Today is a big day for the future of politics in California.
Sept. 21 is the due date for the final census data that the state’s Citizens Redistricting Commission needs to finish drawing new, ten-year boundaries for every state and federal political district in California.
Drafts of the new political maps, which are sure to spark debate among political and community activists, are due out by the end of this year or early next year.
But the process of re-thinking political boundaries in California has been underway for months. Linda Akutagawa, chair of the Redistricting Commission, said the group has been using suggestions from the public to draw new lines and that even more input — which can be delivered live or via online sites like WeDrawTheLinesCA.org — is essential to creating fair political maps.
“The more input we get from diverse communities enables us to do a better job,” said Akutagawa, of Huntington Beach.
“We hope it will also enable people to feel more of a sense of engagement and ownership of who can represent them and how the process works.”
What is redistricting and why should I care?
Redistricting happens once a decade, in every state, after the federal government publishes updated census information. The primary goal is to make sure everyone has equal representation and that political boundaries accurately reflect all voting groups.
The new lines matter. If a boundary shifts one block in either direction, it can mean residents in that neighborhood instantly get new representatives in Congress and in Sacramento.
In Southern California, for example, it’s already known that House districts represented by Katie Porter, D-Irvine, and Ken Calvert, R-Corona, are overpopulated when compared with neighboring districts. As a result, both seats will need to shrink, potentially changing the constituencies that elected progressive Porter and conservative Calvert.
For decades, California legislators created new political maps behind closed doors — a process that’s still the norm in most states. That practice can lead to partisan gerrymandering, with incumbent politicians drawing districts that favor themselves and their parties.
In 2010, California switched to a Citizens Redistricting Commission, which is made up of 14 non politicians from around the state, to draw new lines for the House of Representatives, both legislative branches of Sacramento, and the State Board of Equalization.
This year’s commission includes five Republicans, five Democrats and four people who are registered as No Party Preference. In addition to Akutagawa, who runs a group called Leadership Education for Asian Pacific, other locals on the commission include J. Ray Kennedy, an international elections expert from Morongo Valley, Antonio Le Mons, who helps run Skid Row Housing Trust in Los Angeles, Sara Sadhwani, a political science professor at Pomona College, Derric Taylor, an investigator with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, and Angela Vazquez, of Los Angeles, who helps lead The Children’s Partnership.
Under state law, commissioners can’t consider partisan data when drawing new district lines. Districts must be contiguous and compact. And so-called “communities of interest” — such as minority groups or residents with critical common concerns — must be kept together whenever possible to avoid diluting their voices by spreading them between multiple districts.
What work has been done on redistricting so far?
In early 2021, the commission started holding a series of public meetings to help people understand how the process works and how they can get involved — and to get voter input on what new districts should look like.
In addition to the public meetings, feedback also came from voters using a new online tool, DrawMyCACommunity.org, that lets them sketch out their ideal political districts and make a case for why the state should use their idea. That site is still active. Recently, Akutagawa said, the site was updated to let everyone see what other Californians have suggested in terms of district boundaries.
This month, the commission also opened Redistricting Access Centers in six cities: San Bernardino, Long Beach, San Diego, Sacramento, Oakland and Fresno. At each center, a worker is ready to help residents learn more about the process and to guide them if they want to offer input. (Appointments are needed and masks are required, with more information at statewidedatabase.org/redistricting_access_centers.)
The commission’s first of many tough decisions has centered on how to count people currently in state and federal prisons in California — some 210,536 people as of the 2020 census.
The federal count tracks prisoners based on where they’re incarcerated, while state law now calls for prisoners to be counted based on the city where they lived at the time of their arrest. Akutagawa said the state rule is aimed at avoiding artificially inflating representation for communities that happen to have prisons in their boundaries.
The commission was able to make adjustments for state prisoners. But Akutagawa said they weren’t able to get the data they needed in time to make that change for federal prisoners. So, in August, a split commission voted to exclude all federal prisoners from counting toward a congressional district’s population.
What’s next? And how can residents get involved?
That wrangling over prison populations slowed down delivery of California’s final census data. Once the commission gets final numbers, Akutagawa said they can really start the hard work of using the data to draw new district lines.
While much of the process is guided by state and federal law, Akutagawa acknowledged the citizen commission is still figuring out the best approach to sort through the data.
Regarding current district lines, Akutagawa said the commission is determined to draw maps with an open mind rather than just trying to make small adjustments to what already exists.
“I think we’re tying not to box ourselves in just yet,” she said. “To me, I think this is the part where we just want to remain open to all possibilities.”
What type of feedback is the commission getting?
Redistricting always is a fraught process, since new lines can make life tougher for incumbents and, ultimately, shift the balance of power between political parties in Washington, D.C. and Sacramento.
The process is even more complicated this year because, for the first time in its history, California’s population growth has slowed to the point that we’re slated to lose a congressional seat.
So far, Akutagawa said public redistricting meetings have been cordial, even though some residents have asked for contradictory decisions. Akutagawa expects conversations, both from the public and among the 14 commissioners, to get tougher as real lines come into play in the coming weeks.
The most difficult thing, she said, is wanting to honor everybody’s requests and make districts as fair as possible, even though she knows there’s no way they can make everyone happy.
‘But even little nuances can sometimes make a big difference,” she said. “So, the more we can get input from people about that, the better our maps will be.”
