Locals made their voices heard at an Aug. 12 redistricting public workshop held in Solvang, where redistricting commissioners and community members met to exchange thoughts about the once-a-decade process that will now be guided by recently released census data.
“Every 10 years, the county has to redistrict, based on the most recent census data,” Daniel Phillips with the National Demographics Corporation said at the meeting. “This is to account for population changes over the decade. These are going to determine which community members are placed in each supervisorial district, and voters in each district will elect one of their own as county supervisor.”
The county Citizens Independent Redistricting Commission is made up of 11 members, who will ultimately decide where the new district lines will fall. But the commission has agreed not to draw its own maps, Phillips said. They’re going to choose from maps submitted by the public. This is one of the main ways the public can get involved with the process, and maps can be drawn and submitted at drawsantabarbaracounty.org/draw-a-map.
“Even though we’re from certain districts, we’re representing everybody,” 5th District Commissioner Mike Hartman said at the meeting. “I want to hear what everyone in Santa Barbara County wants to say, because we’re going to take all voices and opinions into our consideration as we look over the maps that you guys provide.”
While the commissioners are committed to leaning on public input to redraw district lines, they also have to consider federal and state rules when making their decisions.
Federal law states that districts should be of roughly equal population and can’t be racially gerrymandered. This must be balanced with the Federal Voting Rights Act, which ensures that the voting strength of marginalized groups isn’t watered down. State law prioritizes geographical contiguity, undivided neighborhoods, and keeping cities together. In general, traditional redistricting principles try to minimize the number of voters shifted to different election years.
Bruce Porter, a Santa Ynez resident who ran for county supervisor three times in the last four elections, asked the commission not to shy away from making big changes to the existing map.
“The way it is now, the city of Santa Barbara is split between two districts. The city of Goleta is split between two districts. The city of Santa Maria is split between two districts. The Lompoc Valley is split between two districts,” Porter said. “So currently, we’re violating almost all the principles you put up there on the screens. … I would ask that you really think out of the box, and don’t just tinker.”
Denise El Amin, a Solvang resident, voiced her concerns about marginalized groups’ voting power getting diluted in the redistricting process.
“This has been done so many years prior, to where they try to eliminate the brown vote, the poor vote, and then put us into small places and take us all over the place,” El Amin said. “I would like to know how many people of color are on the commission at this point.”
Fourth District Commissioner Amanda Ochoa said she is the only person of color on the redistricting commission.
“Just for record’s sake, we used to have three more members of color on the commission, but they resigned, to take job opportunities,” Phillips said. “They weren’t forced out; they left on their own volition.”
He added that the commissioners had to be selected from a pool of candidates selected by the county registrar, and “that pool was overwhelmingly white.”
“We have made strides to have a politically diverse commission, so that there are a proportional number of Democrats, Republicans, and no party preference on the commission,” Phillips said.
El Amin asked what the political divide is on the commission. Phillips said it’s five Democrats, three Republicans, and three no party preference.
“That reflects the partisan breakdown of the county,” he added.
Phillips said the next meeting will be held on Oct. 6 from 6 to 8 p.m. in Santa Maria at the Betteravia Hearing Room, both in-person and on Zoom. With census data now released, this meeting will include a debrief about the data that has come in, particularly how many people live in each district as they currently stand. With federal law requiring that each district has a roughly equal population, this information will be critical to the conversation about where the new lines get drawn.
This article appears in Aug 19-26, 2021.