Redistricting would split cities, counties throughout CA

By Dave Mason
The Center Square

Editor’s note: This story has been updated since its initial publication to note the congressional redistricting legislation has passed.

Lodi, a Northern California city of 66,000 people, will be divided among three congressional districts if a Democratic Party-backed redistricting map goes into effect.

And Democratic suburbs of Sacramento would become part of the district of U.S. Rep. Kevin Kiley, a Republican, which will see a dramatic change in its shape. Currently the district mainly lies along the California-Nevada border, but Sacramento is roughly 400 miles west of the border.

Geographically and politically, the district would take a turn to the left.

Kiley is one of five Republicans who stand to lose their seats in Congress under the redistricting, GOP leaders in the Legislature told The Center Square as they blasted Democrats for severe gerrymandering, including in Republican strongholds in Orange and San Diego counties.

Besides Kiley, the other Republican congressmen at risk of losing their seats are U.S. Reps. Darrell Issa, Doug LaMalfa, David Valadao and Ken Calvert, GOP legislative leaders said before Thursday’s floor votes in the Assembly and Senate, where the Democrats backing redistricting hold a supermajority.

The legislation, consisting of three bills making up the Election Rigging Response Act, passed in both houses Thursday. It now goes to Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom for his signature, then to voters in a Nov. 4 special election that Republican lawmakers warn will cost more than $235 million.

Currently California has nine Republican congressmen, making up roughly 17% of the state’s 52 representatives in the U.S. House. That’s already less than the approximately 25% of registered voters who, according to the California Secretary of State’s Office, are Republicans.

If Democrats achieve their goals with redistricting, there would be only four California Republicans in the U.S. House or approximately 8% of the delegation.

Democratic legislators said the redistricting is necessary to counter the unfair redistricting in Texas for the state’s gain of five Republican seats before the 2026 mid-term election.

Republicans aren’t buying it.

“It’s amazing the hypocrisy and cynicism of our Democratic colleagues while they’re wailing and screaming about Texas,” California Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones, R-San Diego, told The Center Square. “If it’s wrong in Texas, it’s wrong here also. Neither state should be messing with redistricting mid-decade.”

Jones and other Republican legislators are blasting the unusual geometry of districts that are splitting counties and cities.

“They’re splitting up Republican seats into multiple seats to dilute the Republican votes,” Jones said.

“All you have to do is look at District 1, from the ocean to the Nevada border,” he said. “To get the population they needed, they split up Santa Rosa and the Napa Valley.”

Jones pointed to Issa, a Republican congressman, and his district that currently consists of central and eastern San Diego County and part of Riverside County. Jones said the historically Republican district is redrawn to favor Democrats.

“The lines that they drew are ridiculous,” Jones said. “I think they chopped his seat into three or four other seats.

“They split Ventura County,” Jones said, referring to the historically Republican city of Simi Valley being put with heavily Democratic Los Angeles County and its beachside city of Malibu in a district shaped like a backward “C.”

Simi Valley would be in a different congressional district than the much closer Ventura County city of Thousand Oaks.

“The lines they drew for Riverside County are all over the place,” Jones said. “There are lots of examples. They chopped up Orange County.”

A Center Square review of the map found heavily Republican Orange County is being divided so that its congressional districts include parts of Democratic Los Angeles County. The division is to the point that Fullerton, a city of more than 140,000 people, is split among two congressional districts. Brea, another Orange County city, has been put into a predominantly Los Angeles congressional district.

“It’s sliced and diced like a pie,” said Assemblymember Laurie Davies, a Republican who lives in the Orange County city of Laguna Niguel. “People across the street from each other will have different congressional people representing them.”

She said her legislative district would be split among three congressional districts, which means she would have to deal with three congressional members, instead of the current one, on federal issues such as getting sand to prevent beach erosion.

But another kind of erosion – that of voters’ trust – will happen with the redistricting, Davies and other Republicans warned.

“If this goes on the ballot, I think the people will shut it down,” Davies said. She noted her polling and calls she received show her constituents overwhelmingly oppose the redistricting.

Assemblymember Tom Lackey, chair of the Assembly Republican Caucus, called the redistricting “100% gerrymandering.”

“That’s why we as members of the superminority are trying to get them (Democrats) to share with us who’s responsible for drawing up these maps,” the Palmdale legislator told The Center Square. “They won’t disclose who that person is. How transparent is that?”

Davies criticized the rushed redistricting effort, noting Republicans didn’t see the map until Monday. Democratic-led election committees in the Assembly and Senate on Tuesday approved the bills making up the Election Rigging Response Act.

“It’s disastrous,” Davies told The Center Square. “They [Democrats] are taking representation away from the voters.”

Lackey asked why California is so occupied with Texas when the Golden State has its own large number of not-so-golden issues.

“We have an insurance problem. We have a homelessness problem. We have crises that we are ignoring right now such as affordability,” Lackey said. “What in the world are we doing with gerrymandering?”

Jones, the Senate Republican leader, said his advice to Democrats is: “Quit focusing on [President Donald] Trump and Washington, D.C. Start focusing on California and doing the job you were elected to do in California. California voters did not elect Democratic senators and Assembly members to fight Republicans in D.C.”