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HomeMy WebLinkAbout5a2_Additional Materials Received_MosherDecember 13, 2021, Redistricting Committee comments - Jim Mosher Page 2 of 5 Item V.a. Presentation and Review of Draft Council District Maps Submitted by City Consultant (National Demographic [sic] Corporation- NDC) and by Members of the Public Overview The absence of any staff report narrative makes this item very difficult to comment on in advance of the meeting. The packet includes two of the promised “three or four” consultant maps plus nine citizen- created maps. However, there is no explanation what eight of the maps, including those from the consultant, are trying to achieve. Each of the maps is accompanied by what appears to be a consultant-prepared demographic analysis. Criteria to Applied in Considering Maps As noted above, the material presented at the November 8 meeting does not appear to have been posted for further public review. But as indicated in the draft minutes, the City’s consultant described several criteria taken from the California Fair Maps Act (AB 849 from 2019), which he said the Committee would, in making its recommendations to the full Council, be required to apply in a specific order to proposed maps, as detailed in Elections Code Section 21621(c). As I attempted to point out then, not only does that seem in conflict with the “plenary” (that is, absolute) authority over local elections granted to charter cities by Article XI, Section 5(b) of the California Constitution, but Elections Code Section 21621(e) explicitly exempts charter cities from the four criteria of Section 21621(c) if the redistricting procedure in its charter prohibits the application of any of those criteria or contains at least two of the traditional criteria, as Newport Beach’s charter does. Further research suggests the City’s consultant may have been unaware of this provision, added by 2020’s AB 1276, a package of amendments, by the same author, to the original bill. According to the author’s description as quoted in the final 08/24/20- Assembly Floor Analysis, the new bill “affirms constitutional autonomy of charter cities over certain aspects of the redistricting process.” Given, that since the Newport Beach City Charter contains at least two of the traditional redistricting criteria, there seems no question that the sequence and criteria of EC Subsection 21621(c) are irrelevant to Newport Beach and the only criteria that apply here (beyond the federal equal population standard) are those found in City Charter Section 1005: “The boundaries so defined shall be established in such manner that the districts shall, as nearly as practicable, constitute natural areas of contiguous and compact territory and provide fair representation on the City Council.” City Council Ad Hoc Redistricting Committee - December 13, 2021 Item No. III, IV(a) and V(a)2 Additional Materials Received December 13, 2021, Redistricting Committee comments - Jim Mosher Page 3 of 5 What Does “Contiguous” Mean? Incidentally, the intended meaning of “contiguous” is not entirely clear to me. My intuition would be it means you should not have a piece of one district lying within the boundary of another. But if we were to look to (the for us non-mandatory) EC Subsection 21621(c) for guidance, it says “Areas that are separated by water and not connected by a bridge, tunnel, or regular ferry service are not contiguous.” By that standard, one would have to wonder if areas that are connected by land, but for which there is no public road on which one can travel between them without passing through another district are “contiguous”? Newport Terrace (connected to the rest of the city by a mostly fenced-off 1-foot strip) is an extreme example of this, since whatever district it is placed in, it could not be reached from other parts of that district without travelling outside the city limits. Legal references I could find on this sometimes cite a 1982 Colorado District Court discussion of redistricting criteria (Carstens v. Lamm, 543 F. Supp. 68), which in turn relies on Dixon, Fair Criteria and Procedures for Establishing Legislative Districts, 9 Policy Studies Journal 839, 847 (Special Issue # 3, 1980-81) for the statement that “contiguous” “specifies that "no part of one district be completely separated from any other part of the same district,"” leaving open the question of whether that article explains what “completely separated” means. What the Numbers Mean In the absence of any explanation, I was puzzled that in the first lines of the statistical tables attached to each draft map, the “Total” population “deviation from ideal” is greater than the deviations shown for any individual district. On further study, I concluded what is being shown in the “Total” column is not the total but the sum of the (unsigned) magnitudes of the deviations from ideal in the districts with the highest and lowest deviations, and that sum expressed as a percent of the total population of the city – in effect, the “spread” (or “range”) between the most positive and most negative individual district deviations. This apparently correlates with the way the US Supreme Court expresses its 10% “maximum deviation from population equality” standard. Are the Numbers Reliable? I was surprised to see that in two of the three maps I submitted (Map 10 and Map 11) the districts were numbered differently from how I had numbered them in my submission. I have no way of knowing if other people’s submissions were similarly altered. And setting aside the fact that the census numbers may not be accurate, I was also surprised to see that for Map 10 the numbers attached to it in the current presentation did not match those I saw as I drew it. Although the difference is small, the posted Map 10 has 12 less people in what it calls District 5 and 12 more in District 6 than what the mapping tool showed me. Adding to the strangeness, when I go back to display this map in the mapping application, it shows the population deviation in all the districts to be around -5,634,000, even though the “statistics” option continues to City Council Ad Hoc Redistricting Committee - December 13, 2021 Item No. III, IV(a) and V(a)2 Additional Materials Received December 13, 2021, Redistricting Committee comments - Jim Mosher Page 4 of 5 display the original small deviations. And it says I have “modified” the map every time I view it, even though I have made no changes I am aware of. Are the Numbers Meaningful, Even if Reliable? To expand on the comments I submitted along with my maps, although California law applies its criteria for redistricting equally to jurisdictions with “by district” and “from district” elections, the objectives of redistricting in those two scenarios seem distinctly different to me. For example, in the “by district” scenario (in which only the people living in a district vote are allowed to vote for a representative also living in their district), if there is a concentration of people of a protected class with divergent political views living in a specific area, the best way to ensure they have a way to be represented is to consolidate them in a single district (creating, if they are numerous enough, a “majority minority” district) – which seems to be what is encouraged by the California criteria. However, in the “from district” scenario (in which all the people living in the city participate equally in selecting a single person living in each of its districts), where the lines affect candidates but not voters, it would seem advantageous to the minority to have the lines drawn so its concentrated population is fragmented among multiple districts. In that way, they could field multiple candidates they could back, and possibly elect, in multiple races, instead of having all their candidates run against one another with no greater chance that the city as a whole would vote for any one of them. Thus, in the “from district” scenario, avoiding fragmentation of communities of interest together seems to disempower those communities rather than empowering them. Similarly, whether it is important to have equal populations within every “from district” boundary is less obvious than it is for a city with “by district” elections. Presumably, every “from district” representative represents everyone in the city. Otherwise, we would have a highly undemocratic system in which outside-the-district people control who will represent the inside-the-district people. Assuming the elected officials understand this, the district boundaries do not affect how many people the elected person represents (and hence the rights of the people voting), but only who is eligible to run (candidate rights). And the goal seems only to be to ensure geographic diversity on the council. Since the size of a district does not make a person living within it any more or less eligible to run, it hard to see how disparities in “from district” populations disempower anyone, except to the extent that a potential candidate in a large population district would likely face the prospect of a more competitive race (due to the larger pool of potential competitors) than a potential candidate in a small population district. Comments on Individual Maps As a general comment: Since these are presented against a background shaded with the existing district colors, it is impossible to tell which new district Newport Terrace has been assigned to (it is always shaded purple but is equally connected to Districts 1 and 2). Map 1: In the attached statistics, I see proposed District 3 had more registered voters in 2020 than it has voting age population. How is this possible? City Council Ad Hoc Redistricting Committee - December 13, 2021 Item No. III, IV(a) and V(a)2 Additional Materials Received December 13, 2021, Redistricting Committee comments - Jim Mosher Page 5 of 5 Map 2: The odd segment between proposed Districts 3 and 4 is a zero population area which is tied through to the District 5 in the mapping application and (at least in my experience) cannot be detached from it even at the block level. In this map, I like separating Balboa Island from District 5, since I have never understood any similarity between Balboa Island and the Big Canyon or Newport Center housing. Map 3: I like this map, and it seems sensible to me, although (like one of those I submitted) it exceeds the normally allowable spread of 10% between the most and least populated districts. The offending districts are 3 and 5. The problem could be solved by moving a few folks from 3 to 2, or from 5 to 6, although doing so would seem quite arbitrary to me. Map 4: I like this, too, although some might object to the Corona del Mar Residents Association area being divided as it is. Map 5: This appears to be an attempt to correct the concern noted with Map 4 by changing the assignment of the housing in the northwest corner of Newport Center, while simultaneously considering a new treatment of the Peninsula. Map 6: The author appears to be exploring another option for the assignment of that Newport Center housing, which forces a change in the assignment of the Airport Area. Map 7: As with Map 4, residents in the eastern coastal outskirts of the CdMRA area may be surprised to find themselves in a different district from the rest of CdM. Map 8: I like this, but no more than several of the others. Map 9: As the author of this map, I can say it was an attempt to put all the Lower Harbor properties in one district. The deviation range exceeds 10%. That could be corrected by taking some of the harbor-front people living along Bayside Drive out of District 1 and adding them into District 6, but that would seem both arbitrary and contrary to the intent. Map 10: This map was drawn by starting with all the properties around the Upper Bay in a single district, and working outward from there. Although staff’s choice of existing districts for the background shading makes it unobvious, Newport Terrace is part of “District 2” in these totals, so the map likely fails the “contiguity” test. To fix that, Newport Terrace could be added to District 1 and some of the Newport Crest area added back into District 2 to compensate. Map 11: This is a completely arbitrary map using the larger “precincts” that were provided in the mapping tool and dividing the City into districts based solely on the population goal, working from left to right. To complete that theme, I would number 5 as “3”, 3 as “4” and 4 as “5”. City Council Ad Hoc Redistricting Committee - December 13, 2021 Item No. III, IV(a) and V(a)2 Additional Materials Received