Redistricting in California

Redistricting in California has historically been highly controversial. Critics have accused legislators of attempting to protect themselves from competition by gerrymandering districts. Conflicts between the governor and the legislature during redistricting often have only been resolved by the courts.

After incumbent parties retained every single state assembly, senate, and congressional seat in the 2004 election, voters passed California Proposition 11 (2008). The proposition created a Citizens Redistricting Commission to draw state legislative districts. California Proposition 20 (2010) expanded the Commission’s power to include drawing congressional districts.

When former Governor Earl Warren mandated one man, one vote by deciding Reynolds v. Sims, the California Senate was badly malapportioned by counties, with the 6 million people in Los Angeles County and the 397 people in Alpine County each represented by one state senator. In 1966 Governor Pat Brown signed a bipartisan gerrymander the state senators had designed to retain as many incumbents as constitutionally possible. The legislature attempted further incumbency protection after the 1970 census, so Governor Ronald Reagan vetoed the bill. With the legislature and governor unable to resolve the impasse, the California Supreme Court ultimately appointed special masters to draw new districts.

After the 1980 census California became entitled to 45 congressional districts, a growth of two. Democrats controlled both houses of the legislature and the governorship but were feeling vulnerable after former Governor Reagan had won California by a landslide in the 1980 presidential election. Democratic Congressman Phillip Burton and new State Assembly Speaker Willie Brown devised a redistricting plan that would result in five new safe Democratic seats. Congressman Burton would boast that the bizarrely shaped map, which included a 385-sided district, was “My contribution to modern art”. Reacting to what was called “one of the most notorious gerrymanders” of the decade, Republicans successfully placed a veto referendum on the primary ballot and California voters overwhelmingly rejected the legislature’s redistricting plans in the June 1982 election, the same election that enacted the California Constitution's Victim's Bill of Rights.

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