[EL] The COI-ness of California's Redistricting Commission

[Nicholas Stephanopoulos]

In a forthcoming article on redistricting and geographic communities (
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1777276), I find that,
during the 2000s cycle, states that were legally obligated to respect
communities of interest when they redrew their state legislative districts
enjoyed substantially higher levels of electoral responsiveness than states
that were not. (Specifically, the average responsiveness for the 22 states
with such a requirement was 1.43, compared to 1.03 in the rest of the
states.) This result suggests (though certainly does not prove) that
California's community-respect provision will result in higher
competitiveness, presumably by making it impossible for uncompetitive plans
that also disregard many community boundaries to be adopted.

Nick

-------------------------------------
Nicholas Stephanopoulos
Associate-in-Law
Columbia Law School
nsteph at law.columbia.edu
(212) 854-7706

On Thu, Jun 9, 2011 at 5:26 PM, Doug Spencer <dougspencer at gmail.com> wrote:

> Bruce,
>
> Something that has always struck me as odd, (and I would love to hear your
> thoughts about this), is that Prop 11 (and later Prop 20) were both sold, to
> some degree, on a platform of increased political competition, yet the
> language of Prop 11 (preserved by Prop 20) explicitly precludes the
> Commission from taking into account information critical to increasing
> political competition: "communities of interest shall not include
> relationships with political parties, incumbents, or political candidates,"
> see Article XXI, §2(d)(4) of the California Constitution as amended by Prop.
> 11. How do proponents of Prop 11 presume the Commission will increase
> competition? VRA compliance? Luck? I'm sure Dan Lowenstein has something to
> say about this.
>
> Also, I have been very surprised by the lack of public comment on political
> competition. I have attended or watched the majority of five Commission
> hearings in the greater Bay Area and of the nearly 200 presenters I listened
> to, *not a single person* raised incumbency as their primary concern.
> Perhaps Californians don't care about increased competition as much as we
> think they do, or perhaps they merely take it for granted given the nature
> of the Commission. (Or maybe my sample of Bay Area presenters is not
> representative).
>
> Like many others, I'll be watching the political numbers closely. For those
> who do care about the issue, you can download 2010 voter registration
> information here <http://swdb.berkeley.edu/d10/g10_registration.html>,
> which you will then be able to merge with the Commission's data files that
> are released tomorrow.
>
> Coyly,
> Doug
>
> -----
> Douglas M. Spencer
> Ph.D. Candidate, Jurisprudence and Social Policy
> University of California, Berkeley, School of Law
> Phone: (415) 335-9698
> E-mail: dspencer at berkeley.edu
>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jun 9, 2011 at 8:23 AM, Bruce Cain <be.cain48 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> For those of you who have had your fill of "member" related issues, I
>> thought I would offer an observation on the eve
>> of the CRC releasing its preliminary maps.  I have occasionally tuned into
>> their meetings (which have all the excitement you would expect from
>> a group chosen by the state auditor), and noticed the frequent use of the
>> term "coi" which they pronounce like "coy."  When they use the term
>> they mean a short-hand for "community of interest," which has become their
>> primary consideration after equal population, contiguity and their version
>> of the VRA.
>> But ironically "coi" in the election law world can stand for "conflict of
>> interest" and that applies as well since the commission was purportedly
>> scrubbed clean of political conflicts
>> of interest.
>>
>> But "coy" also applies as the commission clearly hopes that the two senses
>> of "coi" will protect them from the inevitable onslaught of political
>> criticism
>> that will follow after the maps are released.  Looking through their
>> visualizations, their maps are a decent start, but a start only, and there
>> will be many throny and heated
>> issues to resolve in the coming weeks, particularly in the southern part
>> of the state.  Rumor has it that they will not release political data,
>> trying to keep people in a "coi"
>> framework.  But in fact this will be hard to do when others report the
>> political data.  How will they shield themselves from this information? This
>> will seem coy or perhaps disingenuous.
>> People will want to know how many of the seats will be competitive.  They
>> will want to know the prospects in the majority minority seats for minority
>> sucess. Perhaps
>> the commission should be a little less coy.
>>
>> Bruce Cain
>>
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>
>
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