The summer of 2021 in California has been full of public health concerns, a historical gubernatorial recall-related discussion, and a budget surplus. So, there has not been much time to discuss what might turn out to be the state’s biggest political piece of news this year. It is potentially related to redistricting, the decennial process of drawing new maps on state, local and congressional representation. The coronavirus pandemic is considerably reshaping the redistricting process. Big developments are imminent in California’s politics, so we will discuss what is in store here.
The Effect Of California’s Census Delay
In independent redistricting, citizen commissioners will draw maps, instead of elected officials serving in the related jurisdictions. The state’s embracement of the process has depended on strong public input as well as well-timed access to comprehensive and accurate data on the location and number of its residents.
An unexpected delay in getting census information has presented the state’s officials with a difficult situation. Federal government personnel are delivering that information over 4 months late. This delay sparks the demands that the set local redistricting timelines be changed, and that the new maps be produced by the California Citizens Redistricting Commission’s members. Census officials in California have promised a complete set of information on August 16, 2021, albeit in a non-user-friendly form.
The state uses a repository to not only organize the required census information but also add more details on constituents and elections. This way, it can produce the information that the panel of citizens requires to revise legislative, state and congressional maps. Local commission members in numerous communities are drawing maps for California’s city councils, school districts, supervisory boards and so forth.
So, one wonders how long California and its local panels require to achieve this, and whether the delayed procedure poses a threat to staging the primary in June next year.
The Debate About The Deadline
In the recent past, the aforesaid commission decided that it would like to change the deadline for drawing the final set of maps to January 14, 2022. There would possibly be a longer time frame than what the commission got ten years ago. The commission from 2011 was the first-ever independent panel in California after constituents kept lawmakers from being capable of drawing the districts here.
About a recent series of panel meetings, there was an argument about whether community groups in California would struggle for thoughtful inputs if the deadline is in the holiday season. However, California’s election association officers quickly raised an alarm, notifying that there could be a scrambling situation for local officials and candidates. The maps being challenged at a court level, as in 2011, is likely to cause more delays in readying for the 2022 election. It is among the notable concerns here.
Then again, changing the original election date of June 07, 2022, would also pose issues, given how completing election returns tend to take weeks. Besides, in the event of the primary being moved to late June, then it would affect planning for California’s November 2022 election.
Redistricting: What Else To Keep An Eye On
After extending the previous timeline for the statewide redistricting process, the Supreme Court of California should now consider the commission’s request for some more days to draw these maps. If the court accepts the request, then the commission could have up to January 14, 2022, to do it. The sooner the justices take action on this, the better it would be for the commission too.
As for officials overseeing the redistricting-related database, making the initial census information public, this August, would let anybody who wishes to make changes to the geography and population do so. Nevertheless, the data required to draw these maps would perhaps be unready even in late September. Why? Because a law from 2011 requires counting California’s inmates based on the communities in which they last resided instead of their prison locations.
If the California State Legislature convenes again this August, then legislators may wish to change election deadlines so that the map submission delay can be accounted for. They would also be told to extend that aforementioned deadline so that local redistricting commissioners have more time to create maps. As per present rules, there would be less time for those panels unless the state Legislature intervenes.
In certain cases, we realize that the new maps would change much from the ones produced a decade before. We also know that California would have one seat less in the US House of Representatives, as the first-ever rollback for the delegation of the state in Washington.
Constituents wish to see fair elections being conducted for the posts with not just fairly and smartly laid out political maps but also under firmly established procedures.
