California Congressional redistricting: Current reps face a lot of tumult

The Citizens Redistricting Commission has begun a series of public hearings around the state so voters can pan or praise the new maps for Assembly, Senate and Congressional seats. And when it all shakes out, members of Congress from California are likely to find themselves in districts much different from the ones they’ve known for years.

Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter is pleased with his district’s new lines.

"I have Temecula now!" Hunter says. His grandfather was one of the town’s first developers. "I’ve actually built a home in Temecula," he says. "We have some family that has settled up there. So it’s kind of neat. It’s kind of like going back home a bit."

But not everyone is happy. Long Beach Democrat Laura Richardson says the commission is "teetering on a borderline of their current existing draft maps." Richardson, who is black, says the maps produced by the Citizens Redistricting Commission might not comply with federal law. The Voting Rights Act forbids diluting a minority group’s ability to elect someone, as she puts it “of like concern.” She says her black population numbers, which are currently about 21.4 percent, would drop all the way to 12 percent. "And I don’t know if in a court of law it would actually pan out as diluting African-American vote."

The new map contains the first two majority “Asian” Congressional districts. UC Berkeley political science professor Bruce Cain says one is in San Jose; Monterey Park Democrat Judy Chu occupies the other.

"Those districts, particularly the one in Los Angeles," he says, "were created at the expense of some of the existing Latino seats."

Cain says Chu’s new district means Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard will share a district with fellow Democrat and Latino Xavier Becerra. But Becerra says anything can happen before the final maps come out in August.

"I know that some of the poorest parts of Los Angeles in the Pico Union area, very immigrant, very modest income, were lumped in with some of the wealthiest parts of Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, Westside. So I’m not sure that’s necessarily respecting communities of interest," he says.

It could have been worse. Cain says David Dreier’s seat "basically has been taken apart." He says Dreier would likely run in the new Ontario district. "He could run for the seat that he’s currently residing in. But it would be heavily Democratic and heavily Latino and the demographics would be working against him for the whole decade."

Fellow Republican Congressmen Buck McKeon of Santa Clarita, Jerry Lewis of Redlands, and Elton Gallegly of Simi Valley are also expected to face tough fights in their new districts. Cain says it’s worse for Diamond Bar Republican Gary Miller.

"Where Gary Miller runs is another mystery because his seat really got dismantled in a lot of different pieces and it’s very hard to quite see what he’s going to do," Cain says.

Loretta Sanchez, Orange County’s only Congressional Democrat, will have a tough fight holding on to a less-Latino district.

"She’s got Asian groups that tend to go more conservative and Republican because of the history of the Vietnam War and the types of people that we brought out of Vietnam." Sanchez saw the writing on the wall early: She’s already joined the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus.

But perhaps the biggest battle could happen in the San Fernando Valley where veteran Democrats Howard Berman and Brad Sherman might end up running for the same seat. Cain predicts that race could cost $10 million, money Democrats would rather spend elsewhere.

"They’re not only worried about incumbent-on-incumbent fights for their own sake, wasting party money on internecine fights, but you have the additional problem with the top two system, you could have a fight repeated twice," he says.

New election rules in California pit the top two finishers in a primary face off in a general election, regardless of party. Cain says party bosses will try to persuade members not to run against one another. Congressman Sherman says he has no current plans at to move to a new district, but says, "I like my constituency even more than I like my home."

There is another option: find another job. Democratic Congressman Bob Filner of Chula Vista has already made that choice. He’s running for mayor of San Diego.