Experts Agree: California’s Congressional District Lines to Be Radically Redrawn

In most states, politicians have responsibility for drawing legislative district lines. But in California, a group of mostly apolitical volunteers serving on the state’s new independent Citizen’s Redistricting Commission, created by a ballot initiative passed last November, will be drawing the lines. The commission is designed to be isolated from political influence—indeed it is illegal to attempt to influence its members. The commission’s rules require it to strive to keep intact existing political boundaries such as counties and cities. The commission must not take into consideration where current incumbents live or their party affiliation; similarly, the commission is not allowed to take into consideration the distribution of voters by partisan registration. Finally, it is required to protect “communities of interest,” which means it must strive to keep ethnic enclaves within the same district.
 
Speculation on how the commission will redraw district lines is already prompting some to gear up for challenges to entrenched incumbents. A short online item by Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post last Thursday revealed that Republican former California Lieutenant Governor Abel Maldonado is preparing to challenge U.S. Rep. Lois Capps in 2012. The claim surprised some because Capps’s 23rd congressional district, sometimes referred to as the “ribbon of shame” due to its meandering path along 200 miles of California coastline, is deeply Democratic. In 2010, Capps received 57 percent of the vote, down slightly from the previous three election cycles in which she garnered between 63 and 68 percent of the vote. However, some experts are certain that the district will be redrawn into a form that will make it more geographically cohesive and politically competitive.
 
Paul Mitchell, a Democratic consultant and president of the Sacramento-based Redistricting Partners, says that the commission’s process in some areas of the state is easier to predict than in others. For instance, he says that the political boundaries that the 23rd district currently overlaps, including three counties, will have to be taken into account and that it is unlikely that the new district will incorporate as many coastal, Democratic voters. “It is a fairly predictable part of the state,” said Mitchell of Capps’s district, adding that it is unlikely that Maldonado will end up facing Capps in the redrawn district. Capps resides in Santa Barbara, and Maldonado lives in Santa Maria, 70 miles apart. “I think it is unlikely that Capps and Maldonado will be drawn into the same district,” says Mitchell
 
Some argue that it is fairly easy to guess how the commission will redesign districts in and around the Bay Area and Los Angeles. According to Alieta Huguenin, the president of the Rancho Murieta–based Democratic consulting firm Alieta & Partners, the coastal mountains will provide a natural barrier to congressional districts that have previously been ignored. “There are no roads across that way, so you have to go longitudinally,” she says, referring to the coastal ranges that separate the Pacific coast from the Central Valley. Currently, districts such as that held by Republican House Whip Kevin McCarthy, straddle these mountains.
 
Huguenin believes that district lines in California’s two major urban areas will be radically altered by the commission. “LA will look very different,” she says. “I’m also pretty certain that San Francisco would lose some seats and [districts] would go down the peninsula rather than across the North Bay.”
 
In any case, the commission represents an experiment in truly non-partisan redistricting. The commission will start from scratch and is likely to draw districts in a way that will provoke protests from both sides of the aisle. Adam Probolsky, president of the Newport Beach–based polling firm Probolsky Research, believes that rules that require the commission to protect ethnic enclaves have the potential to trigger the most legal challenges to the districts that it draws. “You have a sizable Korean population that straddles the Los Angeles and Orange County lines,” he says. “That group could sue if they are divided.” He cited a number of other ethnic populations that straddle existing political and geographic lines, such as Vietnamese in San Jose and Latinos in East San Diego. No matter how the commission draws districts, Probolsky anticipates that there will be a number of legal challenges and thinks that the state’s judiciary will ultimately have a great deal of influence over the state’s new district lines.
 
Mitchell counters that the commission’s plan is likely to be upheld for the most part. “It will face a lot of challenges, but ultimately the [commission’s plan] or something close to it will be the final plan,” he says. “I think it will really alter the shape of our delegation. We have fifty-three members and I would guess that at least ten members don’t return to Congress.”
 
California has over two million more registered Democrats than Republicans, so it is likely that the state’s congressional delegation will remain majority Democratic. However, most agree that California’s 2012district map will look dramatically different from how it does today.
 
Correction: An earlier version of this article had said that Santa Barbara and Santa Maria were located in separate counties.Noah Rothman is the online editor at C&E. Email him at nrothman@campaignsandelections.com