Op-Ed: Los Angeles should follow L.A. County’s example in redistricting
Los Angeles has been rocked by revelations that three metropolis councilmembers used racist, anti-Black, anti-Indigenous, antisemitic, anti-LGBTQ feedback and different vile language as they strategized on easy methods to redraw the Metropolis Council districts to increase their political energy. Such language and attitudes haven’t any place within the political course of and people concerned now face the general public’s justified anger.
This episode has additionally targeted public consideration on the redistricting course of. Some metropolis leaders are proposing that Los Angeles transfer to an impartial redistricting course of headed by residents as an alternative of politicians or political appointees. Luckily, Los Angeles County’s Residents Redistricting Fee reveals how this will work and the advantages of an impartial physique.
Traditionally, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors — just like the L.A. Metropolis Council — had energy to attract redistricting maps each 10 years after every census. After many redistricting cycles by which the board was accused of defending incumbents and disenfranchising minority voters, the state Legislature in 2016 handed Senate Invoice 958 to require the county to hold out redistricting by means of an impartial fee underneath particular statutory standards. The county sued the state over the legislation, nevertheless it was upheld as constitutional and went into impact with the 2020-21 redistricting course of.
Underneath the brand new county course of, map drawing is carried out by citizen commissioners who’re chosen with out the affect of politicians. The fee should adhere to federal and state legal guidelines, and the drawing of districts is guided by statutory standards and public enter. It should do its work overtly in scheduled public conferences at which anybody can present info, criticism, ideas for line drawing or proposed maps. Most significantly, the fee has the facility to undertake a ultimate map that can not be rejected or modified by the Board of Supervisors.
The 14 members on the present fee had been chosen from an preliminary pool of 741 candidates. The registrar-recorder/county clerk independently reviewed the purposes and narrowed the pool to the 60 most certified candidates primarily based on particular standards, reminiscent of capacity to use legal guidelines associated to redistricting and voting rights, geographic range, and the flexibility to be neutral. Eight commissioners had been chosen by lottery, with at the very least one residing in every of the 5 supervisorial districts. These eight then reviewed the remaining 52 candidates and selected six extra commissioners in order that the physique would mirror the demographics of the county.
The result’s a fee with seven Democrats, three Republicans and 4 independents, which carefully tracks the political get together cut up within the county. We additionally mirror the racial and ethnic composition of county — with six Hispanic/Latinx, 4 white, two Asian Pacific Islander and two Black commissioners. The fee is sort of equally cut up between women and men, has LGBTQ members and has a variety of ages.
Our goal was to attract 5 supervisorial districts that every had roughly the identical variety of folks, complied with the Voting Rights Act, had been moderately compact, and stored collectively most cities, neighborhoods and different “communities of curiosity.”
Any choice we made required a supermajority vote of at the very least 9 commissioners. That meant nobody group might dominate and we needed to search consensus in order that we might get the mandatory variety of votes on each situation.
An important issue was that every one discussions and selections had been made overtly, in public conferences scheduled prematurely (in individual or on Zoom), on matters beforehand introduced in printed agendas. We acquired hundreds of feedback from the general public. The end result was the antithesis of selections being made within the proverbial backroom.
On this course of, the fee was requested to think about the impact of drawing a number of majority-Latinx districts, of attempting to place the San Fernando Valley in a single district, of dividing the northern a part of the county into two or three districts working north-south as an alternative of all being in a single north county district, of dividing up financial/employment facilities and cultural or leisure belongings among the many varied districts, amongst many different points. We thought of all of it, guided by the legislation and knowledgeable by public enter. This was democracy in motion on the native stage.
We in the end reviewed greater than 100 map choices earlier than lastly adopting the official map that may govern L.A. County for the following decade.
There isn’t any doubt that obligatory public participation slowed down the method, nevertheless it was definitely higher than having incumbent politicians strategizing to remain in workplace or drawback their political enemies by means of redistricting ways.
In fact, an impartial redistricting fee is not going to treatment all of L.A.’s ills. However would you quite have a various group of your fellow residents, chosen in an neutral course of with out ties to the present physique, make redistricting selections at an open assembly after taking enter from all members of the general public? Or would you quite have the present council revise district strains submitted by their handpicked representatives to suit their very own wants? Or worse, have a small group of incumbent councilmembers scheme to carve up districts to favor their political allies, in secret, in a significant lobbyist’s convention room?
Los Angeles has seen what politician-driven, backroom-dealing redistricting yields. It’s time to attempt a extra clear, democracy-promoting different.
Daniel M. Mayeda and Carolyn Rose Williams are co-chairs of the Los Angeles County Residents Redistricting Fee. This text displays their private views, not the views of the fee.
