How Democrats Fooled California’s Redistricting Commission

[Хahar 🤔]

It doesn't really matter too much. Dems are still vulnerable to losing seats in a wave election under the new lines.

There's no evidence that there will ever be such an election.

[Хahar 🤔]

It doesn't really matter too much. Dems are still vulnerable to losing seats in a wave election under the new lines.

There's no evidence that there will ever be such an election.

Sure thing. Democrats are going to continue to win elections in California, and Californians are going to continue to put up with all the craziness the loons who dominate the party put into law. The redistricting gives Republicans excellent shots of making net gains in the Congressional delegation and State Assembly.

It's been that way since the election of 1996. Last year, in the midst of a huge Republican wave, the California Republicans made no gains whatsoever. You tell me when it's coming.

[Хahar 🤔]

It doesn't really matter too much. Dems are still vulnerable to losing seats in a wave election under the new lines.

There's no evidence that there will ever be such an election.

Sure thing. Democrats are going to continue to win elections in California, and Californians are going to continue to put up with all the craziness the loons who dominate the party put into law. The redistricting gives Republicans excellent shots of making net gains in the Congressional delegation and State Assembly.

It's been that way since the election of 1996. Last year, in the midst of a huge Republican wave, the California Republicans made no gains whatsoever. You tell me when it's coming.

This is the reason no wave hit last year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California%27s_congressional_districts#2002:_Bipartisan_gerrymandering

I would accept that argument if the Democrats hadn't gotten over 54% of the vote for State Assembly last November. It's not about the boundaries; California voters just have no desire to vote Republican.

[Хahar 🤔]

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

[Хahar 🤔]

I would say that Contra Costa County has far more in common with Alameda County than any of the counties to its east; if possible, it would be best to keep the East Bay together.

[Хahar 🤔]

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.

[Хahar 🤔]

Morgan Hill certainly can't be in a Santa Cruz district; there's no usable road through the mountains there, and to get from Morgan Hill or Gilroy to Santa Cruz you need to go through either Watsonville or San Jose.

Cupertino has more in common with Los Altos or Saratoga than it does with San Jose, whereas Campbell would fit better with the San Jose district than with the richer areas to its south. Demographically, Cupertino now has a large Asian majority, but income is probably a better indicator of communities of interest in the South Bay than race would be. It would be nice to simply switch Campbell with Cupertino (and the districts would look cleaner, too), but unfortunately Cupertino is significantly larger.

[Хahar 🤔]

I always figured Morgan Hill was named after the prominent hill next to the town, but apparently that's called El Toro, not Morgan Hill. Now I know.

Morgan Hill certainly can't be in a Santa Cruz district; there's no usable road through the mountains there, and to get from Morgan Hill or Gilroy to Santa Cruz you need to go through either Watsonville or San Jose.

Cupertino has more in common with Los Altos or Saratoga than it does with San Jose, whereas Campbell would fit better with the San Jose district than with the richer areas to its south. Demographically, Cupertino now has a large Asian majority, but income is probably a better indicator of communities of interest in the South Bay than race would be. It would be nice to simply switch Campbell with Cupertino (and the districts would look cleaner, too), but unfortunately Cupertino is significantly larger.

 

Do you like this version of CA-15 better, Xahar, with its chop of Cupertino?  Yes, you are right, Cupertino has twice the median income of Campbell (140K versus 70K).  But it does not help the Asian "cause," because CA-15 is more Asian than CA-14 of course. The Asian VAP percentages with this chop are 17% for CA-14, 29.5% for CA-15 (down from 32% with my version), and 42.7% for CA-16. But in addition to furthering along the class warfare metric, the Cupertino chop also makes the map less erose. I am inclined to accept Xahar's suggestion, unless someone changes my mind. When it comes to the Bay area, I do listen more than when it comes to my neck of the woods in Socal (where I think I know next to everything).

I am fine with this map. Lowers the Asian % even more though, but that's not hugely important. Mike Honda would easily get through a primary here. And this creates a middle class district in the Silicon Valley. Then again the other district contains Mountain View, which has a similar income to Sunnyvale and Santa Clara. If we drop the pretense of having a high Asian % district, you can just add Mountain view to the 15th, and get rid of the chop in Cupertino, add the parts of SJ adjacent to Cupertino (similar incomes I think) to the 14th as well as the Almaden Valley. That would create a better middle of the road district though the 14th would still have all of Santa Cruz so it can't be a wholly upper class district in any case. The map you drew might just be a compromise of all these variables.

Ideally a chop of Cupertino wouldn't be necessary, but if it is, that's where it should be. I like sbane's idea of putting Mountain View in with the 15th in exchange for Cupertino and Almaden. That knob in the westernmost part of San Jose that juts out south of Cupertino and north of Saratoga is where I live; if all of Cupertino and Saratoga are to be in one district, that part of San Jose should be there also.

It's interesting that sbane's suggestion would essentially make one district running along 280 and 85 and another more generally aligned with 101. I think that makes sense.

[Хahar 🤔]

I don't have anything to add (the southwestern part of Santa Clara County is the only part of the world that I know particularly well), but it amuses me that "erose" is a word that everyone uses now.

[Хahar 🤔]

That 17th district is an interesting exercise, but it's remarkably ugly, and it doesn't need to exist. The Chinese in Cupertino and the Vietnamese in East San Jose have very little in common.

[Хahar 🤔]

That 17th district is an interesting exercise, but it's remarkably ugly, and it doesn't need to exist. The Chinese in Cupertino and the Vietnamese in East San Jose have very little in common.

Do they tend to vote the same way?

Not more than they vote the same way as their non-Asian neighbors. Asian legislators certainly have no difficulty being elected in Asian-minority districts.

[Хahar 🤔]

That map is rather uglier than the other one, but it does make sense.

[Хahar 🤔]

School leaves me without time at the moment to try a map of my own, but here are my priorities, listed in order:

1. Class
2. Eroseness
3. Race
4. Political boundaries

Communities of interest are primarily class-based, as I've mentioned before, to the extent that aesthetic appeal is more important than race. As for political boundaries, the county lines were drawn long before most of the Santa Clara Valley was settled, rendering them rather useless, and municipal boundaries are completely useless; thanks to the rabid pro-growth policy that San Jose followed until Norm Mineta was elected Mayor, San Jose is a leviathan that encompasses whatever it was able to grab, without regard to geographical location. Splitting San Jose is not undesirable in the slightest.

[Хahar 🤔]

However this little salient of SJ does not.  It is just not up to Cupertino standards. It has more of the feel of Campbell.

I can speak with some authority (that swatch of green in the middle of the map contains my middle school and high school, and I live a little to the north) when I say that it's not like Campbell at all, despite its population density relative to much of Cupertino. The lots are small and there's no new development since everything was built fifty years ago, but that tract of land is part of the Cupertino Union School District. Municipal boundaries are quite meaningless, but school boundaries matter, because they determine where people decide to live. House prices are actually higher than they are in the part of Cupertino directly to the north, which is zoned to less-desirable Cupertino High.

EDIT: I see sbane already got to that. I'll look through and see if there's anything else I can add.

EDIT II: To me, it seems pointless to worry about percent Asian. Maximizing Asian percentage means lumping together rich and poor areas even though Asians can get elected anywhere.

[Хahar 🤔]

It's about 15,000 people it looks like? Putting it in and taking out more of San Jose north of Campbell leads to it becoming 45.4%AVAP.

But, as Torie has implied the WCVAP would be significant higher than the ACVAP. WCVAP increases by about 4/3 compared to WVAP. The Latino citizen rates are higher than the Asian rates in that area.

That's fine with me. It's an influence district but really it's mostly a division based on class.

One reason I mixed in Evergreen was to cement the influence. The citizen rate among voting age Asians in the lower valley is less than 80%, but it rises to 94% in Evergreen.

By lower valley do you mean the Asian areas right south of Milpitas? What about the Asian areas along the 101 (so a little farther from the hills) south of 680? Where are you getting this data from?

The 101? We're not talking about the Hollywood Freeway here.