Opinion ID: 1151125
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Interrelationships Between State Criteria and the Act

Text: We find no conflict between the Act and the above state criteria. Indeed, quite the contrary. As has already been noted, the Act protects only geographically compact minority groups. The major divisions of the state as we have defined them above divide no such minority groups. (The boundary mountain ranges, for example, are virtually unpopulated areas with few roads crossing them; 50 to 100 miles separates populated areas on either side of these ranges.) Similarly, the values expressed in the concept of contiguity, community of interest, and respect for local government boundaries  the concept of functional compactness  is completely consistent with the concept of geographically compact minority districts. Indeed, use of these criteria reinforces the Act's guarantee to minority groups to have an equal opportunity to participate in the political process (§ 2(b); 42 U.S.C. § 1973(b)). As suggested above, political effectiveness can be enhanced by membership and participation in community affairs: candidates for public office can be recruited and nurtured, local media may be better utilized (including the foreign language press), grassroots organizing and campaigning are more viable. As suggested in the June 1980 ballot arguments in favor of Article XXI, use of these criteria can avoid the creation of districts that are confusing, unfair and unrepresentative. In sum, we find the criteria underlying the drawing of district boundaries, i.e., criteria found in the federal and state constitutions, in the Act, and in the decision of the California Supreme Court in Reinecke IV, supra, 10 Cal.3d 396, not only reconcilable, but compatible. The criteria have guided our deliberations and informed our decisions.
Another criterion from Reinecke IV is as follows: 6. State senatorial districts should be formed by combining adjacent assembly districts, and to the degree practicable, assembly districts should be used as congressional district boundaries. ( Reinecke IV, supra, 10 Cal.3d at p. 412.) The resulting legislative districts [which pair assembly districts to form senate districts] will be more comprehensible to the electorate and the task of administering elections would be considerably simplified, thus saving money and ensuring greater accuracy. ( Reinecke IV, supra, 10 Cal.3d at p. 413.) We find these conclusions as persuasive in 1991 as our predecessors did in 1973. Further, the concept of nesting adjacent assembly districts to form senatorial districts has not posed any Voting Rights Act problem. While we can imagine circumstances in which this might occur, in our plans it did not. We have so drawn the senatorial districts.
Complete plans for each legislative body were submitted by seven different participants: the Independent Panel on Redistricting (established by the Governor); the Governor (containing modifications in certain areas of the Independent Panel submission); MALDEF; the Minority (Republican) Caucus of the Assembly for the Assembly, the Senate, and the Democratic Congressional Delegation; and the legislative bodies themselves for their respective houses (the Assembly and Senate as parties and the Democratic Congressional Delegation as to congressional plans.) In the case of both the Assembly and the Congress, three plans were submitted. Thus, we received 22 statewide plans in all, including 3 for the State Board of Equalization that are treated separately below. As previously noted, we do not recommend any of them for adoption. We discuss briefly our reasons below. First, however, proponents urge that special deference be given to the various plans passed by the Legislature but vetoed by the Governor. It is true that some federal cases have given special credence to this argument in the context of federal judicial deference to state policy (see, e.g. Upham v. Seamon (1982) 456 U.S. 37 [71 L.Ed.2d 725, 102 S.Ct. 1518]; McGhee v. Granville County, N.C. (4th Cir.1988) 860 F.2d 110, 115); but see, e.g., Garza v. County of Los Angeles, supra, 918 F.2d 763, 776, taking a contrary position). However, our Supreme Court rejected this position in Legislature v. Reinecke (1972) 6 Cal.3d 595 [99 Cal. Rptr. 481, 492 P.2d 385] ( Reinecke I ), refusing to give deference to plans that are at best truncated products of the legislative process (6 Cal.3d at p. 602). Thus, pursuant to controlling state law, we have evaluated the legislative submissions in the same manner as other submissions. [20] The Assembly passed three plans, each vetoed by the Governor, and submitted all three plans for our consideration. The Speaker of the Assembly made a presentation at our hearings and candidly explained that the reason for having three plans was that two of them represented an effort to obtain either a legislative compromise (an attempt to get certain Republican members of the Assembly to join in a veto override) or a gubernatorial compromise (an attempt to get the Governor to sign rather than veto one of the plans). We appreciated the candor and understand the dynamics of political compromise (albeit unsuccessful in this instance). However, the submission of three plans, each with calculated partisan political consequences (the details of which are unknown) creates a severe dilemma for us. We have no principled way to choose between the plans, especially knowing that we would be endorsing an unknown but intended political consequence by the choice we make. For this reason alone we would feel compelled to reject the plans. However, there is a stronger reason for rejecting the plans. We are charged with evaluating plans on the standards of the Act, the requirements of Article XXI of the state Constitution, and the criteria in Reinecke IV, supra, 10 Cal.3d 396. As to the Act, we have not analyzed the Assembly plans in sufficient detail to conclude whether or not they comply. [21] (Other parties have criticized the plans as being, at best, a minimal compliance with the spirit of the Act.) Whatever the case, we do not believe the plans submitted comply with the Article XXI and Reinecke IV ( supra, 10 Cal.3d 396) requirements of the integrity of geographic regions or contiguity as we interpret them. [22] Even a glance at the maps shows many misshapen districts which bypass contiguous populated territory to join distant areas of population together  in some instances without adequate roads or other means of communication. In many instances these districts are in areas where the Act has no practical impact, and no reasons are offered to explain the necessity of such departures from the Article XXI or Reinecke IV criteria. Two specific examples of the violation of Article XXI will suffice. In what the Assembly refers to as Plan A, District 15 ranges from eastern San Joaquin County and, bypassing Stockton, crosses through a narrow roadless section in the Sacramento River Delta region and over Mount Diablo to take in Walnut Creek and Orinda, just to the east of Oakland. In what is referred to as Plan B, District 5 consists of the northern part of Sacramento County, Placer County and the Lake Tahoe basin. It then goes down the east side of the Sierra Nevada and crosses into Madera County over the crest of the Sierra Nevada where no road exists. The populated area of Madera County is approximately 130 miles south of the other populated areas of the district. [23] In the absence of a cogent explanation of the necessity for formation of these particular districts, we believe they are contrary to the constitutional requirements of Article XXI. We would be unable to recommend plans containing them under any circumstances. [24] The submission of the Democratic Congressional Delegation suffers the same defects as do the plans submitted by the Assembly. First, three different plans, each with intended partisan consequences, were passed by the Legislature but vetoed by the Governor. All three were submitted to us leading to the same problem described above in connection with the Assembly plans. Second, the violations of Article XXI are even more egregious than those of the Assembly plans. One example will suffice. One congressional district (Dist. 21, Plan B) starts, as best we could tell, [25] somewhere north of Salinas, makes its way circuitously to the northern fringes of the City of Ventura, then crosses into the San Joaquin Valley to take in part of Bakersfield, and finally comes to rest in the Mojave Desert at the San Bernardino County line. Thus, one district takes in parts of almost every major geographical region of the state without even a hint of justification offered. [26] The submission of the Senate, a bipartisan effort, was closer to being acceptable than either the Assembly or congressional submissions. [27] We ultimately rejected the plan for several reasons, including but not limited to problems with whether the configurations were suitable for nesting; the peculiar configuration of several districts, such as Senate-proposed District 2 in the Sonoma and Solano County area. We also have a different assessment as to whether Senate-proposed Districts 9 and 12 complied sufficiently with the Act. [28] Even though we did not adopt the Senate plan, a number of districts proposed by us are similar, at least in broad outline, to those proposed by the Senate. We also conclude that we cannot accept plans submitted by others. The Governor's Independent Commission plan has much to recommend it, and several members of the commission are known to us as being fair-minded and public-spirited citizens who would try to do the best job possible without political favoritism. We would have been tempted to accept the plans submitted by the commission if we did not feel that the plans were inadequate in the treatment of minority communities. This aspect of the commission plans was the subject of substantial criticism by minority groups and by representatives of both the Democratic and Republican parties. The Governor's amendments attempted to correct these problems (and constituted, in our view, a tacit admission of the problem), but fell short of what we felt was appropriate. The MALDEF plans also have attractive elements, and we used some of the specific treatments of areas as a guide to our own construction of districts. [29] We disagree, ultimately, as to the extent to which Article XXI could be ignored in the quest to build minority districts (such as crossing mountain ranges in order to obtain additional minority population) and felt that the treatment of nonminority areas in their plans was not well thought out. [30] Finally, the Assembly Minority Caucus submitted a complete plan for each legislative body. Both the written and oral presentations were clear and were persuasive as to the merits of the plans. However, problems existed with the details of a number of the districts proposed. Since the plans were submitted to us late in the process and had not received any public comment, we were concerned that they might have political consequences unknown to us which we would not detect without the input of other interested parties. So, in the end, we felt it more appropriate to develop our own plans.
Our first step, for both congressional and state legislative districts, was to divide the state into three major geographic regions. The first division was between Northern and Southern California. Our second division was between a coastal and an interior region in Northern California. For both congressional and legislative districts the precise division chosen was designed to produce a whole number of congressional or senate districts. The division between Northern and Southern California for Congress was possible using whole counties. By including Kern County in Northern California [31] and Inyo and San Luis Obispo counties in Southern California, [32] it was possible to assign precisely 21 congressional districts to Northern California and 31 to Southern California. The division for legislative districts was similar. However, because the population required for 16 Senate districts was slightly less than that required for 21 congressional districts, Kern County was divided by a line through the Tehachapi Mountains. [33] With the exception of Solano County the division of the coastal and interior regions of Northern California was done along county lines, which follow the coastal mountain ranges. Without part of Solano County, the other coastal counties do not have quite enough population to form 12 congressional districts or 9 senate districts. Thus, Solano County, which geographically is partly in the coastal region and partly in the interior, was divided to obtain the requisite population. [34] Once the major geographic regions were determined, further division of each region into actual districts proceeded generally in the following manner. First, districts in areas containing sufficient numbers of geographically compact minority populations were drawn to maximize their ability to elect representatives of their choice. ( Thornburg, supra, 478 U.S. 30 at p. 42 [92 L.Ed.2d 25 at p. 41]). [35] Then, the remaining areas were drawn, starting from the borders of each region so as to respect the geographical integrity of counties and cities [36] and in a manner which provided functional contiguity. [37] Generally speaking, we found that proceeding in this order presented no difficulties. Perhaps the major exception occurred in the urban part of Los Angeles County. Having first constructed Latino and African-American congressional and state legislative districts, [38] which occupied a considerable part of the middle of the south-central and eastern parts of the county, the remainder of the districts allocated to Los Angeles County had to be constructed around the periphery; in some instances they became rather elongated. [39] A particular problem exists with Kings, Merced and Monterey Counties because of the requirement of preclearance by the United States Attorney General under section 5 of the Act. [40] As we recited in our procedural history, we are acutely aware that very little time will occur between the consideration by the Supreme Court of our recommendations and the 1992 Primary and General Elections; any delay in implementation of plans for districts would not only be very costly but would also be disruptive of the representative process in the state. In order to make it more likely that these districts would not be challenged by the United States Attorney General, we constructed districts in these areas that require preclearance on the basis of a more expansive interpretation of the Act, which required more subordination of California law than would otherwise have been the case. [41]

Every assembly district in the state consists of entire census tracts and each district varies by less than 1 percent from the ideal size of 372,000 persons. A computer-generated map showing the various districts proposed by us is set out as part of Appendix One of our report. The population of each proposed district is set out in Appendix Two. A listing of the census tracts contained in each proposed district is set out in Appendix Three.
The North Coastal Region is entitled to 18 assembly districts. Districts 1, 6 and 7 constitute the area north of the Golden Gate and the Carquinez Strait. District 1 consists of the territory known as the Redwood Empire, including all of Del Norte, Humboldt, Mendocino and Lake Counties and Sonoma County north of Santa Rosa, the most rural area of the county. District 6 consists of all of Marin County and the adjacent semisuburban areas of Petaluma and Rohnert Park in Sonoma County. District 7 includes Santa Rosa and the town of Sonoma, all of Napa County and Vallejo, immediately to the south. Vallejo is the part of Solano County included within the North Coastal Region. Overall, the division of this area is quite similar to that which was recommended by the 1973 Special Masters. Districts 12 and 13 constitute all of San Francisco and a very small part of adjacent San Mateo County needed to achieve population equality. We spent considerable time considering how to divide San Francisco so as to protect minority influence in the resulting districts. San Francisco has a large Asian community and smaller Latino and African-American communities. However, the populations of minorities are not concentrated in a single area. [42] We considered two main alternatives for creating an Asian influence district, one connecting Chinatown with Asian areas in the Sunset and Richmond districts and part of the southern fringe of the city; and the other, which we finally adopted as District 12, did not include Chinatown but did include more of the southern fringe and a small part of heavily Asian Daly City. Both had about the same percentage of Asians, and approximately the same amount of Asian registration. [43] The one we chose, however, was more suited for pairing (for purposes of creating a senate district) with the neighboring assembly district in San Mateo County which also has a substantial number of Asians. [44] District 13, the other San Francisco district, includes most of the Latino and African-American population of the city and is almost 51 percent minority in population. Districts 14 and 16 encompass the substantial African-American population in Alameda and Contra Costa Counties adjacent to the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay. District 16 includes much of Oakland plus the City of Alameda. It has long had an African-American member of the Assembly, has 35.7 percent African-American population and has a substantial Latino and Asian population as well. As a result it has over 66 percent minority population. District 14 consists of Richmond, San Pablo and El Cerrito in Contra Costa County and Berkeley, Albany and some of the northern part of Oakland. It is 29.1 percent African-American (and is over 52 percent in total minority population) in an area where African-American candidates have often done well. [45] A number of residents of Richmond expressed concern about the possibility of being linked with Oakland because they have competing ports and thus may have a legislator with divided loyalties. We acknowledge this concern, but believe the recommended district is, nevertheless, preferable. Maritime concerns are largely a matter of federal law, and we have kept Richmond in a congressional district separate from Oakland. Further, the Contra Costa part of this district is substantially more populous than the part of Oakland included within it. The current assembly districts (and those proposed by the Assembly) divide this African-American population between two districts and no African-American has ever been elected from either. Thus, in view of the requirements of the Act we believe that the only proper solution is to keep this African-American population intact within one district. Districts 11, 15, 18 and 20 encompass the remainder of the counties of Alameda and Contra Costa. District 11 lies on or near San Pablo Bay, Carquinez Strait or Suisun Bay from Pinole to Antioch. The largest city is Concord. This area is functionally compact and has many industries related to the bordering bays. District 15 includes the interior parts of Contra Costa and Alameda Counties (i.e., the area located east of the East Bay Hills) including Lafayette, Walnut Creek, San Ramon, Dublin and Livermore. The areas are linked by the Interstate 680 freeway. Pleasanton had to be divided, however, because of population equality reasons. [46] District 18 consists of San Leandro, Hayward, Union City and part of Pleasanton, all in Alameda County. District 20 includes Fremont in Alameda County and Milpitas and part of San Jose adjacent to it in Santa Clara County. Both the Alameda County and Santa Clara County parts of the district have a substantial Asian population, 14.5 percent for the district as a whole. Districts 19, 21, 22, 23 and 24 are located in San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties. District 19 is the part of San Mateo County immediately south of San Francisco, including most of Daly City, all of South San Francisco, San Bruno, Millbrae, Burlingame, Hillsborough and the City of San Mateo and part of Foster City. The northern part of the district has a substantial Asian population, so that the district is 20.9 percent Asian. District 21 includes the southern part of San Mateo County (including Belmont, Redwood City and Menlo Park) and part of Santa Clara County (including Palo Alto and Los Altos.) District 22 consists mainly of Mountain View, Sunnyvale and Santa Clara, plus part of western San Jose; District 24 includes Cupertino, Saratoga, Los Gatos, Campbell and the southern part of San Jose. District 23 includes the most Latino parts of central and eastern San Jose, is 43.5 percent Latino and, because of a large Asian presence and some African-American presence, is 69 percent non-White. Districts 27 and 28 are located, primarily, in the Monterey and Santa Cruz County area. This is one of the places where, because of section 5 preclearance concerns, [47] we did not follow our original districting concepts. But for the need for absolute certainty for preclearance approval without delay, we would not have divided Monterey County  because it is close to the ideal population of an assembly district. However, currently it is divided in the Assembly, being joined with Merced County. (The Merced County part of the current district actually dilutes the Latino population of the district, and is located in another geographic region of the state.) Even so, keeping Monterey County intact might be considered a retrogression in Latino representation, since the resulting district would have a smaller percentage of Latinos than the current district. So we divided Monterey County into Latino and non-Latino parts, creating District 28 as a Latino influence district by joining the Latino parts with San Benito County, the Watsonville area of Santa Cruz County and the somewhat Latino part of southern Santa Clara County. The resulting Latino population is almost 46 percent (and the total minority population is over 56 percent). The Latino population is higher than the existing district. We were also aided in making this decision by the fact that District 27, which includes the remaining parts of Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties, resembles, in its populated area, a district created by the Special Masters in 1973. (District 27 appears to be very elongated, but it includes the extremely sparsely populated Big Sur coastline of southern Monterey County for which the main access is the scenic highway, Route 1, leading south from Carmel.)
The North Interior Region is entitled to 14 Assembly districts. Districts 2, 3, 4 and 8 are primarily rural districts. District 2 includes much of the Sacramento Valley agricultural region, including Shasta, Tehama, Glenn, Colusa and Sutter Counties, extending from Redding to near Sacramento. Though long and narrow, like the valley it encompasses, it is centered on Interstate 5. Two nonagricultural counties are also included, Siskiyou and Trinity Counties. Siskiyou is also located on Interstate 5 and Trinity is reached, primarily, from Redding. Small parts of Butte County (the area around Gridley) and Yolo County (the area around Knights Landing), both of which are wholly agricultural, have been included solely because of the population equality requirement. District 3 includes six northern mountain counties (Modoc, Lassen, Plumas, Sierra, Nevada and Yuba), plus most of Butte County, which is partly mountain and partly valley in orientation. District 4 is made up of six whole counties located in the Mother Lode region of the Sierra Nevada: Placer, El Dorado, Amador, Calaveras, Alpine and Mono Counties. District 8 includes Solano County (less Vallejo, which was included in the North Coastal Region), almost all of Yolo County and the delta region of Sacramento County, a sparsely populated rural region adjacent to eastern Solano and southern Yolo County. Districts 5, 9, 10 and 17 encompass the urban areas of Sacramento and Stockton. District 5 contains most of the unincorporated northern part of Sacramento County. District 9 includes the bulk of the City of Sacramento. Based strictly on population, the city could constitute a separate assembly district. However, in the south-central area of Sacramento there is a significant geographically compact minority population which is partly within and partly without the city. By including this within District 9, it was possible to create a district which is just over 50 percent in minority population. In view of the obligations we faced under the Act, we thought it preferable to do this rather than follow the city lines strictly. District 10 consists of the rest of Sacramento County and the northern part of San Joaquin County, including Lodi. District 17 includes almost all of the rest of San Joaquin County including the City of Stockton. Districts 26, 30 and 31 are the product of our efforts to maximize the Latino presence in districts of the San Joaquin Valley in order to assure (insofar as we are able) preclearance by the Attorney General under section 5 of the Act. The construction of two districts, 30 and 31, was driven by the fact that Kings County was covered by the Act. We started by trying to capture all significant enclaves of minority (primarily Latino) population in Kern, Tulare and Fresno Counties, and eventually used some heavily Latino areas in Madera County for this purpose. One of the resulting districts, District 30, covers the rather sparsely populated, but heavily Latino, area of the southwestern part of the San Joaquin Valley. It is rather elongated, but it is centered on Interstate 5, a modern and as yet uncrowded freeway which facilitates communication. It has a hook at the southern end which reaches into (and divides) Bakersfield so as to add the minority parts of the city to the district. The result is an assembly district with 49.5 percent Latino population and 60 percent overall minority population. District 30 includes all of Kings County (which, because it is covered by section 5, is what triggered the special effort in connection with this district) as well as parts of Fresno and Kern counties and a small part of Madera County. District 31 includes parts of only two counties, Fresno County including the southern part of the City of Fresno and western Tulare County. On the map it appears quite oddly shaped but it is more compact in a functional sense than District 30 and its shape was dictated by the geography of the Latino population. It does, however, divide the cities of Fresno, Visalia and Tulare in order to maximize the Latino presence in the district. The result is an assembly district with 52.2 percent Latino population, and almost 69 percent overall minority population. This district was created for purposes of nesting with District 30, thus producing a senate district of almost 51 percent Latino population which includes Kings County. [48] District 26 includes all of Merced County and the most Latino parts of Stanislaus County (which required the division of Modesto). The district has a Latino population approximately 1 percent lower than that of Merced County itself. The only way to increase the Latino population of this district by use of Latinos within the same geographically compact area would be to use some of the Latino population used to build the high percentages we achieved in Districts 30 and 31, which would have an overall dilution effect, which we think is undesirable as well as violative of the spirit of the Act. Districts 25, 29 and 32 are made up of the remainder of the San Joaquin Valley after creating Districts 26, 30 and 31 so as to maximize Latino population. District 25 has two major population centers, part of Modesto to the north, and the City of Madera and a small part of Fresno to the south. District 29 includes much of Fresno and most of Visalia, about 30 miles to the south. District 32 includes several Tulare County cities, including Exeter, Porterville and much of the City of Tulare, plus most of Bakersfield in Kern County.
The Southern California Region is entitled to 48 assembly districts. Our approach, after creating minority districts in Los Angeles County, was to treat San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles Counties as a subunit entitled to slightly over 27 districts, and then include the small remainder of Los Angeles County with San Bernardino County. (Los Angeles County, thus, has no more divisions than absolutely necessary.) We also made an effort to keep the Mojave and other desert areas east of the Sierra Nevada intact because, in our view, it constitutes one of the major geographic regions of the state. Since we started with constructing minority districts in Los Angeles County, we will describe these first. Districts 45, 46, 49, 50, 57 and 58 are Latino majority districts. We started both by tracing a line around census tracts with majority or near majority Latino population and by mapping out what areas were covered by Latino districts created by the various plans submitted to us. To a remarkable degree, these coincided and each showed it was possible to create six assembly districts with majority Latino populations. Based on this preliminary research we set about constructing these districts. We were also requested to take into account significant Asian populations in part of this overall area, and we endeavored to do so. District 57 which is located in the eastern San Gabriel Valley includes the cities of Azusa, Baldwin Park, El Monte and La Puente. It is 63.5 percent Latino in population (and 78 percent in overall minority population) and, based on the registration figures provided us, appears to have over 40 percent Latino registration. District 58 includes Montebello, Pico Rivera, Norwalk and the western part of Whittier. It is 62 percent Latino and almost 72 percent in total minorities and also apparently has well over 40 percent in Latino registration. District 49, centered on Monterey Park, Alhambra, San Gabriel and Rosemead, has only 55 percent Latino population, but the Latino registration appears to be over 44 percent. The district also has a large Asian presence  over 28 percent  and both Latino and Asian groups requested that this district include the four cities that form its basis. Districts 45 and 46 are based on the downtown and eastern parts of the City of Los Angeles. District 45 has 63 percent Latino population and District 46 has over 70 percent Latino population. The registration figures provided us show only about 35 percent Latino registration in each. However both districts have a large Asian presence  18 percent for District 45 and 14 percent for District 46 and the combined Asian and Latino registration in both exceeds 42 percent. District 45 is, overall, 84 percent minority and District 46 is over 91 percent minority. Initially, because of a request from Asian representatives we constructed District 45 to include most of the Asian population which is now split between the districts. (This population is located in the Westlake region just west of downtown Los Angeles in the western parts of both districts.) However, in this configuration, because of very low registration by both Latinos and Asians in this area, this appeared to dilute the voting strength of the Latinos in the district without creating a significant influence district for Asians. [49] For this reason we reconfigured the district to its present form. The sixth Latino district is District 50. This is composed almost entirely of small cities southeast of downtown Los Angeles, including Huntington Park, South Gate, Maywood and Bell Gardens. It has a Latino population of over 88 percent and an apparent Latino registration of approximately 55 percent. We were concerned that we had inadvertently packed Latino population in this district, but discovered that most other plans submitted to us had somewhat similar percentages for a district encompassing this area  MALDEF's plan, for example, had over 84 percent Latino population. A Latino delegation from the area had also urged us to create a district based on these cities. We explored whether there were any feasible methods to substantially reduce the concentration of Latinos, and ultimately concluded that none existed. [50] Districts 47, 48, 51, 52 and 55 are African-American majority districts. In this instance we accepted the definitions offered by almost every participant at our hearings who addressed the point, [51] that an effective African-American majority is in the range of 35 percent to 40 percent of the total population. Our initial step was the same as for Latino districts, to map out the areas of African-American concentrations in south-central Los Angeles. While the areas of such concentration are obvious from an inspection of a map, the total population of African-Americans in the area is not enough to provide an effective majority for five assembly districts, which is the number of African-American members of the Assembly currently representing the area. [52] All but one of the African-American districts created by us actually have more Latinos than African-Americans, although the apparent Latino registration in these areas is abysmally low. [53] District 47 includes Culver City and the Crenshaw area of Los Angeles, and it is 40.5 percent African-American and over 70 percent minority in composition. District 48, almost entirely in the City of Los Angeles, includes the Exposition Park area south to the north border of Watts. It is over 46 percent African-American and, because of a huge, but, as noted, mostly nonvoting Latino population of 52 percent, the district is 98 percent minority. District 51 is centered on Inglewood and includes the city of Hawthorne as well as parts of south-central Los Angeles. It is 36.3 percent African-American and, overall, over 77 percent minority. District 52 is centered on Watts and the north part of Compton, and includes the cities of Gardena and Lynwood. It is also 36.3 percent African-American and 48.5 percent Latino, though the Latino registration is apparently only 11 percent of the total registration. The district is over 90 percent minority. The final African-American district is District 55, which includes the southern part of Compton, the City of Carson, the Wilmington area of Los Angeles and part of western Long Beach. Although it is 80 percent minority in composition, it is only 23.3 percent African-American. Despite this fact, however, the current representative of this area is African-American. When we first outlined the districts in the African-American area, this district had an even lower African-American population although it was close to 80 percent minority and included almost 20 percent Asians. [54] In order to maintain the African-American basis for representation, we decided to recast District 55 by dividing the city of Compton in order to bring the number of African-Americans in the district up to the percentage of the existing district, although it brought both Districts 51 and 52 down to near the minimum that we felt necessary for an African-American majority district. The recommended District 55 is 17 percent Asian and over 40 percent Latino. Districts 33, 35 and 37 are located in the counties northwest of Los Angeles. District 33 includes all of San Luis Obispo County and most of the populated area of Santa Barbara County north of the Santa Ynez Mountains, including Santa Maria and Lompoc. District 35 includes the remainder of Santa Barbara County (including the City of Santa Barbara) and the north and western parts of Ventura County (including the cities of Ventura, Ojai and Santa Paula.) [55] District 37 includes most of the rest of Ventura County, including Oxnard, Camarillo and Thousand Oaks. Districts 34 and 36 are located almost entirely in the Mojave and other desert areas east of the Sierra Nevada and north of the San Gabriel Mountains. District 34 includes Inyo County and the desert part of Kern County assigned to the Southern California Region as well as most of the desert part of San Bernardino County, including Barstow and Victorville. District 36 includes the Los Angeles part of the Mojave Desert, the Antelope Valley, including Palmdale and Lancaster. It also includes most of the City of Santa Clarita, north of the San Fernando Valley. Districts 38, 39, 40, 41 and 43 are located in and adjacent to the San Fernando Valley. District 38 includes Simi Valley from Ventura County and the Castaic area north of the valley as well as the Chatsworth and Northridge areas in the northwest part of the valley. District 39 was designed to include the minority population of the northeastern part of the valley. It has over 62 percent Latino population (and over 75 percent overall minority population) though apparently Latinos constitute only 25 percent of the registered voters. District 40 includes Studio City, North Hollywood and Van Nuys and has the second highest percentage of Latinos (just under 30 percent) and total minorities (almost 42 percent) in the valley. District 41 includes the Woodland Hills area of the southwest part of the valley as well as Malibu, Calabasas, Pacific Palisades and Santa Monica. District 43 includes Burbank in the southeast corner of the valley, but is made up primarily of Glendale and the Griffith Park and Los Feliz areas near central Los Angeles. District 42 includes Beverly Hills and the Hollywood, Westwood and Hancock Park areas of Los Angeles. It is bounded on the east and south by the Latino and African-American districts described above. Districts 53, 54 and 56 are nonminority districts located in the southwest part of Los Angeles County. District 53 consists of coastal cities extending from the Venice area of Los Angeles through Torrance. (One tract of Rolling Hills Estates was included in this district to achieve population balance.) District 54 also is coastal, including the Palos Verdes Peninsula, San Pedro and the coastal section of Long Beach. District 56 includes Lakewood, part of North Long Beach, Cerritos, Bellflower and Downey. Districts 44, 59 and 60 are located in the north and east parts of urban Los Angeles County. District 44 includes Pasadena, La Canada, and the Sunland-Tujunga area of the City of Los Angeles. District 59 includes Monrovia, San Dimas, Covina and Claremont as well as part of Pomona. [56] It is somewhat divided in effect because Azusa, which is a partial barrier between Monrovia and San Dimas, is part of a previously constructed Latino district. District 60 contains the remaining parts of Los Angeles County. It is centered in the east on West Covina and Diamond Bar, but it also includes La Mirada and part of Whittier. As explained earlier, its elongated shape is because the previously created Latino districts lie close to the Los Angeles County border. Districts 61, 62, 63 and 65 are located wholly or primarily in San Bernardino County. Districts 61 and 62 were designed to concentrate minority areas in San Bernardino County into these two districts. As a result, District 61, which includes the more Latino part of Pomona from Los Angeles County and extends eastward through most of Ontario, is almost 55 percent minority, of whom almost 42 percent are Latino. District 62, extending from the edge of Ontario and including the parts of the City of San Bernardino [57] that have minority concentrations, is over 56 percent in minority population including 39 percent Latinos and 12 percent African-Americans. The district also includes Colton, Rialto and Fontana. District 63 includes the areas to the north and east of Districts 61 and 62 which lie south of the San Gabriel Mountains and which have fewer minorities. This district includes Loma Linda, Upland and the nonminority parts of the City of San Bernardino. District 65 includes Redlands, Yucaipa, Big Bear and Twenty-Nine Palms in San Bernardino County and Moreno Valley, Hemet and San Jacinto in Riverside County to the south of Redlands and Yucaipa. Districts 64, 66 and 80 are located wholly or primarily in Riverside County. District 64 includes all of the City of Riverside and adjacent Norco and about half of the City of Corona, which had to be split in order to obtain population equality. District 66 includes the rest of western Riverside County not included in Districts 65 or 64, including the remainder of Corona and all of Lake Elsinore and Temecula, plus a small part of San Diego County in the Fallbrook and Mount Palomar areas just to the south of Temecula. District 80 includes all of eastern Riverside County, including Beaumont, Banning, Palm Springs, Indio and Blythe as well as all of the County of Imperial. Combining Imperial County with the eastern part of Riverside County resulted in a district which is almost 46 percent Latino and almost 51 percent in total minority population. Districts 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72 and 73 are all Orange County districts. The first district constructed by us was District 69, in order to maximize the Latino population. It includes most of Santa Ana and the more Latino parts of Garden Grove and central Anaheim. The result is a district which is 64.6 percent Latino and over 76 percent in total minority representation. (The Latino registration, however, appears to be under 25 percent.) The second district constructed was District 68, which was designed to include as many of the remaining concentrations of minorities (mainly Asian) in Orange County. This district includes the remainder of Garden Grove, the western part of Anaheim, [58] and almost all of Buena Park. It is almost 17 percent Asian in population and, overall, is 42 percent minority in population. The remaining districts were constructed so as to be as compact as possible and to minimize the division of cities. District 67 includes the north coastal part of Orange County including Los Alamitos, Huntington Beach and Costa Mesa. District 70 includes the central coastal part of the county including Newport Beach, Laguna Beach and Irvine. District 72 includes the north interior part of the county, including Fullerton, La Habra and Yorba Linda. District 71 includes the south interior part of Orange County, including the City of Orange, Tustin and the eastern part of Anaheim. Finally, District 73 includes San Clemente, San Juan Capistrano and Mission Viejo in southern Orange County, and because additional population was needed, it also includes Camp Pendleton, Oceanside and a small part of Carlsbad (needed to equalize population) from northern San Diego County. Districts 74, 75, 76, 77, 78 and 79 are all located entirely within San Diego County. We started with District 79 and centered it on the areas of greatest Latino and African-American concentrations. The district encompasses all of National City, about half of Chula Vista and the southernmost parts of the City of San Diego. The resulting district is over 76 percent in total minority population, with the Latino population at 49.3 percent, the African-American population at 16 percent and the Asian population at 11.2 percent. (The district resembles very closely one suggested by MALDEF in the plan submitted by that organization.) District 77 was the next to be constructed and it includes the remainder of Chula Vista, part of the City of San Diego and the inland cities of Lemon Grove, La Mesa and El Cajon just east of the City of San Diego. This district has the second greatest concentration of minorities in San Diego County at 34.7 percent. District 78 is coastal in orientation and extends from Imperial Beach in the south through Coronado and reaches the La Jolla area of the City of San Diego to the north. It also includes the Mission Bay area of the city. The district is quite elongated in the south, but this was due to our decision not to dilute the minority percentage in adjacent District 79 by including predominately nonminority Imperial Beach and Coronado in that district. The district is well served by freeways and the Coronado Bridge, the main access to Coronado, is wholly within the district. District 76 lies wholly within the City of San Diego and includes most of its northern interior area, from Mission Valley to the south almost to Rancho Bernardo in the north. District 75 includes all of eastern San Diego County including mountain and desert areas (such as Ramona and Borrego Springs) but its main population centers are Santee, Poway and the most northerly reaches of the City of San Diego. The final district to be described, District 74 (which, along with District 73, was actually the last district that we constructed), contains the northern San Diego cities of Escondido, Vista and San Marcos and the small north county beach cities such as Encinitas and Solana Beach. It also includes most of the City of Carlsbad, which, as noted before, had to be split to equalize population.

Every senate district in the state consists of entire census tracts and each district varies by less than one percent from the ideal size of 744,000 persons. A computer generated map showing the various districts proposed by us is set out as part of Appendix One of our report. The population of each proposed district is set out in Appendix Two. Since senate districts are made up of assembly districts, the listing of the census tracts contained in each proposed district can be obtained by reference to the census tracts for the constituent assembly districts in Appendix Three. The order from the Supreme Court, in instructing us to follow the criteria set forth in Reinecke IV, required us to join adjacent assembly districts in creating senate districts, a practice now known as nesting. Because we are also required to comply with the Act, we would be excused from this requirement if to do so would require us to violate the Act. However, we did not find any conflict between the Act and the nesting that we propose, and so our plan consists of fully nested senate districts. We designed assembly districts in part to allow for easy and appropriate nesting and since our assembly districts have already been described in some detail, we shall be more brief in the following descriptions. Since our senate districts differ in substantial ways from the existing senate districts, and population changes since 1980 have, in effect, moved entire senate districts from one area to another (e.g., from central Los Angeles to more southerly reaches of the state) it is impossible to provide a numbering scheme which closely parallels the existing districts. [59] We have tried to assign the numbers rationally. [60]
The north coastal region has 18 assembly districts, hence is entitled to 9 senate districts. Senate District 2: Assembly Districts 1 and 7. This is located in the same general area of the current Senate District 2, and extends from Del Norte County on the north through Vallejo in the south. Since there are only three assembly districts north of the Golden Gate and the Carquinez Strait, one of them had to be joined with an assembly district to the south. The only two possible combinations were to join Santa Rosa and Napa to northern Contra Costa County or Marin and southern Sonoma Counties to San Francisco. We chose the latter as being preferable. Senate District 3: Assembly Districts 6 and 13. This also is located in the same general area as the current Senate District 3. It does divide San Francisco and includes all of Marin County and some of Sonoma County. We did have, however, requests submitted to us supporting such a division of San Francisco. Senate District 8: Assembly Districts 12 and 19. This includes the remainder of San Francisco and is similar to the current Senate District 8. It also allows a substantial Asian community in San Mateo County to be included with the bulk of the San Francisco Asian community. Senate District 7: Assembly Districts 11 and 15. This includes most of Contra Costa County as does the present Senate District 7. Senate District 9: Assembly Districts 14 and 16. This includes most of the geographically compact African-American population of the East Bay and creates a district which is 32.4 percent African-American and almost 60 percent minority in population. It is both a functionally compact district and complies with the Act. The Senate has suggested that putting as many as 30 percent African-Americans in a single district may constitute packing, but this is contrary to testimony of many African-American representatives who appeared before us suggesting that an effective African-American majority district should have, at minimum, close to 35 percent African-American population. We also note that there has never been an African-American heretofore elected to the Senate from any area included in our proposed district. Senate District 10: Assembly Districts 18 and 20. This area contains most of the area along the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay south of Oakland. Senate District 11: Assembly Districts 21 and 24. This resembles the current Senate District 11, and consists of the southern part of San Mateo County and the more southeasterly part of the Santa Clara Valley. Senate District 13: Assembly Districts 22 and 23. This district has a minority population of over 50 percent, composed mainly of Latinos and Asians. It covers the northern part of Santa Clara County. Senate District 15: Assembly Districts 27 and 28. This district reunites previously divided Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties and resembles the current Senate District 17.
The North Interior Region has 14 assembly districts, hence is entitled to 7 senate districts. Senate District 1: Assembly Districts 3 and 4. This district includes the Mother Lode counties and other mountain counties. Senate District 4: Assembly Districts 2 and 8. This district includes almost all of the agricultural parts of the Sacramento Valley. It makes whole Yolo County, which had been divided for population equality reasons in formation of the constituent assembly districts. Senate District 6: Assembly Districts 5 and 9. This district is located wholly within Sacramento County. Senate District 5: Assembly Districts 10 and 17. This district includes the southern part of Sacramento County and almost the whole of San Joaquin County. Senate District 12: Assembly Districts 25 and 26. This district reunites Stanislaus County and the City of Modesto. It includes the more northerly parts of the San Joaquin Valley. Senate District 14: Assembly Districts 29 and 32. This district consists of the non-Latino assembly districts in the southern part of the San Joaquin Valley. Senate District 16: Assembly Districts 30 and 31. As noted earlier, these assembly districts were drawn so that, when paired, they would produce a senate district which is 50.8 percent Latino in population and has a total minority population of 64 percent.
Since Southern California has 48 assembly districts, it is entitled to 24 senate districts. Senate District 17: Assembly Districts 34 and 36. This district combines the two assembly districts located in the Mojave and other desert regions east of the Sierra Nevada into a senate district, thus preserving the integrity of this geographic region. Senate District 18: Assembly Districts 33 and 35. This district includes Santa Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and the western part of Ventura County. Senate District 19: Assembly Districts 37 and 38. This district includes the eastern part of Ventura County and an adjacent part of the northwest sector of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles. Senate District 20: Assembly Districts 39 and 40. This district combines the two assembly districts in the San Fernando Valley with the greatest number of minorities, the result being a senate district with a 46 percent Latino population and a 58 percent total minority population. Senate District 21: Assembly Districts 43 and 44. This district includes the suburbs of Glendale and Pasadena to the north and northeast of the City of Los Angeles. Senate District 22: Assembly Districts 45 and 46. This district is centered on downtown Los Angeles and the eastern part of the city. It is heavily Latino and has a substantial Asian presence as well. Senate District 23: Assembly Districts 41 and 42. This district includes the Hancock Park and Westwood areas of the City of Los Angeles as well as Beverly Hills, Santa Monica and the Malibu area. Senate District 24: Assembly Districts 49 and 57. This district includes much of the San Gabriel Valley and is a Latino majority district. Senate District 25: Assembly Districts 51 and 52. This is an African-American majority district centered on Inglewood, Watts and the north part of Compton. Senate District 26: Assembly Districts 47 and 48. This is the second African-American majority district in Los Angeles County. It includes the Crenshaw and Exposition Park areas of the City of Los Angeles as well as Culver City. Senate District 27: Assembly Districts 54 and 56. This district includes the Palos Verdes Peninsula, Lakewood, Downey and most of Long Beach. Senate District 28: Assembly Districts 53 and 55. This district includes much of the area bordering on Santa Monica Bay including most of Torrance and the area inland from Torrance including Carson and part of Compton. Senate District 29: Assembly Districts 59 and 60. This is the easternmost senate district in Los Angeles County and the problems involved in constructing the constituent assembly districts described earlier are magnified by the combination of the two into this senate district. Even though somewhat oddly shaped, virtually all of the population is located within 10 miles of West Covina (the central point in the district) and it is well served by freeways. Senate District 30: Assembly Districts 50 and 58. This district is the third Latino majority senate district and it is located in the area southeast of downtown Los Angeles and includes Huntington Park, Montebello and Norwalk. Senate District 31: Assembly Districts 63 and 65. This district combines the two assembly districts in San Bernardino County with the smallest minority populations. Senate District 32: Assembly Districts 61 and 62. This district combines the two assembly districts in San Bernardino County with the largest minority populations. The resulting senate district is just over 40 percent Latino and over 55 percent in total minority population. The new district is similar to the current Senate District 34. Senate District 33: Assembly Districts 71 and 72. This district includes most of interior Orange County. Senate District 34: Assembly Districts 68 and 69. This district combines the two assembly districts in Orange County with the largest minority population. The resulting senate district is almost 44 percent Latino and almost 60 percent in total minority population because of a substantial Asian presence. Senate District 35: Assembly Districts 67 and 70. This district includes most of coastal Orange County. Senate District 36: Assembly Districts 64 and 66. This district includes the westernmost part of Riverside County. Senate District 37: Assembly Districts 75 and 80. This district includes the most rural part of San Diego County, all of Imperial County and eastern Riverside County. Several persons who appeared before us urged us to consider combining Imperial County with the Latino part of San Diego in legislative districts, and MALDEF and the Senate both combine these areas in the senate districts that they recommend. [61] We considered this alternative (which in our planning would have to be done by combining a somewhat redrawn Assembly District 79 with Assembly District 80) but ultimately rejected the concept. Though there are a large number of Latinos in both San Diego and Imperial Counties, they are widely separated and do not constitute a single geographically compact minority group. Further, the interests of urban Latinos may well be different than those in agricultural Imperial County. Finally, to connect them with anything but a narrow corridor [62] along the border in southern San Diego County would dilute the existing minority population in our proposed Assembly District 79. Senate District 38: Assembly Districts 73 and 74. This district includes the northern part of San Diego and the southernmost part of Orange County. It reunites Carlsbad, which was split in the underlying assembly districts for population equality reasons. Senate District 39: Assembly Districts 76 and 78. This district combines the two assembly districts in southern San Diego County with the smallest minority populations. Senate District 40: Assembly Districts 77 and 79. This district combines the two assembly districts in southern San Diego County with the largest minority populations. Though the resulting district is only 32 percent Latino, it is 55 percent in overall minority population due to a substantial Asian and some African-American population. The district also reunites Chula Vista.

Every congressional district in the state consists of entire census tracts, and each district varies by no more than 0.25 percent from the ideal size of 572,308 persons. A computer generated map showing the various districts proposed by us is set out as part of Appendix One of our report. The population of each proposed district is set out in Appendix Two. A listing of the census tracts contained in each proposed district is set out in Appendix Three.
The Northern Coastal Region is entitled to 12 congressional districts. Districts 1 and 6 are in the northernmost part of this region. District 1 includes all of Del Norte, Humboldt, Mendocino, Lake and Napa Counties, Geyserville and Healdsburg in Sonoma County and Fairfield and part of Vacaville in Solano County. [63] This area is mostly rural with some suburban areas in the southern part of the district. District 6 includes most of Sonoma County and all of Marin County. It is primarily suburban. Districts 8, 12 and 14: These districts occupy the San Francisco Peninsula. District 8 constitutes most of San Francisco and is almost 56 percent minority in population. District 12 includes the southwest corner of San Francisco and northern San Mateo County. A small part of Belmont on the southern edge of the district had to be cut in order to achieve the necessary population balance. District 14 includes the remainder of San Mateo County and a compact area of northwest Santa Clara County including the cities of Palo Alto, Mountain View, Sunnyvale and Cupertino. Districts 7, 9, 10 and 13 are located in the East Bay. District 7 includes Richmond and the Contra Costa cities on or near San Pablo Bay, the Carquinez Strait or Suisun Bay, including Pittsburg and Concord. The district also includes Vallejo and Benecia on the northern side of the Carquinez Strait. Since significant numbers of African-Americans live in Richmond, San Pablo, Vallejo and Pittsburg, the district has a 16.6 percent African-American population and a total minority population of 44 percent. In this congressional district we were able to honor the request of a number of citizens that Richmond not be included in a district that also included Oakland. District 9 includes all of north Alameda County, including Berkeley and all but four census tracts of Oakland. It has an African-American population of 31.9 percent (and an overall minority population of 58.9 percent) and, in our view, it is an effective African-American majority district. District 10 includes all of Contra Costa and Alameda Counties east of the East Bay Hills plus the unincorporated Castro Valley area west of the hills, which had to be included for population equality reasons. District 13 includes all of Alameda County along the shore of San Francisco Bay south of Oakland including San Leandro, Hayward and Fremont. It also has part of Milpitas in an adjacent part of Santa Clara County which was necessary to add for population equality reasons. Districts 15, 16 and 17 constitute the southernmost part of this region. District 15 includes the central part of Santa Clara County including the cities of Santa Clara, Los Gatos, Saratoga, Campbell and much of eastern and southern San Jose. It also includes some of northern Santa Cruz County, including Scotts Valley, an outpost of Silicon Valley. District 16 includes all of the eastern part of San Jose and the southern part of the county. It includes most of the Latino population and much of the Asian population of the area. As a result it is almost 37 percent Latino and over 62 percent total minority in population. District 17 includes all of Monterey and San Benito Counties and most of Santa Cruz County. It is very similar to the current congressional district in the area.
The North Interior Region is entitled to nine congressional districts. Districts 2, 3 and 4 include the northern agricultural region and most of the mountain areas of the region. District 2 includes all of the rural mountain counties of Trinity, Siskiyou, Shasta, Modoc, Lassen, Plumas, Sierra, Yuba and Nevada Counties, and all but two census tracts of Butte County. (The division of Butte was necessary for population equality reasons.) District 3 includes all of the Sacramento Valley counties of Tehama, Glenn, Colusa, Sutter, and Yolo and the eastern part of Solano County including Dixon and part of Vacaville. [64] It also includes part of suburban Sacramento County north of the City of Sacramento. District 4 includes the Mother Lode counties of Placer, El Dorado, Amador, Calaveras and Tuolumne and the mountain counties of Alpine and Mono. It also includes the northeastern corner of Sacramento County, including the City of Folsom. Districts 5, 11 and 18 are located in the middle of the Central Valley. District 5 is entirely urban, and includes the City of Sacramento. District 11 includes the southern and eastern parts of Sacramento County and all but two census tracts of San Joaquin County. District 18 includes all of Stanislaus and Merced Counties and small parts of adjacent San Joaquin, Madera and Fresno Counties necessary to achieve population balance. Districts 19, 20 and 21 are located in the southern part of the San Joaquin Valley. As with Assembly districts 30 and 31, because of the need to obtain preclearance from the Attorney General without any delay whatsoever, the first step in constructing districts was an attempt to construct a district which would include Kings County and would have the maximum feasible Latino population. Again, because of the circumstances we modified what we ordinarily would have considered controlling state law criteria. The result was District 20, which divides Fresno, Visalia, Tulare and Bakersfield (the latter by a hook encircling the city to the south and then the east.) However, we achieved a district with 55.4 Latino population and an overall minority population of over 67 percent. Districts 19 and 21 include the territory of the region remaining from constructing District 20.
Southern California is entitled to 31 congressional districts. Because we started with minority districts in Los Angeles County, we will begin our descriptions with them. Districts 30, 31, 33 and 34 were designed to be majority Latino districts. District 30 is entirely within the City of Los Angeles, extending from the northeastern border through downtown and into the Westlake district. It has 61.5 percent Latino population and an additional 19.8 percent Asian population. (The total minority population is 84.8 percent.) The Latino registration is, apparently, 34 percent and the Asian registration is an additional 7 percent. District 31 is 58.5 percent Latino and an additional 22.1 percent Asian. It includes the area from Alhambra and Monterey Park on the west through El Monte to Azusa on the east. The Latino registration is apparently over 41 percent. District 33 includes part of downtown Los Angeles and the many small communities to the southeast, such as Huntington Park, Maywood and South Gate. The Latino population is almost 84 percent of the district and over 48 percent of the registered voters. District 34 includes Montebello, Pico Rivera, Norwalk, La Puente and part of Whittier. It is over 62 percent Latino in population and over 43 percent Latino in registration. Districts 32, 35 and 37 were designed to be effective majority African-American districts. District 32, including the Crenshaw and Exposition Park areas of Los Angeles as well as Culver City, is 40.3 percent African-American. District 35, which includes Inglewood and Hawthorne as well as part of south-central Los Angeles, is 42.7 percent African-American. District 37, which includes Watts and Compton as well as Carson, the Wilmington area of Los Angeles and part of downtown Long Beach, is 33.6 percent African-American (and has a total minority population of 88 percent). The largest minority in the district is Latino at 45 percent, but Latinos constitute only 13 percent of the registered voters. Districts 22 and 23 are located northwest of Los Angeles County. District 22 includes all of San Luis Obispo County and almost all of Santa Barbara County. (Carpinteria, at the extreme southeast part of the county, had to be combined with Ventura County because of the strict population guidelines for congressional districts.) District 23 includes all of Ventura County except for most of Thousand Oaks. (One census tract had to be severed from Thousand Oaks to achieve population equality.) Districts 24, 25 and 26 include the San Fernando Valley and the Antelope Valley in the Los Angeles part of the Mojave Desert Region. District 24 includes Thousand Oaks in Ventura County, the Malibu and Calabasas areas of western Los Angeles County, and the southwestern part of the San Fernando Valley. District 25 includes all of Antelope Valley (Palmdale and Lancaster) and the new city of Santa Clarita north of the San Fernando Valley. (The area north of the San Fernando Valley constitutes about two-thirds of the district's population. The remainder of the population comes from the Chatsworth and Northridge areas in the northwestern part of the San Fernando Valley.) District 26 encompasses the heavily Latino areas of northeast San Fernando Valley. The district is 52.7 percent Latino and, overall, almost 66 percent minority. Districts 27, 28, 29, 36 and 38 are the remaining districts in Los Angeles that fit around the periphery of the Latino and African-American majority districts heretofore described. District 27 is directly north of downtown Los Angeles and includes the suburbs of Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena. District 28 includes the northern parts of the San Gabriel and Pomona Valleys and like Assembly District 59, of which it is an enlarged version, it is somewhat divided by Azusa, which is part of a previously created Latino majority district. This district includes Arcadia, Monrovia, San Dimas, Claremont, Covina, West Covina and part of Pomona. District 29 includes Beverly Hills and Santa Monica, and the westside of the City of Los Angeles (including Hancock Park and Westwood and both slopes of the Hollywood Hills and the Santa Monica Mountains). District 36 encompasses the various cities of the southern stretch of Santa Monica Bay, from Venice and Westchester in the City of Los Angeles through the Palos Verdes Peninsula. Its eastern side is defined by the African-American majority districts previously described. District 38 is the last whole district located in Los Angeles County. It includes most of Long Beach and Lakewood and all of Bellflower, Paramount and Downey. Districts 39 and 41 include the parts of Los Angeles County not included in other districts lying wholly within the county. This population constitutes about two-thirds of a district in population, but because of the boundaries of the Latino majority districts, the population is within a narrow strip running from Hawaiian Gardens to the southwest to Pomona at the northeast. While it would be technically possible to include all of this area in a single district with Orange County (thus bringing the number of divisions of Los Angeles County down to the bare minimum) this population was divided between two more functionally compact districts created in Orange and San Bernardino Counties. (This also has the effect of avoiding an additional division of Riverside County.) District 39 includes Cerritos, La Mirada, La Habra Heights and part of Whittier from Los Angeles County and Rossmoor, Cypress, Buena Park, Fullerton, Brea and La Habra from Orange County. District 41 includes Diamond Bar and part of Pomona from Los Angeles County, Upland, Montclair, Chino and part of Ontario from San Bernardino County and Yorba Linda and a small part of Anaheim from the northeast corner of Orange County. Because of a concentration of African-Americans in Pomona, and a significant number of Asians, especially in Diamond Bar, as well as a substantial number of Latinos, the district is 48 percent minority. Districts 40 and 42 include all of San Bernardino County not included in District 41. District 40 includes all of the desert areas located in San Bernardino County and all of Inyo County. This constitutes about two-thirds of the population of the district. The remainder of the population is in the mountains  Big Bear and Arrowhead  and in Redlands, Loma Linda and Yucaipa, all in San Bernardino County. District 42 includes most of the City of San Bernardino, all of Colton, Rialto, Fontana and Rancho Cucamonga, and part of Ontario. The district has a total minority population of over 49 percent. Districts 43 and 44 constitute all of Riverside County except for Temecula, which is attached to neighboring San Diego County. District 43 includes the western part of the county, including Riverside, Corona and Lake Elsinore. It also includes part of Perris, which had to be divided to achieve population equality. District 44 includes all of the eastern part of the county, from Moreno Valley and part of Perris on the west to Blythe on the eastern border. Districts 45, 46 and 47 constitute the central part of Orange County. District 46 was constructed first to maximize the minority population. The district includes most of Santa Ana, all of Garden Grove and the central part of Anaheim. The resulting total minority population is over 64 percent, including 50 percent Latino and almost 12 percent Asian. District 45 contains the north coastal part of Orange County, including Seal Beach, Stanton, Huntington Beach, Fountain Valley, Costa Mesa and part of Newport Beach. District 47 contains much of interior Orange County and part of the central coast of the county, and includes Orange, Tustin, Irvine, Laguna Beach, and part of Newport Beach. It also includes a small part of Mission Viejo which was necessary to achieve population equality. Districts 48, 49, 50, 51 and 52 are partly or wholly within San Diego County. District 48 includes southern Orange County, including most of Mission Viejo, and all of San Juan Capistrano and San Clemente. It includes the cities of Oceanside and Vista as well as the Camp Pendleton, Fallbrook and Mount Palomar areas of northern San Diego County. It also includes a small part of Carlsbad needed to achieve population parity. Finally, it includes Temecula, which is in Riverside County just north of Fallbrook. District 50 was the first district designed in San Diego County and it is an expanded version of Assembly District 79, designed to include as many Latinos and other minorities as possible in southern San Diego. The resulting minority population figures are 40.8 percent Latino, 13.7 percent African-American, 13.7 percent Asian and a total minority population of 69 percent. District 49 is an expanded version of Assembly District 78 running along the coast from Imperial Beach and Coronado to the north of the La Jolla area but taking in a larger part of the northern interior part of the City of San Diego. District 51 includes most of the north central area of San Diego County, including Escondido, San Marcos, the far northern reaches of the City of San Diego and beach communities such as Encinitas and Leucadia. Finally, District 52 includes the cities of La Mesa, El Cajon and Santee, which are inland from the City of San Diego, as well as most of rural interior San Diego County. It also includes all of Imperial County.
The State Board of Equalization consists of four districts for the state, the ideal population of each of which is 7,440,005 persons. We received three plans for this board: one from the Governor's Independent Commission, one from the Assembly Republican Caucus and one from the State Board of Equalization itself. The Commission and Caucus plans each nested 10 Senate districts to form each State Board of Equalization district. The State Board of Equalization criticized these plans because they cut county lines unnecessarily and ignored the administrative districts of the board. Since the board has many administrative, adjudicatory and regulatory responsibilities (unlike the Legislature), observing county lines and administrative districts is important. The board submitted a plan which divided only three counties and three administrative districts. We agree with the rationale of the State Board of Equalization but found that we could draw a plan which also divided only three out of the eleven administrative districts but which divided only one county. [65] Further, our plan creates a minority influence district in Los Angeles County. The maximum population deviation in our plan is less than 1 percent. A computer-generated map showing the various districts proposed by us is set out as part of Appendix One of our report. The population of each proposed district is set out in Appendix Two. A listing of the counties, and for Los Angeles County, the census tracts contained in Districts 2 and 3, are set out in Appendix Three. Therefore, we recommend the plan we devised for the State Board of Equalization. [66]

Briefs presented to us have raised the issue of political fairness, i.e., the drawing of district lines so as not to advantage one political party or the other. While it has been understood and accepted that we would not employ partisan data in the drawing of district lines, it has been suggested that after drawing district boundaries we should apply a political test reviewing the proposed districts in terms of their current partisan registration or a previous statewide election. We have not done so, for three reasons. First, we note that our instructions from the Supreme Court make no reference to evaluating districts in terms of partisan political criteria, such as determining the safeness or competitiveness of a particular district. Indeed, the court has made clear that redistricting involves peculiarly political questions that are not appropriate for this court to decide. ( Silver v. Brown (1965) 63 Cal.2d 270, 280 [46 Cal. Rptr. 308, 405 P.2d 132].) We agree. We are here, not as a matter of choice, but because the court  confronted by an impasse between the Legislature and the Governor  has instructed us to recommend a districting plan. Second, even if we had wished to do so, the time constraints under which we have been required to operate would have precluded the development of a political litmus test in which we would have confidence. The days of analysis required to conduct such a test and to make adjustments would have made it impossible to meet an already difficult deadline. Finally, the various fairness tests suggested to us, which are based on past political history, offer incomplete and often conflicting guidelines as to future electoral behavior. We conclude that the complexity and dramatically changing demographic and social environment of California preclude the use of simple formulae. Instead, an analysis of political fairness in California in the 1990's will include recognition of the duplication and deadwood in the registration rolls; the change in the composition of two-party registration (i.e., the relative decline in the share of registered Democrats) and the resulting change in the nature of the vote-registration ratio; [67] the increase in third-party and decline-to-state registrants, now well over 10 percent of the total; the critical decline in voter participation; the vastly different vote-registration ratios of incumbents compared with contestants in open districts; the impact of candidate personality, policy issues, and campaign finance; the potential political mobilization of millions of unregistered citizens and the prospect of citizenship for large numbers of permanent resident aliens; and, last but not least, term limits. We leave this analysis to others better able and more highly motivated to do so, underscoring again that we did not use political data in the drawing of district lines. Nor have we drawn boundaries on the basis of their impact on incumbents. In 1973, in responding to the contention that the Special Masters should have accepted the existing relationship between incumbents and their constituencies as an additional criterion, the Supreme Court stated: We agree that there are values in maintaining such relationships and also in making it possible for competent incumbents to seek reelection without being placed in unduly disadvantageous positions. We agree with the Masters, however, that these values should not be pursued by designing district boundaries to promote the reelection of incumbents. Except in those relatively rare cases where population shifts are so extensive that it would be difficult or impossible for particular incumbents to be reelected even under a proincumbent districting plan, incumbent-neutral districting will not preclude each incumbent from seeking reelection in a new district that will contain a substantial part of his former constituency. Moreover, each incumbent will retain the advantage of running as a sitting congressman or state legislator, as the case may be. To go further and to give incumbents the additional advantage of districting designed to preserve the status quo would be unfair both to nonincumbent candidates and to the electors of the new districts who wished to support such candidates. ( Reinecke IV, supra, 10 Cal.3d at p. 402). In 1973, the Special Masters had observed that there would be instances in which it would be necessary for some incumbents to change their residences if they wish to seek reelection in the areas encompassed within their former districts. ( Reinecke IV, supra, 10 Cal.3d at p. 446.) Unquestionably this will also be true in 1992, under this or any other plan. We note, however, that there is no longer a durational residence requirement within a district as a condition of candidacy for state legislative office and, indeed, that members of Congress need only reside within the state. Moreover, while some plans submitted to us were criticized because they often placed two or more incumbent legislators in the same district, none of the information presented to us by any participant included the residential status of existing officeholders. Thus, we have no way of knowing to what degree our plans have this effect. This plan, then, is incumbent neutral.
A request has been received from the University of California Institute of Governmental Studies in Berkeley that its facilities be used as a depository of all material lodged with the Masters, with the understanding that the materials received will be safely stored, catalogued and made available for public and scholarly use. It is recommended, when the judgment in this action becomes final, that pertinent materials that have been lodged with the Masters be released to the Institute of Governmental Studies for storing and use as requested, upon the conditions noted. We note that the court approved a similar recommendation in 1973. Respectfully submitted November 29, 1991 George A. Brown, Presiding Master Rafael H. Galceran, Special Master Thomas Kongsgaard, Special Master Appendices One and Three to the Report and Recommendations of the Special Masters, setting forth plans for reapportioning legislative, congressional and State Board of Equalization districts, and as corrected by the Masters for clerical errors, are on file with the Clerk of the Supreme Court.