How Democrats Fooled California’s Redistricting Commission

[jimrtex]

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

The constitution requires that districts be numbered north to south.  The commission interpreted this to mean that districts are numbered based on the latitude of their northernmost point¹.  But if you are searching a map you tend to concentrate on the center of the district. 

There is one district (CD-8) that extends northward through the Owen Valley, but with most of the population in San Bernardino County, including 29 Palms is "north" of San Francisco and Oakland, and almost as far north as Sacramento.

Part of San Francisco County is in the bay almost to the San Rafael-Richmond bridge, so that San Francisco is "north" of Berkeley.

I have been told that someone pointed out that California has a northernmost point and indeed it is all District 1.

¹ Senate districts are numbered slightly differently, since odd-numbered and even-numbered districts elect a senator in alternate elections.  If a voter is moved from an odd-numbered district to an even-numbered district, they will help elect a senator in 2010 and 2012; but if they were moved from an odd-numbered to an even-numbered district, they would elect a senator in 2008 and 2014.  If the senator elected in 2008 was term-limited it would be illegal for such a voter to even have a senator who they had once voted for.

The commission placed the districts into odd and even groups based on the percentage of the population that overlapped current odd- and even-numbered districts, so as to "minimize" the number of disenfranchised and extrafranchised persons, and then applied the north to south rule.

Still, about 10% of the population will vote for 12 years of senatorial representation in a redistricting decade; and 10% will vote for 8 years of senatorial representation.  This 40% variation is much larger than the 0.8% deviation that bothered the judges in West Virginia, and because of the methodology used in drawing the districts the burden will fall on communities of interest that the commission identified.

[jimrtex]

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It isn't Mike, trust me. I drained the swamp dry. Nothing is left. The CVAP for this little VRA monster I bet is closer to something like 40%, maybe a tad higher - no more. You don't really think the courts would require this VRA monster to actually be drawn do you?

Your version does less to trash the map overall, requiring major surgeries all over the place, but it does drop the Hispanic percentage by one or two points. What I drew was the  max pack, saying F it to everything else, just as a masturbatory exercise.

This is the opinion of the DC district court in the Texas preclearance trial as to what the standard for measuring retrogression under Section 5 is:

http://tinyurl.com/74ppdvv

[jimrtex]

This is the opinion of the DC district court in the Texas preclearance trial as to what the standard for measuring retrogression under Section 5 is:

http://tinyurl.com/74ppdvv

This is a section 5 decision and would be applicable to districts that impact Kings, Merced, Monterey, and Yuba.

A big part of the decision distinguishes between ability districts under section 5 and opportunity districts under section 2. I read this as saying coalitions and crossover voting can be considered in preclearance jurisdictions, though they are not generally applicable for section 2. It also implies that if there is evidence of polarized voting there, one would need a host of statistics to determine if the existing district is an ability district and to determine if the new district retrogresses it in any way.

The more significant part appears to be the DOJ rejecting any sort of percentage test, and instead demanding districts based on the election outcomes.  In Texas, this may mean that you add more Blacks to Hispanic districts since they are more likely to vote for the Hispanic candidate of choice (ie Democrat) than Hispanic voters, so long as there are not so many Blacks as to control the primary.

[jimrtex]

Section 5 is the pre clearance, and Section 2 is what the courts go by, is that correct?  Suppose per Section 5, the DOJ demands a minority CD, but it is not required under Section 2, where it is a percentage rather than an outcomes game apparently. Will the court reverse the DOJ, or does Section 5 take precedence over Section 2, and what we have are two different legal standards, with potentially different final legal outcomes?  Can someone help me with this? What are the 4 Section 5 counties in CA?

Can someone help a confused old man me with this?

The confused old men (and women) of the SCOTUS will explain it (the most confused of all, Justice Kennedy will provide the definitive explanation).

This is the CATO Institute amicus brief which addresses the conflict between the two sections

http://tinyurl.com/d9uuh8t

[jimrtex]

Kings
Merced
Yuba
Monterey

All four of these had military bases.  In the case of Monterey (Fort Ord) and Merced (Castle AFB) the military bases were BRAC'ed a decade ago.

California had a literacy test.  At the time the test for Section 5 coverage was made, the California Supreme Court had enjoined use of the literacy test since it was in English only, and California repealed the law soon after.

Because most of the soldiers were young and temporarily resident they did not vote in those counties, if at all, nor bother with the goofy procedure of faxing to the Census Bureau proof that they had voted elsewhere.  The four counties failed the participation test (based on turnout vs. CVAP).  This didn't happen in San Diego and Orange County, since while the military bases are quite large, they are not as relatively large to the overall population.

Merced County may have missed meeting the threshold because the census bureau overestimated the CVAP (by assuming that all migration was by citizens).

Twenty years later, Monterey County was considering deliberately including Fort Ord and Soledad Prison in a Salinas Valley commissioners district, because the soldiers still did not vote and those in the prison could not vote, but they would pump up the total population and also make the minority population share higher.

Now Section 5 is used as a cudgel to derail other elections, including the 2005 special statewide election, and the special election to replace Abel Maldonado - in that case there was a deliberate attempt to deny the Central Coast senate representation during passage of the budget.  So much for voting rights.

Section 5 is based on:

(1) Presumption of guilt - covered States and entities must prove their innocence;
(2) Corruption of blood - covered States and entities are designated based on elections nearly 50 years ago (while in hellholes like Hawaii, Washington, and Minnesota relative voter participation by minorities is much worse than for Anglos)
(3) Infringement of State sovereignty.

[jimrtex]

In oral arguments on Perez, Kennedy does not like Section 5, and Roberts complained about the Hobson's choice presented in a law, that frankly is just a mess at this point. The article really gives no clue as to how the conservative 5 plan to drain the swamp, or whether they will drain it at all.  They clearly hate this case.  I sympathize.

The fun part was when Roberts asked when the DC district court would issue its ruling on preclearance, and then asked when the Supreme Court would rule on the appeal of that order.