Commission asks: Who are our neighbors?

Redding Record Searchlight
April 7, 2011

If you could draw a line around the north state — the state of Jefferson, Upstate California, call it what you will — who would you include? Who are our regional neighbors? The ones who share our lifestyles, our problems and our common interests?

It's not a question most of us think about much over breakfast, but it's a vital one to consider on the eve of a meeting of the Citizens Redistricting Commission in Redding on Saturday.

The commission, the result of a pair of initiatives California voters passed in 2008 and 2010, takes over the Legislature's former work of drawing new districts, based on 2010 census counts, for the U.S. Congress and the California Assembly and Senate. Historically, the remapping is an exercise in incumbent protection and political gamesmanship. Instead, the independent commission aims to leave partisan politics at the door and heed the public's input as much as possible. It plans dozens of public hearings around the state, with Redding's the first.

Starting with a blank page instead of the interests of incumbents in mind, how might our northern districts look different? How would they group what the commission calls "communities of interest"?

What won't change is that they'll be huge. Districts must have equal populations and the rural north is lightly peopled, so one Assembly district can cover a single midsize city in Southern California but a territory larger than some East Coast states by the time you reach the Oregon border.

What could easily change, though, is the political maps that, today, essentially split far Northern California in three — one district on the coast, one in the Sacramento Valley, and one covering the remote northeast. The districts stretch at their southern ends toward Sacramento, picking up suburban voters.

But what do residents of Placer County bedroom communities like Lincoln or Rocklin have in common with ranchers in Siskiyou County? Not much, besides state Sen. Doug LaMalfa (and, before him, Sam Aanestad), who represents both areas and everything in between.

What would be intriguing is true "state of Jefferson" districts that span the far north from the ocean to the Nevada border, putting Humboldt and Shasta counties under a single political umbrella, along with their smaller neighbors.

The northern counties share diminished but still important timber-based economies, a sense of ownership and stewardship over the state's headwaters, the joys and frustrations of living next to vast tracts of federally managed land, and a rural independent streak.

Paradoxically, those don't translate into similar voting patterns. The North Coast is as liberal as the inland north state is conservative. Join them together, though, and it's possible to create voting districts that would be hotly competitive between Democrats and Republicans. That would give real Election Day choices for voters in both regions. Increasing competition is not, formally, a goal of the Citizens Redistricting Commission, but it is the ardent wish of many of the commission's supporters.

Whether you think the status quo does make sense or have a notion for a radical change, Saturday's commission meeting is a chance to make your voice heard and shape our state and national politics for the next decade.

If you're going

The Citizens Redistricting Commission's public input hearing runs from 2 to 5 p.m. Saturday at Shasta College, Room 2165.