California is one of the nine states in the country where independent commissions were responsible for drawing congressional district lines, a process recommended by the LWV of the US. The 2020 California Citizens Redistricting Commission completed their work at the end of last year, and established new maps based on the data from the 2020 Census. The final maps include congressional, state senate, state assembly and board of equalization districts. Some of the highlights of that process include:
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The state lost a congressional district for the first time in its history, based on its slower population growth compared to other states in the country.
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Because the commission consisted of members of both major parties and non-party members, partisan considerations were not a factor in the final decision.
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The final decision was not based on current district lines, and resulted in no more than a one-person difference between districts.
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The federal Voting Rights Act requires that a minority group’s vote must be taken into consideration, so to accomplish this, the commission considered Communities of Interest (COI) in drawing lines.
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Due to social media and advances in technology, advocacy groups and other citizens were able provide valuable feedback and to submit their own maps in real time.
Congressional Districts
According to FiveThirtyEight, California’s 52 congressional seats overall showed little change in their partisan composition compared to the previous maps, and as a result are moderately biased toward Democrats, despite being drawn by an independent commission. In addition, 16 of the 52 House districts have a Latino voting-age population of at least 50%, up from 10 out of the previous 53 districts. This is not surprising, since much of the state’s growth was due to an increase in the Hispanic population. This should lead to a greater representation of Latinx people in the new Congress.
San Diego, despite having the last numbered districts, was not the area which lost the one congressional seat, since that was removed from the LA area, due to its relative change in population. New districts in our area correspond roughly with the old ones although they are divided more on an east to west basis than currently:
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District 48 replaces most of current 50 (representative Darrell Issa)
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District 49 now excludes some parts of North County (current representative Mike Levin)
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District 50 replaces most of current 52 (current representative Scott Peters)
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District 51 takes parts of the current districts 50, 52 and 53 to create an area encompassing much of central San Diego
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District 52 in South San Diego encompasses Imperial Beach, National City, Chula Vista and extends east to Otay Mesa (areas currently shared by Juan Vargas and Sara Jacobs). About 51 percent of its voting-age citizens are Latino, making it one of the 16 districts statewide with Latino majorities.
To compare your current district to the new one in the 2022 elections, check out this page from the LA Times.
San Diego's State Senatorial Districts
California has 40 state senate districts, each representing approximately 1 million constituents. San Diego’s population grew by 6.6% to 3.3 million, and as a result, we gained a senate seat, and there are now five state Senate districts partially or entirely within San Diego County. The newly drawn 18th district includes areas represented by two incumbents - Sen. Toni Atkins (current district 39) and Sen. Ben Hueso (current district 40). Under the new maps the current 38th District in East County San Diego (now represented by Sen. Brian Jones) is divided into two districts. The new 40th District covers inland North County to Santee, and the 32nd District includes East County and portions of Riverside and San Bernardino County. The current 36th district (Sen. Pat Bates) is now the new 38th and will be an open district in November, because of term limits.
One characteristic of our state senatorial elections that proves confusing to voters after the new census, is based on the fact that our senators serve four-year terms. Because of this, redistricting results in new districts that may not have a current representative in the Senate and results in two types of voter categories.
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Deferred Voters: In 2022 voters will elect new state senators in even-numbered districts for new four-year terms. State Senators in odd-numbered districts were elected in 2020. Some voters may find themselves moved from an even-numbered district to an odd-numbered one. For these individuals, voting in a state Senate race will be deferred until 2024. The Citizens Redistricting Commission did attempt to create and number districts that cause as few voters as possible to defer voting for another two years.
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Accelerated Voters: Accelerated voters are the opposite of deferred voters. These are voters who voted in odd-numbered state Senate districts in 2020, and now, in 2022, are in even-numbered districts. They will vote for state Senator in both 2020 and 2022.
The Senate Committee on Rules will assign a Senator to provide appropriate constituent services to each deferred area. This is a normal consequence of the redistricting process.
San Diego’s State Assembly Districts
There are 80 state assembly districts, each representing approximately 500,000 constituents, and San Diego has seven of these within its boundaries. Assembly members must live in their district, and as a result of redistricting, two pairs of assembly members now reside in the same district: Lorena Gonzalez and Akilah Weber in District 79, Marie Waldron and Randy Voepel in District 75. Assemblymember Gonzalez resigned in January, leading to a special election on April 5 to fill her remaining tenure, which resulted in a runoff to be decided in the June 7 election. Waldron’s current district now falls into the area covered by Assemblyman Brian Maienschein. Most of the other new districts are close to current boundaries but may have new designations:
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Current 76th District is now 74
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Current 77th District is now 76
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Current 78th District is now 77
To compare your current to your new state representative districts you can use this tool from Cal Matters.
San Diego County Supervisor Districts
More than 1 million San Diego County residents ― three out of every 10 ― now live in a new supervisorial district. Some of the major changes to these new boundaries include:
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District 1 - Now a majority-Latino district in South San Diego (Nora Vargas)
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District 2 - Covers East County along with the cities of El Cajon, Santee and Poway (Joel Anderson)
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District 3 - Forms a coastal district from Coronado to Carlsbad (Terra Lawson-Remer)
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District 4 - Central portions of the city of San Diego (Nathan Fletcher)
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District 5 - Remains a North County district but loses Carlsbad and adds Escondido (Jim Desmond)
You can see how the boundaries of the supervisor districts changed by viewing this map. Colored areas show the new districts, while the old boundaries are outlined in blue.
San Diego City Council Districts
Finally, the city charter requires a redistricting commission to be established to redraw the boundaries of the nine city council districts after each census. The map was approved in December 2021 by a 7-2 vote. Among the major changes to the map are moving Pacific Beach from District 2 to District 1, moving University City from District 1 to District 6 and splitting Mission Valley among Districts 3, 7 and 9. The final map also splits the UC San Diego campus into two districts, with the area west of Interstate-5 remaining grouped with La Jolla in District 1. The eastern portion is now located in District 6. Check out the differences between the old and new boundaries on this map.
Luckily for us voters in California, we only need to check one website to find all our voting information including our new districts. Be sure to visit the Voter’s Edge website before returning your ballot for the June 7 primary election. These will be mailed on May 9, and you should receive them shortly thereafter. Most importantly, be sure to vote and encourage your friends and family to do likewise!