California put its faith in its citizens to reform redistricting. It was still ugly

In other states around the country, redrawing political maps has culminated in fiercely contested court battles.

Notably, this isn’t true in California. The statutory clock has run out, and no litigation has been brought against the final maps adopted in December as the state’s new legislative and congressional districts.

But a lack of litigation doesn’t mean that the California Citizens Redistricting Commission ran an effective process.

For all the talk of how California’s redistricting process put the Voting Rights Act first, that really didn’t happen. It was clear that too many commissioners didn’t understand some communities they were redrawing, and those communities paid the price of lost representation.

There were embarrassing pratfalls by some commissioners, too many critical decisions left to the last minute and commissioners who sat on the sidelines — or didn’t show up at all.

As someone who advised a variety of elected officials and groups in this process, I watched nearly all of it from my computer screen at home.

To start, the 2021 redistricting commissioners didn’t understand all of California. With a majority of commissioners from the Bay Area and Los Angeles, there were clearly blind spots when they turned their attention to areas such as the southern part of the San Joaquin Valley.

The newly drawn 20th Congressional District spans from Bakersfield to Clovis, with an “arm” reaching out to grab pieces of Tulare, Hanford and Lemoore. It was redrawn numerous times, and a lack of community understanding by the commissioners was painfully evident when they ignored compelling testimony from Bakersfield and Fresno highlighting the differences between the two regions.

But it wasn’t just in this underrepresented part of California that problems arose. There were multiple commissioners in the final weeks pronouncing the high desert community of Phelan as “felon.” On Dec. 17, days before final adoption, one commissioner asked, “What cities are in the Tri-Valley?”

Every commissioner in 2011 traveled the state to prove they were up to the monumental redistricting task. This time, not all commissioners were equally invested. A handful of commissioners dominated the conversation while several sat on the sidelines. Commissioner Antonio LeMons was absent at key moments and was an embarrassment to the redistricting process.

Meanwhile, the 2021 commission repeated the unfortunate mistake of the 2011 commission in that draft maps were essentially ignored in the development of final maps. Draft maps generated public comment and got neighborhoods fired up, but in the end were not actually used.

The next commission needs to complete draft maps that reflect their best thinking and then use them as a basis for small revisions and tweaks to the final map.

Most importantly, the commission needs to prioritize the Voting Rights Act’s requirement that districts be drawn to provide representation of underrepresented groups where they live in large numbers. For all the national reporting on how much attention was paid to such districts during California’s redistricting, no one seems to acknowledge that the commission hastily redrew several of them toward the end of the process.

At some of the first meetings in 2020, then-Loyola Law School Professor Justin Levitt told the commission to learn from the mistakes of the 2011 commission and deal with the Voting Rights Act first. They ignored that advice and were still working on those districts until the deadline to adopt a final map. That needs to change.

I acknowledge that the commission is an improvement over a process driven by legislators. But I also strongly believe we can make the 2031 commission better.

As we watch other states devolve into partisan redistricting warfare, the best way to renew our commitment to independent, citizen-led redistricting in California is to acknowledge that our system is imperfect and adopt solutions to improve it next time around.