Redistricting Commission Releases Final Maps

The California Citizens Redistricting Commission on Monday released new maps altering the boundaries for Assembly, Senate and Congressional districts that will shift some political boundaries in Petaluma.

One map shows a dramatic shift for Petaluma's representation in the Senate, while Assembly district boundaries will remain largely the same. Meanwhile, the Congressional district was elongated, cutting out Santa Rosa and Rohnert Park and extending up to the Oregon border.

Here's how the districts are broken down:

• Petaluma, which in 2001 was clumped in the 6th Assembly District with Sebastopol, parts of Sonoma Valley, Santa Rosa and Marin County, remained mostly the same. Rohnert Park was cut out. The previous district was represented by Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael.

• Petaluma is now grouped with Senate District 3, which includes Rohnert Park, Cotati, and Sonoma on the west side, and stretches east to Sacramento County, south to Vallejo and also includes Napa and Solano counties. The 2011 Senate District 3 encompassed southern Sonoma County (including Rohenrt Park and Petaluma), Marin County and the eastern part of San Francisco. The 2001 district was represented by Sen. Mark Leno of San Francisco.

• In 2001, Rohnert Park, Santa Rosa, Petaluma, Novato through Marin County to Mill Valley were all in Congressional District 6, which ended at the northern Sonoma County border. Now Sonoma County will be split in half, with Petaluma in Senate District 2, which extends from the Golden Gate Bridge up the coast to the Oregon border. Rep. Lynn Woosley, who currently represents the area, is retiring at the end of 2011.

Political buffs have said the citizen group charged with drawing the new districts will likely give Democrats an advantage over Republicans statewide.

"Well, it is a blue state, so what do you expect?" said David McCuan, an associate professor of Political Science at Sonoma State University who specializes in the study of California electoral politics and public policy.

“The reason these maps are so important, is because they’ll effect what politicians decide to run and where,” McCuan said. “This is like crack for political junkies.”

Under the new maps, many incumbents have been drawn out of their districts and the boundaries now focus on giving equal representation to minority groups — a primary goal of this year's citizen panel charged with drawing the lines.

Voters called for a nonpartisan, transparent approach to redistricting when they passed Propositions 11 and 20 in November 2008 and 2010, respectively, creating the 14-member Citizens Redistricting Commission. The group is made up of five Democrats, five Republicans and four Independents and is the first of its kind in California. Previously the districts were drawn by lawmakers.

McCuan said when the propositions were written, one of the main goals was to break up districts that were drawn for incumbents' political gain, a process known as gerrymandering.

“Far too long, Californians have been frustrated by a legislative process that drew districts that primarily supported the reelection of incumbent legislators,” said Vincent P. Barabba, a member of the commission in a news conference Monday. “The voters showed they wanted fundamental government reforms."

Thus, redistricting officials this year were "charged with the responsibility to create districts that provided candidates of all political persuasion a fair chance to be elected,” Barabba said. 

Barabba said the new maps did not consider incumbents, potential candidates or political party registration in redrawing the districts. Since 2001, for example, only five seats have changed party in the California's congressional and legislative districts, Barabba said.

The new districts are touted as being more competitive, and follow criteria set forth by the California Supreme Court that require them to represent communities of interest, be contiguous, compact and have relatively equal populations.

Although the commission was charged with drawing communities of interest together for equal representation during elections, new maps show that population and geography arguably play an even bigger role. 

“One reason Petaluma and Rohnert Park are grouped with Sacramento, parts of the valley and cities south to Vallejo is because the commission at times has to trade off population and communities of interest,” McCuan said. “Often cities with higher populations, including Rohnert Park and Petaluma, are cut up quite a bit partly because they have larger populations.”

Take Congressional District 2 for example, which stretches from the Golden Gate Bridge up the northern California coast to the Oregon border, splitting Sonoma County in half. More populated cities in and near the Bay Area are largely used to fill in holes in districts to the north, which generally have smaller populations.

Furthermore, "when there's only 40 State Senate districts, they tend to be very large, because the population decreases as you move north, so you have to fill it in with the larger cities," McCuan said. 

Robin Wilcox, spokeswoman for the commission, said the group was confident that the maps will prevail against legal challenges and the new districts will be supported by the public.

But McCuan disagrees and says that it's likely that the new boundaries will be challenged either in court or a statewide ballot referendum by minority groups such as Republicans who feel they are now at a disadvantage.

Michael Ward, the sole commissioner who voted against approving the new maps, said that although the new redistricting process aimed at being open and transparent without the hubbub of partisan politics, it was still deeply flawed. 

“The Citizens Redistricting Commission has certified maps that are fundamentally flawed as a result of a tainted political process,” Ward said.  “I believe that Propositions 11 and 20 were necessary to clean up our politics and end the process of partisan and special interest gerrymandering. But this commission simply traded the partisan backroom gerrymandering by the legislator for partisan backroom gerrymandering by average citizens.”

“Throughout this 8-month process,” Ward added, “as a member of this commission, I had the sense that decisions were being made outside the public’s view. I felt that I could not get answers to questions or an explanation for the rationale for drawing some boundaries in certain ways.”

McCuan said the process is sort of like new software.

“The first iteration of the software will have bugs and problems that need to be altered,” he said. “But the commission should be commended for the job they’ve done. The lines are always going to be fodder for being attacked.”

The maps were officially certified by the Secretary of State Aug. 15 that shape new electoral district boundaries for California’s 53 congressional, 40 State Senate, 80 State Assembly and four State Board of Equalization districts.

Now that the final redistricting maps were submitted to the Secretary of State for certification, the public has 45 days to file any complaints, which will be reviewed by the California Supreme Court.

The maps will take effect in time for the June 2012 primary, unless the courts issue an order precluding their use.

Editor's note: Click here to view the commission's statewide maps. Petaluma's are included in the PDFs to the right.