Analysis of California's Congressional Districts (January Edition)
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
The redistricting season is winding down as states finalize their maps. Most of my future posts will involve analyzing election races, including this post which analyzes California's congressional races.
On November 2nd, 2010, California voters passed Proposition 20 allowing a commission composed of 5 Democrats, 5 Republicans and 4 Independents to redraw my state's congressional districts. Previously, the state legislature drew the maps. In the House of Representatives, the representatives represent voters in districts the legislature draws. In recent years though, states such as Washington and California have chosen commissions to draw districts without political influence. In California, the commission traveled around the state to hear public comments from citizens like me and talk to groups such as MALDEF. On June 10th, 2011, the California Redistricting Commission released their first set of maps for California after hearing public comments from meetings such as this one on May 20th that I attended. The guidelines set for the commission were to draw districts that follow the VRA, stick to county boundaries as much as possible and preserve communities of interest. They approved the final maps in mid August. Also, this is the first election year where all California Congressional elections will have a top two primary where all candidates run in the June primary and the top two vote getters advance to the general election on November 6th.
I posted an earlier analysis of California's new congressional districts here: http://racesandredistricting.blogspot.com/2011/06/analysis-of-californias-proposed.html but this version is different because it analyzed the 1st draft of California's redistricting maps. This new version here analyzes California's Congressional districts after the Commission approved the final maps. Instead of focusing on communities of interest, this analysis will mostly focus on the congressional races themselves and which party is likely to win them. Overall, the Commission’s new Congressional map produces 28 Safe Democratic seats, four Likely Democratic seats, five Lean Democratic seats, two Tossup seats, two Lean Republican seats and 12 Safe Republican seats. This totals to 37 seats expected to vote Democratic with 14 seats expected to vote Republican for Congress, suggesting Democrats could win 3-5 seats under California’s new map.
A few notes: CVAP represents the citizen voting age population.
Here are the maps of the districts drawn in 2002: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/findyourreps.xpd?state=CA
Here are the maps of the new districts: http://www.mpimaps.com/mapanalysis/california-congressional-delegation/
http://racesandredistricting.blogspot.com/
Following this is a district by district analysis...
I'm living in the California 43rd - Maxine Waters. Where do you live?
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Still unrepresented, that's for sure!