Which incumbents are in tough spots with redistricting?

What’s it like campaigning for re-election in 2022 when you’re not sure which voters will be in your district?

Just ask U.S. Rep John Garamendi, a Democrat who lives in Walnut Grove and now represents voters in a district that stretches from Fairfield and Davis to Yuba City, as well as part of the Mendocino National Forest.

Under draft maps from California’s independent redistricting commission, his current district has been chopped up, with significant portions shifted to majority Republican districts now represented by Doug LaMalfa and Tom McClintock and to a district held by Democrat Mike Thompson.

On top of that change, Garamendi would be stuck in the same district where Democratic Reps. Ami Bera of Elk Grove and Doris Matsui of Sacramento also live, though he could try to run in a neighboring district that doesn’t have an incumbent.

“For every California representative, there’s a high degree of uncertainty,” Garamendi told CalMatters by phone from Washington, D.C. “It appears as though the commission is developing an Interstate 80 district. Exactly where it begins and where it ends is unknown. But I’ve represented the Interstate 80 corridor for 11 years, and I’m looking forward to doing it again.”

Garamendi isn’t the only one facing uncertainty.

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The redistricting commission, which last week approved its first official draft maps, isn’t supposed to consider the fate of current elected officials in drawing new districts — or even know where they live.

But as it enters its next phase of work with two weeks of public input meetings that started Wednesday, the political ripple effects for some incumbents are difficult to ignore.

After the public hearings, the commission plans 14 linedrawing sessions to refine the preliminary maps before voting in late December on final districts that will be used for the next decade, starting in 2022.

But as it stands now, a sizable number of House members and state legislators have been placed in less politically friendly districts, or in the same district as another incumbent.

While the numbers vary in early analyses, a study out Tuesday from the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California says 20 members of Congress, 29 state Assembly members and 14 state senators have been drawn into a district with another incumbent.

How much consideration is given by the commission whether incumbents are put in the same district?

Zero, said commissioner Sara Sadhwani.

“It’s really not something that we look at or contemplate. Our constitutional mandate is clear,” she told CalMatters. “Instead, we focus on the people and on Californians and what kind of things tie their communities together, what kind of representation they want to see.”

Legislators whose political careers may be at stake, however, are definitely looking. The commission is set to hear public comment today on the draft Assembly districts and Friday on the state Senate ones.

For example, due to slower population growth in Los Angeles County, the draft state Assembly map breaks up Democrat Miguel Santiago’s Latino-majority district and redistributes areas to neighboring districts. Santiago’s own residence would be in Assemblymember Wendy Carillo’s district, according to California Target Book, a political data firm.

Also, Republican Assemblymember Kelly Seyarto of Murrieta remains in his district, but most of his voters are shifted to another Republican

district in Riverside County. And the preliminary state Senate maps put Anna Caballero and fellow Democrat Melissa Hurtado in the same Central Valley district.

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In previous redistricting cycles, some legislators who may have been drawn out of their districts chose to retire, or were forced to step aside due to term limits. In the first election after the 2011 redistricting, more than 30 Assembly members were barred by term limits from running again, according to Redistricting Partners.

But this time, only four senators are termed out before the 2022 election, and no Assembly members are, according to redistricting expert Paul Mitchell. That means there could be stiff competition in many of the new districts, starting with the June primaries.

“It does create kind of a frenetic, potentially very expensive, potentially very nasty, quick primary that would happen pretty quickly after the passage of lines,” Mitchell said.

There is one upside this year for incumbents who have been put in a new district, though. While state legislators are legally required to live in their districts, lawmakers added some loopholes in 2018 by passing a law that declared that where they are registered to vote will be considered their home and that made it more difficult to prosecute them for misstating their true place of residence.

Then there’s what may be the most confusing factor in redistricting — the staggered terms for state senators. Because only half the state Senate is elected every two years, the commission will try to make sure that in numbering the new districts, as many voters as possible stay on the four-year election cycle and as few voters as possible have to wait six years until their next chance to elect a senator.