Maps aren’t their main focus
Redistricting has contributed to more California members of Congress living outside their districts.
It was the spring of 1998. Then- Assemblywoman Grace F. Napolitano pulled out an attack on her rival, fellow Democrat Jamie Casso.
Casso did not live within the boundaries of the congressional district he sought to represent, something Napolitano’s campaign manager labeled as “the height of arrogance” as she used the issue in mailers to voters.
Napolitano won that primary by 618 votes.
Seventeen years later, Assemblyman Roger Hernandez ( D- West Covina) stood in the wet grass of a San Gabriel Valley park and dusted off the same residency strategy as he declared his bid to attempt to unseat Napolitano. This time around, it is Napolitano who is being labeled the foreigner. She lives in Norwalk, about 9 miles outside the 32nd Congressional District she currently represents.
How did the tables get turned on Napolitano? Redistricting in 2011. She found herself sharing a congressional district with Rep. Linda Sanchez ( D- Whittier). Rather than run against a colleague, she became a candidate in the next district over, which was vacant.
Napolitano is not alone. Of her 52 House colleagues from California, at least f ive do not actually live in the district they represent.
Some state and local lawmakers have been prosecuted on the matter — California law requires politicians to live in the district for which they are running. But when it comes to Congress,
federal law requires only that members live in the same state as the district.
Rep. Mike Honda ( D- San Jose) is registered to vote about 8 miles outside his 17th District.
Honda has lived in the same San Jose home for years, says campaign spokesman Michael Beckendorf, but after the last round of redistricting he found himself in the 19th District. His colleague, Rep. Zoe Lofgren ( D- San Jose), has doubled as his representative ever since.
Honda’s 2014 challenger, Ro Khanna, lived within the 17th District boundaries. Khanna tried to make Honda’s residency a campaign issue during their bitter and expensive intraparty fight.
In the end, Honda won an eighth term by 3 points, and the two are locked in a rematch for 2016.
Rep. Tom McClintock ( R- Elk Grove) faced attacks from opponents in 2008 when he sought to represent a Northern California district hundreds of miles away from his state Senate district in Ventura County.
As he announced his bid for the 4th Congressional District on the steps of the historic Auburn courthouse in Gold Rush country, a UHaul truck drove around the building carrying a sign reading “Termed out Tom All the way from L. A,” according to a report in the Ventura County Star.
Former Rep. Doug Ose, one of McClintock’s rivals for the GOP nomination that year who also lived outside the district boundaries, was responsible for the truck, the Star reported.
McClintock won that race and has prevailed over other opponents who have attempted to paint him with the carpetbagger label.
He now owns a home in Elk Grove, but outside his district, and is represented by his Democratic colleague Rep. Ami Bera.
McClintock campaign manager John Huey says the congressman intends to buy a house in the district he represents. Just one problem: He bought the house at the height of the market before the 2008 crash. He is waiting for home prices to rebound, Huey said.
Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters is registered to vote at her home in the Vermont Knolls neighborhood in South Los Angeles. The home used to be within the boundaries of her district, until redistricting shifted some of Waters’ neighbors into the 37th District now represented by Democratic Rep. Karen Bass.
Waters’ 43rd District is about a three- minute walk from her front door. That was news to some voters on her block who f igured their famous neighbor represents them in Washington.
Seth Greene, a 26- yearold teacher who lives in the neighborhood, was stumped when told he lived in Bass’ district. “I know I’ve voted for Maxine Waters in the past,” he said.
Same goes for retired carpenter Catalino Linares, 74. Wasn’t Waters his representative? He said he may have marked the box for Bass, but he didn’t remember her name.
Rep. Juan Vargas ( D- San Diego) lives in the Golden Hill neighborhood, about eight blocks outside the northwestern edge of his 51st District, which stretches to the Arizona border.
Orange County Rep. Mimi Walters also lives outside the boundaries of her 45th District. The Republican was brief ly registered to vote at an apartment in Irvine, where she was elected to a newly drawn state Senate seat in 2012. She re- registered at her longtime Laguna Niguel home in 2014 before winning the congressional seat.
Walters’ home is inside the boundaries of the 48th District, just under 4 miles from her own.
Questions about residency can matter less for voters in California because of the distance between the coasts and the expectation that members — especially senior ones with leadership roles or seats on major committees — will usually be away, said Paul Mitchell, vice president of consulting firm Political Data Inc.
“If you are in Delaware you expect your member of Congress to be around and be seen, but if you are in L. A. you expect your member of Congress to be a plane f light away,” he said. “You are almost voting for a brand more than you are voting for a person.”
For her part, Napolitano is upfront about where she lives. At events, the congresswoman will mention it on her own.
Will voters in 2016 see it as she framed it back in 1998, and will her residency matter? Napolitano is shrugging it off: “Well, I certainly hope not.”