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The latest scheduled stop of the vaunted Citizens Redistricting Commission for local hearings was in Oxnard tonight, where the pros and cons of the process were painfully evident--as was the (lack of) character of what passes for the Republican party in much of Southern California.
1) On the positive side, it is quite clear that the Commission is doing its utmost to attempt, if imperfectly, to fulfill the mission it was given. Not everyone agrees with the first draft maps (and indeed, MALDEF will likely sue over what many Latino activists see as inadequate attention to their needs and interests.) All in all, though, the non-partisan process has so far led to greater respect for communities of interest than the careers of incumbent legislators on both sides of the aisle. This creates more risk, certainly, but the upside for those seeking more progressive legislation is that as more Millennials and Latinos move into the likely voter pool, the pressure on red-leaning will grow cycle by cycle, even as competitive Dem districts grow safer. In a Democratic wave election, there may be a real potential to reach and even exceed the 2/3 requirement in a way that would not be present if maintaining safe districts and respecting patronage networks were the primary considerations.
2) On the Republican side, most of the animus came from redder East Ventura County (Thousand Oaks, Moorpark and Simi Valley), which is divvied up by the first draft, effectively deeply endangering Republicans Elton Gallegly (R-CA24) and Senator Tony Strickland (R-SD19). Due to the Commission's need to respect Voting Rights Act considerations in Monterey, the dominoes eventually come to fall in East Ventura County, forcing either Simi Valley or part of Thousand Oaks to be taken out of the County when it comes to Congressional and State Senate lines--a fact of which the Commissioners twice reminded conservatives in the audience. Minions of the local Chambers of Commerce and local city elected officials from deeply Republican cities got there early, lining up to advocate for keeping both Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks within Ventura County confines and out of the clutches of hated Los Angeles or the hated coastal areas--with the neat side effect of keeping Strickland and Gallegly in safe seats. And in fact, self-defined communities of interest seemed to alchemically shift depending on whether the congressional or state senate seats were in question, which very conveniently benefited Strickland or Gallegly depending on the situation.
More credible activity came from activists affiliated with CAUSE (Coastal Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy), which presented an alternative redistricting map at the Assembly level that would keep whole the long-overlooked and long-cracked city of Oxnard, the largest city in Ventura County, while also keeping more of the Latino population in an assembly district of interest. Oxnard is currently set to be split once again by the first draft map. Politically speaking, this would have the net effect of significantly slightly reducing the safety of the seat held by Democrat Das Williams (D-AD35), while increasing the chances for Democratic victory in the district directly to east, most of which is held by Jeff Gorell (R-AD37). Democratic firefighter and Fiona Ma fiance Jason Hodge made a somewhat pre-emptive declaration for the seat, perhaps overly optimistically assuming favorable district lines similar to CAUSE's proposal that had not been set in stone. If the Commission's first draft holds, that district would be a nearly even split between Democrats and Republicans, making any Democrat seeking it hard-pressed to push Afghanistan veteran and Republican incumbent Jeff Gorell out of office, even given a Democratic field that would be unlikely to remain fully clear (disclaimer: I worked as campaign manager for the 2010 Democratic nominee for AD37, Ferial Masry. Ms. Masry currently has no plans to run again in the district.) CAUSE and its left-of-center allies are much less partisan than Chamber and its Republican allies, if for no other reason than that the new maps are all downside for the GOP, while shifting Democratic populations into Gorell's district comes at the slight expense of Das Williams, so there are no easy answers from a purely Democratic partisan perspective.
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