As your representative to the California Democratic Convention, I thought it only appropriate to bring back some notes. The most interesting panel was on redistricting. Here are my rough notes on the content of the panel.
Citizens Redistricting Commission
As you know, because of 2 ballot measures last year, the districts will be drawn by a The Citizens’ Redistricting Commission comprised of Republicans, Democrats and Decline-to-State voters. The commission is set up so that any map proposed by the commission needs to get a super-majority of votes from the commission, so it will not be possible to have an all-Democrat map, or an All Republican-map.
Information on the make up of the commission can be found here. They have tried to be geographically and ethnically diverse, but notice that there are no representatives of any kind from San José and the South Bay. This is a worrisome development. The commission has 14 members from varied ethnic backgrounds and geographic locations in the state and includes five Democrats, five Republicans, and four Decline to State.
Key Requirements for Redistricting
In order to be fair, there are several criteria:
- Districts must have equal population
- Districts must comply with state and voting rights acts
- Districts must be geographically contiguous
- Districts must respect city and county, neighborhood, or community of interest boundaries
- Districts must show compactness
- Districts must show nesting, where possible, i.e. Assembly seats must roughly fit into a Senate seat
- Must be incumbent-blind
For a full description of these requirements, see the CRC FAQ.
Communities of Interest
The most ill-defined, yet important, category is communities of interest. These will have a bearing on the final map, and the hearing and comment process is to hear which communities of interested are most interesting in being kept together.
A community of interest is defined as:
A community of interest is a contiguous population which shares common social and economic interests that should be included within a single district for purposes of its effective and fair representation. Examples of such shared interests are those common to an urban area, a rural area, an industrial area, or an agricultural area, and those common to areas in which the people share similar living standards, use the same transportation facilities, have similar work opportunities, or have access to the same media of communication relevant to the election process. Communities of interest shall not include relationships with political parties, incumbents, or political candidates.
– From Article XXI of the California Constitution.
So a district could be made up of a community based on race, income level, shared culture. It could also be based on geography, so the people of the northern coast could be a community of interest, as could the folks in the Central Valley. This is likely to be the hottest topic at the hearings. If you believe you need to fight for your “community of interest”(COI), time is running out, and you need to act now.
Hearings
One of the best ways to make your COI visible to the commission is at the hearings. Hearings have started across California. San José has its hearing on May 23rd (!). For information about the hearing, see the CRC web site. The notice for San José is here.
All meetings are webcast, and can be viewed state-wide.
Redistricting Timeline
- The First map will be available on June 10 (NOTE: I am fact-checking this, could be July. Need to see my notes).
- Hearings will continue until July 27
- July 28 the final draft map will be available
- Commissioners must approve a map on August 15, 2011
If the commissioners can not agree, the courts will appoint 3 Special Masters to draw the lines.
Suggestions for Testifying Before the Commission
- Do not mention party affiliation in front of panel when testifying
- Show up early to speak first
- Keep you testimony to 3 minutes
- Focus on who you are, and what your community of interest is, and why it should be kept together.
- Do not be rude to the commission
- Send any complaints to crc.ca.gov
- Consider sending written comments, as those will be considered without the pressures of listening to people at a public sessions, and it is suggested that they might be given more weight
- Groups in some locations have worked together to do to multiple slides across multiple people so that a longer presentation could be done. There is no guarantee that this will be allowed at the session you attend.
Video from Greenlining Institute
I have included this excellent video on why this process is important:
