How Democrats Fooled California’s Redistricting Commission

[Torie]

As I kind of suspected, but hadn't "proved" because I have not really studied the CA map, the Dems just ran circles around the Pubs in CA, with shill groups testifying for this and that, the Pubs not understanding the partisan implications of uniting this but not that, and the Pubs having no organized campaign to get their own self serving shills into the fray. It is a real, real, pity that I was not on that commission. Heck, just checking out the organizations on the internet, and at the CA Secretary of State website, I could have unmasked some of them as Dem fronts. And I would have known immediately what the partisan implications were of all of this disingenuous chatter. Sad.

Well, all is fair in love and war, and the Pubs just dropped the ball. But then CA Pubs have been dysfunctional since rocks cooled in CA. So 2 to 3 seats lost due to CA Pub incompetence, and Dem Machiavellian, but clever - and effective - tactics. Some of it has little echos of AZ, where I suspect similar shills paraded before the Commission, but there of course, the Commission was stacked, and in the end I kind of suspect, just had professional Dem operatives essentially draw the map for them, and then worked on how best to justify it. That was more a matter of just reverse engineering. But the Pubs not calling the Dems out on the phony partisan break even point at least was particularly pathetic in AZ.

[Torie]

From what I can tell the GOP was particularly weak at recognizing underlying bias in some neutral mathematical models. In AZ the GOP assumed that the blame was solely on the partisan chair, but even a neutral chair would have had a hard time overcoming the state competitiveness directive given the bias in the chosen elections.

In CA my sense was that the lack of understanding by the GOP of the impact of socioeconomic grouping as a preferred community of interest. The underlying math here works against the GOP as much as a maximally square grid with minimum area districts works against the Dems.

Who chose the elections to use in AZ, and why were their not experts to opine on what they thought the break even points were?  Yes, the "class warfare" concept united Hancock Park with Palos Verdes in the LA area, taking in the heavy Dem Wilshire corridor along the way, put the beach cities CD out of reach for example. I am not sure how appending Westminster to Long Beach was justified yet.  Oddly, in the end, that CD was put just out of reach of the GOP too.  Maybe that was just a coincidence.

[Torie]

As I kind of suspected, but hadn't "proved" because I have not really studied the CA map, the Dems just ran circles around the Pubs in CA, with shill groups testifying for this and that, the Pubs not understanding the partisan implications of uniting this but not that, and the Pubs having no organized campaign to get their own self serving shills into the fray. It is a real, real, pity that I was not on that commission. Heck, just checking out the organizations on the internet, and at the CA Secretary of State website, I could have unmasked some of them as Dem fronts. And I would have known immediately what the partisan implications were of all of this disingenuous chatter. Sad.

Well, all is fair in love and war, and the Pubs just dropped the ball. But then CA Pubs have been dysfunctional since rocks cooled in CA. So 2 to 3 seats lost due to CA Pub incompetence, and Dem Machiavellian, but clever - and effective - tactics. Some of it has little echos of AZ, where I suspect similar shills paraded before the Commission, but there of course, the Commission was stacked, and in the end I kind of suspect, just had professional Dem operatives essentially draw the map for them, and then worked on how best to justify it. That was more a matter of just reverse engineering. But the Pubs not calling the Dems out on the phony partisan break even point at least was particularly pathetic in AZ.

aren't you a lawyer? You could have testified at the hearings.

I don't think being a lawyer here gives me some special access in this venue - surprising I know, since typically, given that we essentially write the laws, we are a very cosseted guild indeed.

Yes, I could have made this my all consuming hobby, but I guess I thought the pros were competent, and anyway I am too busy being an aging playboy, and running my "real estate empire," and annoying the youngs around here with my little old man perspective on life, and whatnot. Yes, I do feel sort of bad I did not get more involved. I guess I was demoralized when I was chopped off the applicants considered with the first cut. They thought they found about 500 more folks more qualified than I, I guess, who survived the first chop. I was just so hurt! 

[Torie]

Well, surprise, surprise, the article that I linked is being used by the Pubs to call for the CD map to be tanked. Is there really any chance of that happening? Er, no. The Pubs are calling for investigations and the like. Hey Pubs, your dropping the ball, and the commissioners being duped by clever Dems, is not a grounds to have the map tanked. It would be like having a verdict in a civil case reversed because you lost on the grounds that you had a suck lawyer represent you. That dog won't hunt. Get over it! You deserve what you got. Geez!

[Torie]

I am going to put up my CA maps on this thread, because the purpose of the exercise is to evaluate the Commission's work, and if flawed, what partisan difference it made, if any.  I don't expect very dramatic differences actually, despite whatever it was the Dem manipulation accomplished. So to start, here is LA County, except for a few bits. No Pub CD's emerge, but that red CD, the Asian CD (CA-32) is but lean Dem (58.2% Obama). Yes, I chose the color "red" for the this CD deliberately. They appreciate the glories of the color red as much as I - strong, masculine, and just a fabulous accent color.  Go Asians!

I am thinking btw of adjusting the McCain partisan baseline in CA up by 2 or 3 points for PVI purposes by the way. CA just went bonkers over Obama in 2008, including yours truly. Stay tuned. So CA-32 might have a say 2%-4% Dem PVI, in other words lean Dem, but competitive, particularly if Asians trend GOP, and the tea leaves suggest that in CA that they might be going in that direction. The incumbent Chu should have no problems however.

It was fun drawing CD's in a part of the world that I actually know intimately. I know where the "communities of interest" are. I know where the lines of neighborhood council districts  are. I got particular joy drawing the eastern edge of CA-30,, where I know every block. This map was a celebration of both class and racial "warfare," so both parameters are met that the Commission was interested in. CA-30 must be one of the most wealthy CD's in the nation, if not the wealthiest.  And it contains the entirety of my real estate "empire" in LA County the way I drew it to boot.  

I will update this particular post as I complete more work, and finally do a compare and contrast, and render a final judgment. I am quite satisfied with my LA county lines, except possibly for the Santa Fe Springs, Whittier area. That may change a bit when the SD, OC, Riverside, and San Bernadino Counties are completed.

By the way, you can see how the formerly "black ghetto" has been gutted, and dramatically so, by demographic changes, as Hispanics move in, and blacks move out. There is but one "black" CD now (CA-37), about 45% black, which is about as middle class, as lower class.

 

[Torie]

It looks like you "lost" a 60% plus Hispanic CD in LA County, sbane.  I have six of them in LA County. Am I confused?  

I would have to see the whole map of LA County to comment. I was very careful to follow communities of interest lines, and class lines, and racial lines, with the VRA in mind. I did the best I could, and let the chips fall where they may. The Beach Cities CD slipped away, when it had to take all of Venice, and some Hispanic, Bohemian, Hollywood wanna-be, UCLA grad student, and independent minded undergrads who don't like dorm living precincts, just to the east of Santa Monica - a little pocket of left wing un-wealth. It was gone. Better areas for it had to go into the Hispanic CD down south. The end. It is amazing how that Burbank, Glendale, Pasadena, La Canada, La Crecenta CD has become solid Dem now. It would have been Pubbie wonderland when I was a kid. But the, CA-30 would have been marginal - then (e.g., even then, West Hollywood was gay ).

Glendora is upper middle class Anglo (one of my pals lives there, an Anglo liberal Dem.  ). But the Asian CD had to go somewhere, and it was not going to chop further into SB County, and was otherwise totally boxed in. So it got about half or a bit more or so of Glendora. That was the nearest available town. Azusa is just so freaking Hispanic, which was most inconvenient. Absent that, and the map would have been much cleaner there.

[Torie]

It looks like you "lost" a 60% plus Hispanic CD in LA County, sbane.  I have six of them in LA County. Am I confused?  

I would have to see the whole map of LA County to comment. I was very careful to follow communities of interest lines, and class lines, and racial lines, with the VRA in mind. I did the best I could, and let the chips fall where they may. The Beach Cities CD slipped away, when it had to take all of Venice, and some Hispanic, Bohemian, Hollywood wanna-be, UCLA grad student, and independent minded undergrads who don't like dorm living precincts, just to the east of Santa Monica - a little pocket of left wing un-wealth. It was gone. Better areas for it had to go into the Hispanic CD down south. The end. It is amazing how that Burbank, Glendale, Pasadena, La Canada, La Crecenta CD has become solid Dem now. It would have been Pubbie wonderland when I was a kid. But the, CA-30 would have been marginal - then (e.g., even then, West Hollywood was gay ).

Yup, there will be two more Latino districts that will be drawn. One centered around downtown and of course the San Fernando valley.

I think the differences in our maps stem from you starting in LA, whereas I started in Imperial and SD. I'm trying to avoid pushing Socal districts into the central valley or the mountains. I think the only one that will be pushed outside Socal will be the coast district, which actually is fine from a communities of interest perspective.

We shall see. I still think you lost an Hispanic CD - my Carson wrap-around one, but yes, the population numbers to the south, could affect things. But not by much per my map. I have some leeway, and I know that when I did my earlier map, with OC and SD drawn, OC "wanted" to jut into Long Beach by a tad, and this map instead juts into OC, to take Seal Beach. But that is a swing of maybe 50,000 folks max. It's rather trivial. The line between SoCal, and the rest of the state is the Sierra Nevada Mountain chain, the Tehatchapis-grapevine (sp), and the LA County line on the coast. The population discrepancy, and the best fix, will drive the outcome. Yes, butting into Ventura County is acceptable, but so is sucking up some of Kern County. Or if the flow is the other way, then the Owens Valley is in play, appended to the Bakersfield CD. I doubt it will present much of a problem.

And here is an alternative that gets rid of the Glendora salient, "solves the Santa Fe Springs-Whittier issue sort of (but notice that CA-32 has to cross an empty zone to get down there that while not as much of a reach as going to Glendora, is a reach across an "empty zone" barrier, and into territory which CA-32 has less in common with potentially, and particularly over time, than going to Glendora does (I don't think Asians are planning to move down to La Mirada adjacent, and the more bourgeoisie parts of Whittier (once part of the Midwestern WASP Pub diaspora back when), anytime soon. The major "cost" however is a much deeper jut by CA-35 into OC, and a deeper just into the San Gabriel Valley by the presumably Anglo based CD in SB County. So it is probably not worth it on balance, even though it makes both CA-35 and CA-32 a tad more Pub. So it is not as if, if the Dems on the Commission demanded it, that I would just so "no."  

[Torie]

OK, but that deep jut of yours into OC so that a CD that goes from Bellflower (well Lawndale, better) via Long Beach to consume that only all of Huntington Beach, but a slice of Fountain Valley, is just a deal killer sbane. The OC-LA County line is a pretty hard one, trust me (ignored by the Commission when it snapped up Westminster), and any cuts need to have a very compelling reason indeed. There is a very good case for consuming Seal Beach, and in a pinch, even that Los Alamitos gated Seizure World, if need be, since they both go to Long Beach for nearly everything (going south is this huge field of oil wells and strawberry farms and such, and navy stuff, and is probably a toxic waste dump), but that is about it.

[Torie]

Ah, and give Glendora to the Pasadena, Glendale, Burbank based CD connected via the very steep face of the San Gabriel Mountains in lieu of the Asian contagion going there. And give South Pasadena and La Habra Heights to the Asian CD too, so that the Anglo WASP commie-lib CD can take all of Glendora, with which it has a lot in common (other than partisan preference). That is probably a good idea, although it is a 15 yard penalty play for the Pubs. You would have made a good Dem shill operative for the Dems sbane.

[Torie]

OK, but that deep jut of yours into OC so that a CD that goes from Bellflower (well Lawndale, better) via Long Beach to consume that only all of Huntington Beach, but a slice of Fountain Valley, is just a deal killer sbane. The OC-LA County line is a pretty hard one, trust me (ignored by the Commission when it snapped up Westminster), and any cuts need to have a very compelling reason indeed. There is a very good case for consuming Seal Beach, and in a pinch, even that Los Alamitos gated Seizure World, if need be, since they both go to Long Beach for nearly everything (going south is this huge field of oil wells and strawberry farms and such, and navy stuff, and is probably a toxic waste dump), but that is about it.

Are the county lines generally meaningful in SoCal or is it just that stretch of line you reference. I ask since sometime ago when I was drawing CA maps there seemed to be consensus that a district would have to overlap at some point. Is that better towards the northern end of the LA-OC border?

Thanks to sbane's help, the map below I think presents the best OC-LA County cuts.  You can see how the cut in the south just takes in an area isolated by real estate largely devoid of people, and ditto the southern border there of the red tiger, which no longer reaches down to that problem child - Whittier. And CA-32 now moves up to 51.8% Asian, which is simply grand. It's perfect!  Pity that the Obama percentage is up to 59% now. And to think now heavily Dem S. Pasadena used to be this charming understated middle to upper middle class WASP Pubbie heaven.  Where have all the flowers gone?  One just can't have it all, can one?  





And this looks even better!    

I also fixed the borderland between CA-38 and CA-42 (the lime green CD), so that Maywood (a place you probably don't want to live in since it is the most down market of that band of former Okie white working class suburbs that did a near "perfect" job of keeping blacks out, and are now solidly to - in places - almost unanimously, Hispanic), and a little slice of Huntington Park, were put in CA-38. In exchange, CA-42 took part of unincorporated Florence.

That aspect of the map has been vexing me since I first drew it. I am vexed no more. The line re-jigling creates an "empty quarter" (a little Saudi Arabian reference for you) as a natural border between the two CD's. I mean what can be more empty than Vernon, which has about 35 voters, almost all of whom are on the municipal payroll, at vast salaries (or were - I think the state is trying to disincorporate Vernon).

And land greedy City of Commerce (that famed land of casino card clubs that have been there for about as long as Vegas has been separating folks from their money), while having a few more people, like a grand total of 3,500 voters, most of them are away from its southern edge (where the card clubs, with vast parking lots, and that former Firestone Tire plant cheek-to-jowl to the 5 Freeway, which looked like a medieval fort, and is now a retail outlet center behind the fort facade, are to be found rather than housing).   Yes, we wants to have empty zones as "natural" CD borders, yes we wants that little "precious" a lot.  

[Torie]

Below is my completed map for the southern half of the state. I invite comments. I am not going to put up the partisan stats, least they bias one. Tell me where the flaws are from a VRA, community of interest and compactness standpoint, with minimum county and municipal chops, and how a superior product can be created. I think at the moment the map is flawless, and frankly inspired genius. Tell me how I am delusional about that.  Thanks in advance.

Oh yes, all Hispanic CD's are at least 60% Hispanic VAP - the lowest being 61.9% Hispanic VAP (CA-33). Addendum: Oh, I take that back.  CA-31 is 57.4% Hispanic VAP, and can be beefed up by trading territory with 75.6% Hispanic VAP next door CA-34, but it will break through some municipal lines and empty quarters, and make the map uglier and cross communities of interest. 57.6% Hispanic should be enough given that 22.8% are low voting Asians (they are low voting in that neighborhood), but I guess that could be discussed. The incumbent Becerra runs reasonably well with Anglos anyway (he went to Harvard Law School, and a lawyer friend of mine knew him quite well - he gets hit up for contributions by him all the time ), and should have no problem at all winning a Dem primary there (that CD is not in play in the General  ).

CA-43 is 57.4% Hispanic, but it can't get much higher without crossing into Riverside County, and trading territory with CA-42 (which is great from a Pub standpoint, but is not something that I think is appropriate, and don't think required by the VRA, since it is not as if the heavy Hispanic precincts live right on the county line with San Bernadino).

In due course, we shall have a detailed compare and contrast of this map with the Commission's one, putting under the microscope what happened, and try to fathom why.  

Addendum 2: At the bottom I put up the ethnic stats. Pale green is the color of an Asian "influence" CD, and lighter brown the same for Hispanics. As to partisanship, I will give you a hint. Other than CA-17, they are listed in the order of partisan preference.  

And yes, the two "whitest of white" CD's are also the wealthiest of those that I have mapped (right up there near the top of the nation), even if of distinctly different partisan preference. In fact,  more and more in Socal, and considerably more so than in the nation at large, if you're white, you tend to be rather high income. Down-market whites have packed their bags, and split, replaced by Hispanics.

And yes, I have dropped the Pub baseline in CA by two points, down to 44.3% McCain, splitting the difference more or less with the 4% and something Dem trend for the state as a whole in 2008. That probably does not obtain in the Central Valley, and may understate things in the prime snapback areas in CA in 2010, but I think that it is the best number overall for the state. I feel there is some Dem trend in CA, but Obama really juiced it up, and for the marginal CD's,  with maybe one exception (not to be disclosed at this time, since this is a CD I have not yet drawn, and I am just speculating), I don't think using a single baseline number will change the partisan odds much from trying to get more customized.

[Torie]

Must there be a district from San Luis Obispo to Santa Cruz?

The city of San Luis Obispo is entirely within CA-23, not CA-17, and CA-17 does not take in any of metro Santa Cruz (just farming areas and agricultural Watsonville), but yes, there must.  It's trapped by mountains and the VRA, and where the roads go.

[Torie]

Muon2, I think the 2010 election districts will load, and I had the same problem and switched to those. Check it out.  

The cut into Riverside County by CA-41 is tiny by the way.  Something has to cut into it, since the only other cut is CA-48 into the middle class white part of Corona, and that cut is also mandatory, since CA-48 is walled in indirectly by the Seal Beach, OC County line, the Asian CD CA-32, and the Saddleback Mountains between OC and Riverside County, with the pass and the Freeway being where I cut into Corona. CA-43 and CA-26 can switch out precincts to make CA-43 more Hispanic, but it means another municipal cut into Ontario, and I wouldn't do it, but maybe it should be done. I will draw an alternative map that way. That will make CA-26 more GOP.  

The way I drew the map, I don't think another Hispanic CD is possible, without cutting into Riverside, and I agree with the commission that that should not be done. It not legally mandated, and enough is enough.

I drew two more CD's by the way. They are drawn about the only way they can be drawn given the VRA and the mountains, unless one does not mind erosity and more chops, and I do mind. CA-20 is 59.8% Hispanic VAP.

[Torie]

Got to run off, but as to the Kern cut it's perfect. The division is the Tehachapi Mountain range, which divides the Central Valley from the desert (and only 30,000 people). It's a natural physical barrier. Sending CA-25 into Ventura is far less desirable, and it would go down that river and have to take Fillmore, with which it has nothing in common. CA-44 taking CA-48's share of Corona is fine, but 1) what does CA-48 take instead, and 2), that would only reduce the cut into the Moreno Valley, not eliminate it.  If CA-50 does not take Escondido, what does? I spent a long time thinking about communities of interest. That is what this map is all about. And in this neck of woods (less so in the Bay area), I know the hoods. I haven't done it, but I don't think you can create another Hispanic CD in the south end of the Central Valley.  

Addendum. Oh, CA-44 could take the share of Corona that CA-42 has. That might be good (although it makes things more erose), if that allows CA-42 to take all, or almost all, of Moreno Valley. Corona is really joined at the hip with Riverside, particularly after you get out of the Anglo zone next to the mountains, and kind of chops into the heart of the Riverside metro area, rather than the far edges (SE Moreno Valley). It is worth experimenting with though. Good thought.

[Torie]

Got to run off, but as to the Kern cut it's perfect. The division is the Tehachapi Mountain range, which divides the Central Valley from the desert (and only 30,000 people). It's a natural physical barrier. Sending CA-25 into Ventura is far less desirable, and it would go down that river and have to take Fillmore, with which it has nothing in common. CA-44 taking CA-48's share of Corona is fine, but 1) what does CA-48 take instead, and 2), that would only reduce the cut into the Moreno Valley, not eliminate it.  If CA-50 does not take Escondido, what does? I spent a long time thinking about communities of interest. That is what this map is all about. And in this neck of woods (less so in the Bay area), I know the hoods. I haven't done it, but I don't think you can create another Hispanic CD in the south end of the Central Valley.  

Addendum. Oh, CA-44 could take the share of Corona that CA-42 has. That might be good (although it makes things more erose), if that allows CA-42 to take all, or almost all, of Moreno Valley. Corona is really joined at the hip with Riverside, particularly after you get out of the Anglo zone next to the mountains, and kind of chops into the heart of the Riverside metro area, rather than the far edges (SE Moreno Valley). It is worth experimenting with though. Good thought.

I think a cut into thousand oaks by a western San Fernando valley district makes more sense than cutting into Kern or into the Fillmore area with the 25th. Thousand oaks has a lot in common with that area, as opposed to the other combos mentioned which make less sense.

Ca-48 should remain as is but if ca-44 and ca-42 can trade territories to eliminate the cut in Moreno valley, it should be done. And it results in a more Hispanic district which might be required of the map. Corona is  joined to the hip with Riverside but so is Moreno valley.

Escondido has to be put into Ca-50 if you cut into OC instead of riverside. You can put it, San Marcos and Vista into the 49th and in exchange the entire coast including camp Pendleton gets put in the 50th. Obviously won't work if you are going into OC from SD.

The cut into Kern is perfect. The desert there is the same as the desert as Lancaster, a flat plain, and indistinguishable from the landscape that Lancaster is in, and the folks who live there shop, and largely work - in Lancaster. It is indeed one community of interest. Simi Valley is over a little mountain range and a world of its own, although many do commute. Simi Valley would have to be chopped to boot, and chopping deeply big towns is bad, bad, bad to boot. The Kern chop is the superior one in every way for the 30,000 people involved.

I accept the change out of the balance of Corona for the balance of Moreno Valley, primarily because the change loses one municipal cut, with just Corona now being cut, rather than both Moreno Valley and Corona (albeit the cut is with two different CD's).  That is the decisive factor for me. The new map is below. It works well.

[Torie]

Does the below precinct exchange between CA-43 and CA-26, a late term "abortion" as it were,  which trashes every reasonable "good-government" parameter on the grounds that doing  racial gerrymandering  via just doing the  VRA deep on steroids, turn anyone on? It gets CA-43 up to 62.2% VAP Hispanic (up from 57.6% Hispanic). Isn't that exciting?

[Torie]

Yes, the Kern cut stays. I do see that Pomona is part of an Hispanic area that is contiguous. We shall see what we can do. That is a rather compelling factor. I see more municipal cuts in LA County however. In my world, I would just live with the 57% Hispanic San Bernadino district, but I guess if the Hispanic voting habits are that different in the San Gabriel Valley, that is a very important factor. 

My cut of CA-41 into Riverside County is a grand total of 7,758 people. Getting rid of it "solves" nothing. And CA-41 just has too many  people to take Redlands.

I have been avoiding really looking at the Commission map, because it might bias me. But I did here. It's map is a mess in this area. I quite dislike it. Sbane's is better.  We shall see given the shape of my map elsewhere, which has very good reasons for doing what it did, what if anything can be done here, without making a hash of it.

I see the Commission really screwed up the CD numbering system too. So many districts get new numbers - needlessly. Sigh.

[Torie]

Does this carve-up of the inland "empire" make everyone deliriously happy?  CA-38 is 61.4% Hispanic, CA-26 is 67% Hispanic, and CA-43 is 41.6% Hispanic. And Muon2 gets his f'ing Riverside County cut, which becomes more "convenient" with this map version - all 7,000 or so residents of it.

The key of course is the Pomona chop. We don't like to chop in half big towns like this, but the VRA is a harsh mistress - apparently. We also get a nice erose CA-43,and chop of a couple of more towns in LA County between CA-29 and CA-38.  Life is beautiful.

[Torie]

Yeah, not bad. If the Owens valley goes in the 41st then Redlands has to go in the 43rd, otherwise we end up with my map. Keeping Redlands and Yucaipa together is probably a good idea, and the Owens valley can be put in another district. . I Disagree about the Kern cut as well. The 25th to me is an exurban LA district. There are a lot of commuters who commute into either the Santa Clarita valley or into LA from Palmdale and Lancaster. Yes, those areas of Kern are high desert like those two cities but other than that they have very little in common.

That's why I put SE Kern with Barstow and Death Valley. It keeps the high desert together better IMO.

Mike, would you direct me to your "high desert" map?  I think I disagree with your perspective here, but before I comment beyond my tentative thought below, I want to see the impact on adjacent CD's.  The fundamental problem however is connecting a lot of desert to a central valley based CD, and it won't be all of the "high desert" anyway. Victorville is more or less "high desert," and separating it from the balance of the otherwise very lightly populated "high desert," is the consequence.

[Torie]

Muon2, where did the north LA County CD pick up its extra 30,000 residents?  Did it cut into the City of LA?  That Kern bit can go in either CD, but the northern LA County CD going into Ventura County towards Fillmore or into the San Fernando Valley is undesirable, as is biting a piece off the Victorville-Hesperia-Adalante metro area, which is a long way from the population centers of the northern LA County CD.

[Torie]

Presumably from where you have an SB district pick up a piece of LA County, no?

No, that cut is into Westlake Village along Hwy 101, a long way from the north LA County CD. As I said, I don't like any of the cuts for the north LA County CD, other than into Kern County. Those cuts represent far less of a community of interest, and cutting into the city of LA to pick up a few people would just be awful.

[Torie]

Changed your mind eh Mike?   You said you liked my cut, and now you don't.  Anyway, I don't think HWY 395, the connector road into the Owens Valley temporarily drifting off slightly into another CD is the worst thing in the world (who cares?), but if you can stand a tri-chop of Kern, that problem can be "solved."  That has some appeal, since Ridgecrest is so divorced from Bakersfield actually.  Cutting into the agricultural river valley that Fillmore is in, with which the northern LA County CD has nothing in common, does not. That is far less desirable than Hwy 395 drifting a few miles temporarily out of CA-41, in my not very humble opinion.    Heck, just move Hwy 395 to the east of Ridgecrest rather than west, and that would do the trick too. The land there is all flat. It would be a piece of cake - just costing a few million bucks is all.

32,000 residents are involved with Ridgecrest, so that means most of Highland goes from CA-41 to CA-43. Does that make everyone happy? There will be a rather huge 32,000 resident counter-clockwise turn of the clock actually, ending up with a deeper cut into Westlake, and squeezing San Luis Obispo city. It is already under pressure when I got rid of the Riverside County chop involving 7,000 residents (which has not been posted yet) by turning the clock by that much. So maybe it won't work well given the SLO issue. If so, then well I am going to settle for the Hwy 395 drift-out myself. I consider that issue minor actually.  Nobody would care or know.

CA-29 has 52,000 residents in the city of LA Lewis, an Anglo area in a valley on the other side of a mini mountain range from the San Fernando Valley connecting down to LaCanada-Flintridge and Pasadena with no road to CA-25, other than through a bunch of Hispanics. Sorry about that.

[Torie]

My CA magnum opus map slowly continues to take shape. Silicon Valley and the Peninsula have now been drawn. So much of CA is a story of mountain ranges and Freeways (precinct lines tend to love following freeways, so using them makes for nice pretty lines). As always, comments are welcome.





By the way, I seriously played with the idea of CA-41 cutting into Kern, attempting to arrange matters, so that the Tulare CD was knocked out of Kern, to avoid a quad chop of Kern. It just doesn't work. The clock cannot be turned much counterclockwise, without generating a host of ancillary problems, including a nasty chop of Santa Cruz, or SLO, or messing up the Hispanic Fresno based CD, or all three. It just doesn't work. The clock in this map has stopped at about just the right place. CA just has too many mountain and ethnic barriers to have much flexibility in the end as to what to do.

And I got rid of the Riverside County chop!  



This was accomplished by using the Riverside-SB line as the hard line, rather than Seal Beach for the border of CA-37 and CA-40 and CA-46 (county lines in general should take precedence over municipal ones). So CA-37 takes gated geezer Rossmoor, and loses two Seal Beach precincts, and then you twist the clock (e.g., CA-48 taking more of Corona). The twist goes in the following order: CA 41-43-26-38-29-31-34-39-37-40-48-44-45-42. It is that laborious, because there are so many hard boundaries (muni lines, county lines, ethnic lines, mountain ridge lines) that cannot be crossed. Fun stuff.

[Torie]

Looks pretty good, Torie, but what's up with that random extension of CD47 there?

80% Hispanic precincts, and too "good" not to go and grab. I think they are next to a rail line running from beautiful downtown Orange to Riverside - of course. The Orange RR station where you switched commuter trains to and from Riverside from the main SD to LA line, used to have this great micro brewery pub in it, which a friend of a friend owned. It was too Yuppie for the zip code and died. Sad.

[Torie]

Since San Francisco is too large for one district, I think I would extend the 12th into the Sunset, like both the old and new maps do. That part of the city is most like Daly City.

The area next to the ocean and the San Mateo County line is pretty upscale as I recall (not like Daley City at all, and Sunset Beach is up north), and my cut into SF is an Asian node, and I thought I would join that with the Asians just to the south. Plus it is nicely delimited by freeways, which tend to define precincts, and often neighborhoods, and tend to in this case. However, I will take a peek at the Commission's map, to see what they did, something that in general I try to avoid doing. None of this makes the slightest difference in partisan terms of course, but I am trying to do the very best job that I can, viewing myself as a Commissioner.