Voters can help shape districts

Residents now can sketch new boundaries and present ideas to commission

“Anybody in the community can have a voice. That’s why I think this process is so awesome.”

— Linda Akutagawa, Huntington Beach resident

Should voters who live in a tiny slice of northern Orange County remain in California’s 38th Congressional District, where 98% of district residents live in Los Angeles County? Or would the OC voters in the 38th be better served if they were moved into a nearby House district that is entirely within its home county?

What about the voters who live in the bottom sliver of Temecula? For now, they’re relegated to California’s 50th Congressional District, which is primarily in San Diego County, even as other Temecula voters are part of the 42nd District, which is mostly in Riverside County.

And should voters in San Ber

nardino remain split between two Assembly districts?

Dozens of redistricting questions such as these figure to reshape state and federal politics for decades.

This year, for the first time, California voters have an online tool that lets them weigh in with their thoughts on how those questions should be answered. The tool, DrawMyCACommunity.org, lets residents sketch out their ideal political districts and make a case for why the state should listen.

Those ideas are being used by members of California’s Citizens Redistricting Commission as they redraw boundaries for state and federal districts, helping to determine who will represent local voters in the U.S. House of Representatives, the California Senate and Assembly and the state Board of Equalization.

Redistricting happens once a decade after the federal government publishes updated census information. In addition to evenly distributing voters and following other guidelines, the citizen commission also must learn about so-called “communities of interest” across California and, whenever possible, keep those communities together as they sketch out new districts.

That’s where the online tool — which is designed to make redistricting in California even more inclusive — comes in.

“Anybody in the community can have a voice. That’s why I think this process is so awesome,” said Linda Akutagawa, a Huntington Beach resident and independent voter who is one of 14 people selected as a member of the state redistricting commission. “It’s a chance for people to speak up and say what’s important to them and to share with us so that we can take that all into account with the lines that we’re drawing.”

How the tool works

An online tool for discussing communities of interest didn’t exist a decade ago, when California last adjusted district lines using its voter-approved citizen commission model. After the 2010 census, residents had to write letters or emails, or offer comments during public meetings to voice their opinions on the makeup of each political district.

The state launched the new tool March 2 in English and Spanish, and other languages have been added since. Now, the tool can be used in Vietnamese, Korean, Russian, Armenian, Japanese, Punjabi, Khmer, traditional Chinese, simplified Chinese and Tagalog. It soon will be up in Arabic and Farsi, with Thai and Hmong coming later.

Those visiting DrawMyCACommunity.org are asked to give their community of interest a name and describe the shared interests that brings that community together. They can say what nearby areas they do or don’t want in their district and why. And then they can map out their ideal district boundaries with a tool that’s user-friendly for most folks with basic computer skills.

This all can be done anonymously, though users can create an account if they want to save their work and come back to it later. Residents also can submit information more than once since Akutagawa noted people belong to multiple communities of interest based on where we live, work and play.

Paul Mitchell of Sacramento-based consulting firm Political Data Inc. recommends that users come to the tool after thinking about what is and isn’t working in their current political district. They then should be ready to show commissioners why the change they seek, if any, is right.

“They should have a kind of a story to tell,” Mitchell said.

The Citizens Redistricting Commission, with help from the California Statewide Database, will capture all data submitted through the tool. After accounting for population changes and other guidelines that take precedent, they will then consider user-submitted ideas about communities of interest when drawing up new district boundaries later this year.

“The more input we have, the more nuance we’ll be able to take into consideration and really utilize that to create maps that are responsive to the communities,” Akutagawa said.

Defining a community

So, politically speaking, what exactly is a community of interest?

There’s a broad definition in state law that defines it as “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.”

“It’s the footprint in which you and other people around you live, work, go to school, go to coffee shops,” Mitchell said. “It’s the area that you care about.”

Commission members are hesitant to even give examples of what “communities of interest” might be because they don’t want to limit the definition.

“We really wanted to leave it pretty open to interpretation so that communities on the ground can define for us what their community of interest is and where it lies,” said Sara Sadhwani, a political science professor from La Cañada Flintridge who is on this year’s commission.

Sadhwani did mention historic neighborhoods or beach communities as potential communities of interest since residents in those areas would likely want to bring some similar needs and concerns to their representatives. State law also mentions industrial areas, agricultural areas and other places where people “use the same transportation facilities, have similar work opportunities or have access to the same media of communication relevant to the election process.”

In 2011, the state commission identified residents stretching from Crestline to Big Bear as a community of interest, for example, since they “share the common lifestyle of the mountain forest area” and similar “concerns regarding wildfire danger.” Other examples were those living along the 605 Freeway, residents of western Coachella Valley or Corona and Norco since they share a common school district.

Communities by law can’t be based on relationships with political parties, incumbent representatives or candidates to replace them, which means voter registration cannot be a factor.

It might seem counterintuitive to always keep communities of interest together. Wouldn’t it be better, for example, to have three different state Assembly members fighting for a city’s needs than just one?

But Mitchell said that question has essentially been settled, with numerous historic — and often racist — examples of why that approach isn’t effective.

In the South, for example, some White leaders historically have tried to break up communities of Black voters and spread them across multiple districts to dilute their voices. The federal Voting Rights Act now prevents “cracking” or “packing” minority districts. But Mitchell said the same idea applies to other communities of interest not covered by that law.

“The ability on one hand to say, ‘Now we have three members of congress that come to our ribbon cuttings,’ that value is seen as less important than having one member of congress where that community of interest makes or breaks them,” Mitchell said,

To help people better understand communities of interest and how they can get involved, the Citizens Redistricting Commission is offering free training programs to community organizations that request them through its website.