1 REDISTRICTING CANDIDATE FROM REGION - STOCKTON WOMAN AMONG 36 FINALISTS FOR PANEL TO REDRAW LEGISLATIVE MAP

J.N. Sbranti
The Modesto Bee
November 17, 2010

One Northern San Joaquin Valley resident has made it into the final 36-member candidate pool for the Citizens Redistricting Commission, which will redraw California's legislative boundaries.

Michelle R. DiGuilio-Matz of Stockton is one of nearly 30,000 people who applied for the powerful reapportionment post. The mother of four holds a master's degree in community planning and a bachelor's degree in both environmental studies and communications.

She was a program assistant for the Modesto-based Great Valley Center, a management analyst at the San Joaquin County Human Services Agency, a director for University of the Pacific's Anderson Y Center and a member of Stockton's Community Development Committee.

DiGuilio-Matz and the other 35 finalists will participate in a random drawing Thursday in which eight commission members will be selected. Those eight will choose six other commissioners from the remaining finalists.

The resulting 14-member citizens commission will work most of next year to establish new boundaries for California Senate, Assembly, Board of Equalization and U.S. House of Representative districts.

The commission's work will be historic.

For the first time, California voters have stripped lawmakers of the power to draw their own legislative boundaries. To prevent political gerrymandering of district borders, voters decided a nonpartisan citizens commission should draw new lines based on population statistics from the 2010 Census.

The application process to become a commissioner began last December. The final 36 were announced Friday, and the first eight will be picked at 10 a.m. Thursday.

The commission will have a huge job, starting in January when demographics from the 2010 Census are released.

It will redraw district lines using strict, nonpartisan rules designed to create districts of relatively equal population that provide fair representation for all Californians.

Those lines must comply with the U.S. Voting Rights Act and create districts that are geographically contiguous and, when possible, not split cities, counties or communities of interest.

The last reapportionment came after the 2000 Census, which Sacramento lawmakers used to draw their own district boundaries. Stanislaus County was divided into three Assembly districts, two Senate Districts and two Congressional districts.

There were allegations that California's lines were manipulated specifically to create some seats that would be "safe" for Democrats and others that would be "safe" for Republicans. As a result, very few seats ever change parties.

In protest of that political process, voters passed Proposition 11 in 2008 and Proposition 20 this month. Those ballot measures transferred all reapportionment duties to the 14-member citizens commission.

It will map the boundaries for 40 Senate districts, 80 Assembly districts, four Board of Equalization districts, and either 53 or 52 Congressional districts (depending whether California lost population in relation to other states this decade).

It must finish by Sept. 15.

The commission will be made up of five Republicans, five Democrats and four people not affiliated with either of those parties.

DiGuilio-Matz is in the non-affiliated group. She is one of only two finalists from the San Joaquin Valley. The other is a Latina woman from Fresno who is a member of the Green Party.

The final 36 nominees are not evenly distributed across California. Nine are from Los Angeles County, five from Alameda County, four from Sacramento County and three from Santa Clara County. There are no finalists from 37 of California's 58 counties, including Stanislaus, Merced or any county in the Sierra or its foothills.

Ten of the finalists are white (including DiGuilio-Matz, who is of Italian descent), 10 are Latino, eight are Asian, four are black, three are American Indians and one is a Pacific Islander. Twenty are female, 16 are male.

In her application for the commission, DiGuilio-Matz detailed her analytical skills, impartiality and appreciation for California's demographic, geographic and social diversity.

"I have a background in gathering and analyzing technical material and evaluating multiple data sources for validity and significance, as well as translating this information into useful products," DiGuilio-Matz noted.

In explaining her nonpartisan and open-minded views, she said: "I too often have seen strict party adherence coming at the expense of rational discussion and critical thinking."

DiGuilio-Matz is a California native who said she "traveled throughout the Central Valley building consensus with individuals and organizations with diverse interests by helping develop the San Joaquin Valley Water Coalition."

She and her husband, Louis Matz, have four children: Jared, Mason, Avery and Tyler.

For more information about the commission and the selection process, go to http://wedrawthelines.ca.gov.