Redistricting: California 1971-2001

Abstract

The struggle for control over redistricting has been at the core of California politics since 1970, sparking extremely bitter partisan strife and ultimately undermining bot the legitimacy and the institutional capacities of the legislature and the state Supreme Court. The outcomes of these reapportionment wars have been profoundly ironic in three ways: First, while redistricting has markedly increased the representation of ethnic minority groups, which until recently has been a largely uncontroversial enterprise, it has had a much more modest effect on the partisan composition of the legislative and congressional delegations, which has been the principal focus of conflict. Second, while Democrats in general and African-American and Latino Democrats in particular won nearly every reapportionment battle, Republicans were able to turn their own persistent defeats into a seemingly permanent ability to block public policy that they oppose, including redistricting itself. Third, while voters presumably supported limits on legislators’ terms partly to minimize partisan squabbling, their action has, in fact, ensured that partisanship will become ever nastier in the legislature, especially in the millennial redistricting.