exhibits majority assist for Prop. 50
Does that imply that the proposed new congressional districts could be much less consultant of voters, past celebration preferences? We seemed into some widespread questions.
Who drew the Prop. 50 map?
Paul Mitchell, a veteran Democratic redistricting professional in Sacramento, and a bunch of comparable consultants drew the map. Mitchell defined in an interview that he took enter from California’s Democratic congressional delegation earlier than sending a proposed map to the Democratic Congressional Marketing campaign Committee.
The committee then despatched the proposal to the state Legislature, which adopted the map as a part of its vote to place Prop. 50 on the November poll. The proposition would enable the state to briefly use these proposed district traces.
Isn’t California already gerrymandered?
Not fairly.
Many Republicans, together with Vice President J.D. Vance, already complain that underneath California’s present map, Democrats management over 80% of congressional seats although the celebration obtained slightly below 60% of statewide votes within the 2024 presidential election.
However that doesn’t imply the maps are deliberately drawn to present Democrats an unfair benefit.
Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans practically two-to-one. The citizen fee that drew the maps, composed of equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans in addition to 4 independents, have been particularly forbidden from contemplating celebration registration in deciding how to attract the traces. They did have to contemplate geography, and Democrats and Republicans don’t reside in a fair distribution throughout the state. Plus, a number of of the present blue districts are extremely aggressive, with the incumbent Democrats successful them final 12 months with razor-thin margins.
Two educational establishments that charge states’ redistricting plans say California’s present map is principally truthful. PlanScore discovered the map is tilted towards Democrats by two measures and balanced by two different measures. Princeton College’s Gerrymandering Challenge gave California’s map a “B” rating on partisan equity, docking it just for giving incumbent politicians a bonus. (The proposed new map obtained an “F” from the group.)
Would the brand new map additional divide communities?
Each proponents and opponents of Prop. 50 declare their favored map – the prevailing one or the proposed new one – retains cities and counties collectively extra typically, leading to higher illustration by protecting comparable communities underneath the identical congressmember.
So which is it? It relies upon the way you have a look at it, and all sides phrases their claims in a different way. The proponents of Prop. 50 are appropriate in saying their map splits fewer complete cities and counties into two or extra districts than the present map. That’s in accordance with analyses of each maps by HaystaqDNA, the agency that assisted with the nonpartisan redistricting in 2021.
An evaluation by the nonpartisan Public Coverage Institute of California discovered that distinction to be practically negligible.
However the Democrats’ map has extra cities and counties which might be break up amongst three or extra districts, slightly than solely two. That’s why opponents are additionally appropriate in saying Prop. 50 splits communities extra occasions — although of their argument mailed to voters, they overcounted the variety of occasions.
However protecting cities and counties intact isn’t the one solution to choose the standard of a congressional district.
For starters, massive cities must be break up into a number of districts to make sure that every congressmember represents the identical variety of individuals. Each maps give every district 760,066 Californians, give or take one constituent.
Loads of California cities are break up in each maps as a result of the state structure requires unbiased map-drawers to contemplate not simply protecting cities and counties collectively but in addition “communities of interest,” which the regulation defines as “a contiguous population which shares common social and economic interests” that needs to be in a single district to be represented pretty.
In any area that might imply everybody who sends their youngsters to the identical faculty district, or everybody who works in farming, or everybody who depends on I-5 for his or her each day commute. However there’s no set definition of all communities of curiosity, so when you take into account them, it turns into a matter of opinion how effectively every map represents Californians.
Prop. 50’s opponents have highlighted Lodi, a 66,000-person metropolis north of Stockton at the moment represented in a single congressional district that might be break up amongst three districts underneath Prop. 50. The Lodi Metropolis Council opposes the measure.
Mitchell mentioned the break up stemmed from efforts to strengthen a northern Central Valley district for Democrats by transferring in additional voters from Stockton. The ensuing shuffle compelled Lodi residents to be break up up, but in addition unified Antioch and Martinez residents into one district and Vacaville and Solano County collectively in one other. All 4 of the latter cities and counties are break up up underneath the present map.
“It’s a tradeoff,” he mentioned. “You could have competing communities overlapping. Which one’s more important?”
However opponents say these tradeoffs ought to solely be made with public enter and with out partisan objectives. In deciding which cities, counties and communities to maintain collectively or break up up, 2021 unbiased redistricting fee member Patricia Sinay mentioned the fee held quite a few hearings and acquired tens of 1000’s of written feedback.
“Saying one splits more than the other, it’s not that informative,” mentioned Sinay, a Democrat who opposes Prop. 50. “What did the people want? What did the communities of interest ask for?”
How does Prop. 50 have an effect on illustration for individuals of shade?
Within the weeks main as much as the election, opponents have highlighted areas that Prop. 50’s maps would break up up in opposition to area people leaders’ needs.
College students and voters solid their ballots at Modoc Corridor at Sacramento State on Nov. 5, 2024. Photograph by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters
In a press launch issued by the opposite No on 50 marketing campaign funded by Home Republicans final month, native politicians in Temple Metropolis and Azusa denounced the proposed maps for drawing traces by Asian American and Latino communities in east Los Angeles County.
However usually, the proposed map doesn’t truly change a lot, in accordance with the evaluation by PPIC.
If there are sufficient minority voters in a area to make up nearly all of a congressional district, it may set off the federal Voting Rights Act, which requires states to attract districts defending the communities’ skill to elect representatives of their selecting. There are 16 such congressional districts in California, all with a majority of Latino voters.
Different concentrated racial communities that don’t have sufficient numbers to be within the majority nonetheless have districts which might be drawn with their pursuits in thoughts, like Asian voters in east Los Angeles County, or Black voters in south L.A. In six districts, Asian voters are a minimum of 30% of the inhabitants — sufficient to affect an election. California additionally has two districts the place Black voters attain that threshold and 7 the place Latino voters do.
Prop. 50 wouldn’t change any of that. The general public coverage institute even discovered the proposed map would add another district the place Latino voters make up a minimum of 30% of the inhabitants.
“Some communities may have complaints about specific lines drawn by the proposed plan,” senior fellow Eric McGhee wrote. “But the plan as a whole is very similar to the current one in most respects: it deviates mostly by creating more Democratic seats.”
Correction: Patricia Sinay, a member of California’s unbiased redistricting fee, is a Democrat. An earlier model of this story misidentified her political affiliation.
