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

Thu Jun 9 20:59:42 PDT 2011

Community-oriented districts in CA do result in a number of competitive
seats, so the two are not exclusive (despite what some pundits have said,
the "political segregation" is far from universal). Here's a look at what
happened in the 1990s when the CA Court drew the lines, ignored partisan
data, and focused on communities:

http://www.claremontmckenna.edu/rose/publications/pdf/rose_ca_case_study.pdf

- Doug

Douglas Johnson

Fellow

Rose Institute of State and Local Government

m 310-200-2058

o 909-621-8159

douglas.johnson at cmc.edu

From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
[mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Nicholas
Stephanopoulos
Sent: Thursday, June 09, 2011 2:48 PM
To: Doug Spencer
Cc: Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] The COI-ness of California's Redistricting Commission

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 <tel:%28415%29%20335-9698> 
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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