Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story inaccurately described limits on how redistricting maps can split cities between districts.
The Orange County Board of Supervisors may have up to 14 map variations to choose from when it decides soon on new boundary lines for OC’s five supervisorial districts.
The board is scheduled to meet Nov. 16 and Nov. 22 to consider proposed maps that incorporate the county’s growth as recorded by the 2020 census. The boundaries supervisors choose now will remain in place until after the 2030 census.
While Los Angeles and San Diego counties are legally required by elections code to create independent redistricting commissions, how to run the process in Orange County is left to supervisors’ discretion. Maps creating new districts were submitted by the public, but supervisors can move the lines around as they see fit, as long as the final product complies with the federal Voting Rights Act.
The board narrowed eight proposed maps down to three earlier this month, and then supervisors and their staffs tweaked the three proposals to create six more maps. Board Chairman Andrew Do told supervisors on Tuesday each can submit one more proposal with changes before they meet next week, for a potential total of 14 choices.
Each of the proposals so far would make fairly significant changes to existing supervisorial districts.
Santa Ana, Garden Grove and Westminster are currently grouped together in District 1. Most of the new proposals would carve out a Latino majority voting district including Santa Ana, part of Orange and the western portion of Anaheim.
Irvine is now split between two districts, something several people who spoke at Tuesday’s board meeting wanted to see remedied. Several proposed maps would unite all of Irvine, with some grouping it with coastal cities Newport Beach and Laguna Beach, and one adding it to an inland South County district including Lake Forest, Mission Viejo and the unincorporated canyon communities.
Today OC’s coastal cities from Newport Beach northward are in District 2, and from Laguna Beach southward are in District 5, which includes most of southern OC. One proposed map creates a district that runs the length of the county’s coastline, minus Seal Beach, and another draws three districts that touch the sea.
Speakers on Tuesday again emphasized to the board they want a map that acknowledges the growth in the county’s Latino population, now more than a third of OC residents, and one that doesn’t split up or dilute the voting power of Asian American communities with shared political, social and economic interests.
Many commenters brought up the Voting Rights Act, which some said requires the county to create a Latino majority district. Senior Assistant County Counsel Nicole Walsh said that’s not technically accurate – the law prohibits “practices that result in a denial or abridgement” of someone’s right to vote based on race, so a map that appears to violate the law would be open to a legal challenge.
State elections code also requires that districts be contiguous (no islands cut off from their district), and that districts minimize division of cities and census designated places, and that districts are compact, Walsh said.
Any new maps supervisors may draw will be made public ahead of next week’s meeting, when the board could make a decision or punt to the next meeting. Regardless, county officials hope to wrap up the process and see the board take a final vote on everything (including an ordinance that goes with the map) on Dec. 7.
Information on redistricting, the maps proposed so far, demographic data and other details are at www.cob.ocgov.com/2021-redistricting.
