1
1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S
2 --ooOoo--
3 CHAIRMAN PERATA: I'll call to order the meeting
4 of the Senate Committee on Elections and Reapportionment.
5 I want to thank all of you for being here, making
6 sure that you know where you are. There's not usually a lot of
7 people attending these hearings, but you're more than welcome.
8 If you're interested in testifying, in the back
9 of the room there are forms to fill out.
10 This is the fifth in a series of hearings that
11 this Committee has conducted up and down the state. And the
12 purpose is to take public testimony relative to the redrawing of
13 the Senate, Assembly, Congressional and Board of Equalization
14 districts for the State of California, hopefully, for the next
15 decade.
16 In the interest of time that everybody gets an
17 opportunity to speak, we are limiting individual speakers to
18 three minutes. We would ask you to be specific and not
19 redundant or repetitive of something that someone else has said.
20 One thing we would ask you to keep in mind, and I
21 certainly wouldn't encourage you to adjust your testimony based
22 upon this, but remember that while you may be arguing for a
23 specific thing in a specific district, everything is contiguous,
24 so as one moves, everything is affected. And while sometimes
25 taking a couple census tracts and putting them over here would
26 satisfy your goal, it simply will readjust the thinking of the
27 neighborhood to the south, and north, east, or west.
28 I just mention that because I would like to do it
2
1 other ways, but people keep telling me that you have to worry
2 about 40 Senate districts, 53 Congressional districts, and the
3 like.
4 After this hearing concludes, there will be a
5 conference committee where we'll begin to debate and discuss the
6 specifics of the plans. You may submit anything in writing to
7 the web site; instructions are there for you to consider.
8 We have a couple of formal presentations. I
9 understand that MALDEF is going to do a Power Point
10 presentation. So what we'll do is, the agenda has been set
11 forward. People who were not on the agenda earlier we will fill
12 in at the conclusion of the hearing.
13 We're joined today by Senator Ross Johnson to my
14 right, and appropriately --
15 SENATOR JOHNSON: Near right.
16 CHAIRMAN PERATA: That's right, near right. And
17 to my left is Senator Deborah Ortiz who represents Sacramento. I
18 welcome both of them. We may be joined by other Senators today,
19 but we're going to move forward right now.
20 I would like to ask James Shelby, who is the
21 Mayor of Citrus Heights, and the Vice Mayor, Roberta MacGlashan,
22 also from Citrus Heights, are they here?
23 Sal Torres is a member of the City Council of
24 Daly City. Sal, are you here? We're going to move right
25 through this agenda.
26 Marie Brizuela from the Jefferson Elementary
27 Unified School District, you're here. Come forward, please.
28 Anybody from Daly City who is intending to speak,
3
1 come on up; don't be shy. You have a huge burden.
2 This is, by the way, all being recorded by a
3 court stenographer, and at the outset, would you please give
4 your name and, if it's confusing, its spelling for each speaker.
5 Thank you.
6 MS. BRIZUELA: My name Marie Brizuela. I'm here,
7 I am a Trustee for Jefferson Elementary School District. And I
8 would like also to speak for the area of which I live, which is
9 Broadmoor Property Owners Association.
10 We're an area of 1143 homes that's surrounded by
11 Daly City, so when this reapportionment happens, it will also
12 affect us as well.
13 From the standpoint of the schools, what I'd like
14 to say is that by putting us in with a group like San Francisco,
15 when they probably have -- and I don't have the exact number,
16 but probably something like 80 schools, 65 schools, something
17 like that -- when they have a need, the greatest need will go to
18 them rather than to us, when we only have 16 schools, Bayshore
19 that has only 2 schools.
20 So, I ask that we remain within the area of Daly
21 City so that one whole city, one whole group, we can be together
22 and have a voice.
23 One issue I wanted to bring up was that the
24 unincorporated area depends much on a lot of the things that
25 happen in Daly City. So again, we'd like to have the same
26 representative.
27 And the City of Daly City has been somewhat, in
28 years past, sort of been divided by Mission Street, you know,
4
1 the new and the old. We have finally become a whole city
2 together where everyone supports everybody. That's why you see
3 all the homeowner people here from different areas that are
4 working together. And we feel that if it's divided, we're going
5 to lose that continuity.
6 So, please keep Daly City, which is the largest
7 city in San Mateo County, together where we can really go and
8 get the things that we need, have a representative that truly
9 represents all of us for all of our needs, rather than being
10 lost sort of as a stepchild to San Francisco.
11 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Thank you. That was very
12 succinct. I appreciate it.
13 How many of you, just by a show of hands, are
14 from Daly City? Oh, wonderful. Half of Broadmoor's here.
15 MS. BRIZUELA: I'm the only Broadmoor.
16 CHAIRMAN PERATA: You're all working together,
17 though. They'll adopt you.
18 If you left, we wouldn't have a crowd. So,
19 you're welcome to stay for a while.
20 We have John Tuteur, who is the Napa County
21 Registrar of Voters.
22 FROM THE AUDIENCE: We have more from Daly City
23 who are going to speak.
24 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Al, is that you? I'm sorry.
25 Come on, Al?
26 Why don't I call these. Those of you who have
27 signed up on the list, come on forward. You can just sit up
28 here, and that way we won't call you one at a time: Edith, and
5
1 Terry, and Leah, and Frank, and Joe, and Eve, and Judith, and
2 the sign.
3 CHAIRMAN PERATA: You're a former Mayor.
4 MAYOR TEGLIA: Right.
5 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Welcome.
6 MAYOR TEGLIA: Mr. Chairman, thank you. I want
7 to just take a moment to say --
8 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Give her your name.
9 MAYOR TEGLIA: I'm sorry. My name is Albert M.
10 Teglia, and that's T-e-g-l-i-a.
11 I want to take a moment to say thank you to you,
12 Mr. Chairman, because I'm very familiar with your work in
13 government as a supervisor. Many times I looked across the Bay
14 and saw you take the lead on guns and other issues that were so
15 important to our Bay Area. So, thank you.
16 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Thank you. That won't count
17 against your three minutes.
18 MAYOR TEGLIA: And if it does, it doesn't
19 matter.
20 Ross Johnson is a name that goes all the way back
21 to when I was school board member.
22 Deborah Ortiz I'm not familiar with, but I wish I
23 was. She's very attractive.
24 [Laughter.]
25 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Whatever you want, you got it.
26 [Laughter.]
27 MAYOR TEGLIA: There's two things that concern me
28 a great deal, Mr. Chairman. And I understand that at some point
6
1 you need X-thousand more people to make up your Assembly
2 district.
3 If it's possible to keep Daly City as a whole, it
4 would be of a great value, because then it gives Daly City an
5 opportunity if they want to run for this Assembly seat.
6 If you chop us in half, in all reality, it's very
7 difficult to move into San Francisco unless you do a lot of
8 campaigning and a lot of activities prior to campaigning, to
9 become an Assemblyperson representing this district.
10 It's always been my concern that years ago, the
11 Assembly district went all the way down to Milbrae. The one
12 thing that I always felt is, keep the cities as a whole if
13 possible.
14 Now I know, if I don't take it from Daly City,
15 you have to either go into other counties, and so, I understand
16 all that.
17 But if you could give Daly City an opportunity, a
18 level playing field to run for that Assembly seat in the future,
19 we're about 110,000 strong in Daly City, even though we would
20 still be coming from the short end of population, we could still
21 make a good accounting of ourselves if we want to represent our
22 area in the Assembly.
23 If you cut us in half, it virtually takes Daly
24 City out of the running.
25 It has nothing to do with the quality of the
26 people from San Francisco. Kevin Shelley has represented us
27 very well. Leo McCarthy represented us years ago, the northern
28 strip, very well.
7
1 But now you're talking of really cutting up a
2 large city. Keep us together. If you're going to keep us in
3 San Francisco, keep us all together so we have a chance to
4 contribute to the Assembly district as well as run for it.
5 And that's basically my message to you.
6 Now, our Mayor and City Council members couldn't
7 be here today. They have what I would call one of the most
8 important decisions that they have to make on Mission Street, on
9 a piece of land that has been up for development for years in
10 our redevelopment area. They must be at a meeting this
11 afternoon to make a decision, and they just couldn't be here.
12 So, they've asked some of us to represent the Council as best we
13 can.
14 The best representation you can have anytime,
15 anywhere, is the people. That's what we have.
16 So, thank you, Mr. Chairman and Committee
17 Members.
18 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
19 MAYOR TEGLIA: Do the best way you can with this.
20 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Thank you.
21 Hard to top that, but would someone like to try?
22 Come up in any order you'd like.
23 MR. BERLANGA: Good afternoon. My name is Frank
24 Berlanga.
25 Sal Torres couldn't make it; Council Member Sal
26 Torres couldn't make it, so I'm going to read a letter that he
27 wrote to you. It goes like this:
28 "Honorable Chair and
8
1 Members of the Committee, invited
2 officials, and guests, and fellow
3 Californians, my name is Sal
4 Torres, and my wife and
5 two-and-a-half year old daughter
6 are proud residents of the great
7 City of Daly City.
8 "I'm especially proud
9 to inform you that the people of
10 Daly City have entrusted me with
11 an enormously wonderful task; that
12 is, to represent them on the City
13 Council. It is in that political
14 capacity of Council Member that I
15 come before you today. But it is
16 the heart of the resident in me
17 that motivates this address.
18 "You have the unenviable
19 job of redrawing Assembly, Senate,
20 and Congressional lines to balance
21 the vote for our marvelous
22 California. In drawing those
23 lines, you must make decisions
24 that will please some and
25 disappoint others. You will make
26 decisions that are easy in some
27 cases, and some that will come
28 with a fight, with tears, and
9
1 after much soul-searching, perhaps
2 with similar dread.
3 "It is in that spirit
4 that I come before you and implore
5 you not to look at Daly City as
6 the easy answer to solve whatever
7 population imbalances might exist
8 in adjacent voting districts.
9 "Please see our city for
10 what it is today, right now,
11 right here. Do not look at Daly
12 City as solely the bedroom
13 community it once was known as.
14 Do not look at Daly City as that
15 small neighboring community to the
16 south of the bulging metropolis
17 known as San Francisco.
18 "Daly City has been
19 built through these last 10 years
20 through the sweat and sacrifice of
21 many of the residents who made the
22 commitment to see you personally
23 here today. Through our
24 collective efforts, Daly City is
25 an economically thriving community
26 that now boasts small and large
27 businesses, social and community
28 centers, two brand-new hotels, a
10
1 20-screen state-of-the-art movie
2 complex, and soon to be the newest
3 home of Krispy Kreme Donuts.
4 "Of course, many
5 families young and old, black, white,
6 Latino, Asian, conservative and
7 progressive, still call Daly City
8 home. And that, my esteemed panel,
9 is the point.
10 "We were informed that
11 one of the golden rules by which
12 your decisions must be made is not
13 to break up a city's makeup of its
14 minority communities. Unlike Los
15 Angeles or San Francisco, the
16 population of minorities in our
17 city is not nestled in any
18 specific corner, nor spans any
19 particular section of Daly City.
20 Indeed, our whole city community
21 runs deep in cultural diversity
22 and levels of socio-economic
23 success. To take any more
24 residents from our city and place
25 them in other voting districts is
26 to surely eradicate the very
27 fiber of these communities'
28 effectiveness at the polls."
11
1 This is going to be short, I promise.
2 "Unlike other cities in
3 which you can easily dissect where
4 a particular community might
5 reside, Daly City is uniquely
6 different and distinct. Our Asian
7 community makes up almost 51
8 percent of the population. Our
9 Latino community makes up almost
10 25 percent. Yet try find and
11 pinpoint where these wonderful
12 residents live in Daly City, and
13 you will find it is impossible.
14 "Indeed, the taking of
15 any more of our residents to bring
16 balance to another district will
17 break up either or both of those
18 two communities, not to say that
19 others, too, will not be adversely
20 impacted. Thus, any such removal
21 will go against one of the very
22 explicit rules by which your
23 decisions must be made.
24 "We realize that
25 decisions must, after all, be
26 made. We understand that you may
27 be faced with finding no other
28 alternatives. We ask you here
12
1 today, humbly, to consider an
2 alternative, however, that will
3 not impact only Daly City, for
4 such a lonely hit on a city like
5 us will be one that will surely
6 make it difficult for us to
7 overcome.
8 "While all of us here
9 would prefer no taking of
10 residents, we expect that some may
11 nevertheless be taken.
12 Accordingly, I simply ask
13 respectfully that you consider a
14 couple of alternatives, if not
15 already mentioned.
16 "One is to use Highway
17 101 as a guide and place any
18 residents on the east side of the
19 highway into the subject voting
20 districts. The thinking behind
21 this proposal is that at the very
22 least, the removal may include
23 whole cities, which is better
24 than taking half of ours, or
25 impacting smaller portions of
26 sequential cities in San Mateo
27 County, thereby reducing the risk
28 of creating a huge discrepancy in
13
1 a city's voting pool.
2 "The second alternative
3 is to use El Camino Real, which
4 runs south in San Mateo, again,
5 drawing the line with the mindset
6 of impacting cities on a lesser
7 level than removing more residents
8 from only one city, Daly City.
9 "I have come before you
10 with deep gratitude for the
11 opportunity to be heard, but also
12 with an expectation that you will
13 not only hear us, but as leaders
14 of this state, also feel our
15 plight with the same emotion we
16 have for this issue. It is an
17 issue that has bound us closer
18 together as a community and
19 brought us closer as neighbors.
20 It is one that we collectively
21 pray you will understand will
22 affect us for years to come.
23 "Thank you.
24 "Respectfully,
25 "Sal Torres."
26 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Thank you.
27 Anyone else?
28 MR. KEH: Good afternoon. I'm Joseph Keh,
14
1 K-e-h. I represent the Bayshore Youth Organization in Daly
2 City.
3 The Bayshore district is the most northern part
4 of Daly City. We are at the fringes. We are most northern part
5 of the county. We're at the fringes. And we know how it is to
6 feel to be at the fringes.
7 And we worked very hard to get a little
8 recognition from the City of Daly City, and we got that, and
9 we're very proud of it. We have worked very hard to get some
10 recognition from the county, and we got that, and we're proud of
11 it.
12 We worked very hard to get some recognition from
13 the state, and we made very good headway. It took us over 15
14 years to do this.
15 What we need in our county and what we need in
16 our area is services and programs for our youth. This is what
17 we're working for.
18 Now things have changed. We are going back, and
19 we're going to be on the fringes again. We have to reestablish
20 ourselves and work hard in order to get people to recognize us.
21 The whole thing in redistricting, the whole people that do not
22 know us, and we have to work hard to get this recognition.
23 Representation without recognition is useless.
24 And we must work very hard, and this pushes us back.
25 We would like to stay with Daly City and be a
26 part of Daly City. This is our home. This is the home of our
27 kids. And this is the thing that we tried to build up
28 understanding and cohesion with the families and with the
15
1 neighborhood. And we'd like to keep this cohesion with the city
2 and our County of San Mateo.
3 Thank you very much.
4 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Thank you, sir.
5 Is Eva Aiello here?
6 MS. AIELLO: Mr. Chairman, I read so much about
7 you in the San Francisco Chronicle, all good, I must say.
8 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Try the Oakland Tribune.
9 MS. AIELLO: I'm trying to get some points over.
10 I'm Eva Aiello, A-i-e-l-l-o, and I'm at Number 4,
11 Maurice Way in Daly City. I'm with the Hillside Homeowners
12 Association. But mostly, I am a Daly Citian.
13 I grew up in the city. I married a pioneer
14 family of the city, and I'm very, very proud of my city. And I
15 got to always tease Al Teglia, saying I think we're two of the
16 oldest in Daly City, educated and lived there all of our lives.
17 But I must say that 50 years ago, we were a small
18 community of maybe 3,000 to 5,000 people. We were divided when
19 Westlake went in, and we've stayed divided until just 5, 10
20 years ago, when all of our homeowners, and they're all here
21 today, got together and we made it a city again, where no one
22 says they're from the east side, and no one says they're better
23 off on the west side. We are now a city.
24 What troubles me about what is coming forth now
25 is to divide us again. I'll have to go along with the fact that
26 if you're going to take part of us, take all us.
27 But I do go along with going down the 101. The
28 airport is also in San Francisco. I mean, it would make just
16
1 small communities along the way, but you would still keep them
2 together.
3 But to divide Daly City again, after all of the
4 hard work that we have done, and believe me, we have worked hard
5 to bring us all together, and now we are no longer talking about
6 the fact that we live here or we live there. We talk about Daly
7 City. We no longer say, "Put it over there because we've got
8 enough of it." We say, "We're all for Daly City."
9 So again, that is my biggest concern, in dividing
10 us. Please, please, please think about dividing us again.
11 Thank you.
12 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Thank you.
13 MR. O'REILLY: My name Steven O'Reilly. I live
14 in Daly City.
15 First of all, I'm not going to stand here and ask
16 you not to do this unjust reapportionment. You already know
17 that this is wrong, so I shouldn't have to ask you. In fact, it
18 would be superfluous for me to ask you not to do this.
19 Second of all, I'm going to let you know that I
20 really don't feel I matter. I believe the government is
21 controlled by large corporations, and I'm here to tell you, and
22 show you by this hat that I'm not a large corporation. I'm just
23 an average, ordinary individual.
24 I'm going to ask you to refrain from doing this
25 not for myself, because like I say, I'm just an average
26 individual. I'm going to ask you to refrain from doing this
27 unjust reapportionment for your sakes. Anytime someone does
28 something that's truly wrong, that goes on their soul. And no
17
1 matter how good your lawyer is, no matter how many campaign
2 contributions you get, no matter where you go, what you do, that
3 will follow you around everywhere.
4 So, it is very important for your sake, not for
5 me. Forget me. I don't matter. For your sake, it's important
6 that you do a just reapportionment.
7 Another thing is that if you do this unjust
8 reapportionment and deprive the adults of Daly City of
9 representation, well you know, we borrow the earth from our
10 children. We don't inherit it from our ancestors. So, we are
11 depriving our children of a chance of representation. Children
12 are ambassadors of God. And in sinning against them, you're
13 committing three times the sin as you would against the adults.
14 Another thing is that to deprive people of
15 representation and continue to tax them is against what our
16 founding fathers fought for, which is taxation with
17 representation, not without.
18 And then finally to close, with all due respect,
19 this is a government of the people, which means that I'm the
20 boss. And when I'm the boss and I request something, I expect
21 that request to be granted. I may ask it in a nice way, but I
22 expect it to be followed.
23 So in closing, I ask -- I will appear to be
24 asking, but really I'm telling you, don't do this unjust
25 reapportionment.
26 Thank you very much.
27 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Thank you.
28 MS. BERLANGA: Good afternoon, honorable Chair
18
1 and Members of the Committee.
2 My name is Leah Berlanga, and I represent -- I'm
3 the Vice President of CHORA, which is the Daly City Council of
4 Homeowners and Residents Association. We represent over 16
5 homeowner groups in Daly City.
6 Today, I'd like our group to stand, if they don't
7 mind. They made some nice little signs for you, and we all
8 boarded a bus and made our way out here. We know it's far, but
9 it's important to us.
10 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Thank you for coming, all of
11 you.
12 MS. BERLANGA: Today I'd like to just let you
13 know that we are paying very close attention to this process,
14 and we really appreciate your hard work. I know it's a
15 difficult task. We have every confidence in all of you that you
16 will make the right decisions.
17 In reviewing the packet that I received, just
18 with the different information and guidelines that you have to
19 follow, I noticed there are eight basic requirements that you're
20 kind of trying to stay within.
21 Looking at Daly City in whatever proposal might
22 be introduced later in the future, I can't see where you cannot
23 directly conflict with at least four of those requirements.
24 So, what I'm proposing today is an alternative.
25 And that is, you've heard from several other speakers, the 101
26 split. We're looking at maybe just following 101, taking
27 portions of -- you take Brisbane, you take portions of South
28 Francisco. You take a little portion from each city so that all
19
1 cities bear a little bit, and not have it all impact just one
2 city such as Daly City. This way, this is the only way that we
3 see that it would really be a fair process. And that way, no
4 city would lose representation, especially representation that
5 they've worked so hard for.
6 And also, I also live in the part of Daly City
7 that was taken away several years ago. And I can tell you from
8 experience, it has been nothing but confusion in our particular
9 neighborhood. It's really unfortunate that our citizens, they
10 just don't understand the process. They're not politically
11 savvy, as you would like to think. They are always writing the
12 wrong person. We have people in our area that are represented
13 by Kevin Shelley, yet they're writing Lou Papan, and they are
14 not writing back. So, they're confused as to who actually
15 represents them.
16 And I think that's one thing we need to really
17 consider and really pay attention to, because this all would be
18 in vain if the people that we're trying to serve are not served
19 if they don't understand the process themselves.
20 And today what I would just strongly recommend is
21 that you consider the 101 split. That would be the best and the
22 most fairest way to go. And Daly City would still be able to be
23 well represented, and we'll be able at least keep the clout that
24 we have now in the county. We are the largest city, populated
25 city in the county. We've worked hard for. We'd like to keep
26 it.
27 And on behalf all of the neighborhood and
28 homeowner groups in Daly City, please keep Daly City intact.
20
1 Thank you.
2 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Thank you.
3 Deborah.
4 SENATOR ORTIZ: I appreciate that you've actually
5 said please be conscious of these splits.
6 I'm trying to discern from the comments earlier,
7 you understand that our role, we don't have maps to say, "Don't
8 do this, or don't do that," because we don't have a plan. This
9 is the public process.
10 MS. BERLANGA: Yes.
11 SENATOR ORTIZ: We don't even have plans for our
12 own districts, let alone other districts.
13 So, it sounds like everybody's comments here, at
14 least the last few speakers, are on the Assembly maps. How to
15 split the Assembly districts.
16 MS. BERLANGA: Yes. We've actually -- well, our
17 group has actually looked at different -- we've actually tried
18 to come up with a plan. And I know you all know that's very
19 difficult because you have to gather the amount of people into
20 each district.
21 Yes, we're looking at the Assembly, but in the
22 long run, you're going to have to look in that direction.
23 SENATOR ORTIZ: We'll have to vote.
24 MS. BERLANGA: What we're trying to do is give
25 you ideas today.
26 SENATOR ORTIZ: And I appreciate that. That's
27 helpful, because I think when people ask to do or not do
28 something, we don't have anything to do or to drive us at this
21
1 point. It's really gathering information to understand one of
2 the, in this case, 80 districts in the state because they're
3 Assembly districts. So, it's helpful for you to kind of give us
4 parameters of geographic boundaries.
5 We haven't come to a conclusion, because we don't
6 have maps before us. This is just the gathering information
7 stage.
8 MS. BERLANGA: It's my understanding there is
9 nothing in place. Right now you're just gathering ideas.
10 SENATOR ORTIZ: Correct.
11 MS. BERLANGA: And that's why we feel this was
12 not a waste of our time.
13 SENATOR ORTIZ: No.
14 MS. BERLANGA: We made the time to come out here
15 because we want to help you along in the process.
16 SENATOR ORTIZ: Oh, I appreciate it. I have more
17 people here from other parts of the state and not from my own
18 district here in Sacramento. So, thank you for your time.
19 MS. BERLANGA: Thank you so much.
20 CHAIRMAN PERATA: I will point out that it's our
21 policy here in the Senate that we will avoid all unnecessary
22 city splits. And therefore, we'll do everything we can to make
23 sure in our plan that we don't bust you up.
24 MS. BERLANGA: Thank you so much.
25 SENATOR ORTIZ: I think we finally have one of my
26 cities coming forward, I hope.
27 MR. ASSAGAI: Mr. Chairman and Members,
28 especially Senator Ortiz, my apologies for the Mayor of Citrus
22
1 Heights.
2 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Mel, can you just give us your
3 name for the record?
4 MR. ASSAGAI: Mel Assagai, on behalf of the City
5 of Citrus Heights.
6 We apologize for the Mayor and Vice Mayor not
7 being able to appear. They wanted to be here, but were detained
8 on other business.
9 We had a very narrow matter that we wanted to
10 bring to the Committee's attention, and it's under Congressional
11 district.
12 The City wants to be retained in one, not two,
13 Congressional districts. The City sees itself as a community of
14 interest unto itself. And in fact, it was founded on the basis
15 of it being a single community of interest. We'd like to see
16 that retained or at least established in any new Congressional
17 maps.
18 Again, we're sorry for the Mayor and Vice Mayor
19 not being here, but we wanted to bring that limited message to
20 the Committee's attention.
21 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Thank you.
22 SENATOR ORTIZ: If I might add, and I appreciate
23 that, Mr. Assagai, I certainly received a call from the Vice
24 Mayor. She was very clear, and I respect that. It's one of the
25 very key cities in my district, and it's a city that is
26 relatively new. They were established in '97 operative. And
27 they are a city that is incredibly important in my district.
28 I also believe and am committed to not splitting
23
1 them, to the degree that I have the ability to do so. But I
2 agree with you. I will go on record saying Citrus Heights
3 should not be split. I certainly want to keep it in my Senate
4 district if I can, and certainly believe that there's great
5 value in not having it split either in the Congressional seat or
6 certainly, as we need to tell our county on a regular basis,
7 they ought not to split it in the supervisorial seats either.
8 MR. ASSAGAI: I can assure you, Senator Ortiz,
9 the Council will be delighted to hear your remarks. I'll report
10 it faithfully.
11 SENATOR ORTIZ: Oh, yes, and I conveyed that to
12 the Council Members that have chatted with me. Council Members
13 Hughes and MacGlashan have clearly got my personal commitment to
14 that, to the degree I can, of course. I'm one of 40 votes in
15 our House.
16 MR. ASSAGAI: Thank you very much.
17 SENATOR ORTIZ: Thank you.
18 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Thank you.
19 We had a couple more Daly City speakers.
20 MR. TUTEUR: Mr. Chairman, I am not one of those,
21 so I will step aside.
22 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Thank you. We're just going to
23 finish up. There are two more, Edith Banderos. Is Edith here?
24 She's not here.
25 Judith Christensen.
26 MS. CHRISTENSEN: My name is Judith Christensen,
27 C-h-r-i-s-t-e-n-s-e-n, and I'm a resident in Daly City.
28 I also represent the Daly City-Colma Democratic
24
1 Club, and the Neighbors for Responsible Redevelopment, a
2 grassroots neighborhood organization.
3 I brought petitions, heaps and piles of them.
4 These petitions are being delivered today to this Committee and
5 to the Assembly Committee also, in hopes that our voices will be
6 heard as you make your decisions on reapportionment.
7 There are 1,289 signatures on the attached
8 petitions. We have gathered in a grassroots campaign that
9 brought together all the diverse members of our community. We
10 are Democrats and Republicans. We are young and old, rich and
11 poor, representing our full ethnic diversity.
12 We stand totally united on this issue of fair
13 representation. Ordinary residents walked their neighborhoods
14 and sat out in front of grocery stores. For some people new to
15 America, this was their very first experience of the democratic
16 process. They were thrilled to sign a petition.
17 Will this really make a difference? Will they
18 listen? Does the government really care about me?
19 We said yes, this government does. We are
20 confident that your answer is a resounding yes, too.
21 We know that boundaries have to be redrawn to
22 include new census data. Our concern is that our political
23 power will be diminished if a significant number of us are
24 included in any district where our percentage of the population
25 is so small that our voices will be overpowered. We are
26 particularly worried about our smaller suburban community voices
27 from San Mateo County, that they might be lost in the clamor
28 with our big city urban neighbor, San Francisco. Our needs and
25
1 problems, and potential solutions to these problems, are very
2 different.
3 We know that many factors are considered when
4 making reapportionment decisions. We ask that fair
5 representation, democratic ideals, and what is best for the
6 people affected by your decisions be your very highest priority.
7 We are absolutely confident that these, in fact, are your
8 highest priorities.
9 We know that you will be making the decisions
10 soon. Please take our interests to heart.
11 Thank you very much.
12 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Thank you, Ms. Christensen.
13 I just want to mention, and again, you're more
14 than welcome to leave at the conclusion of your presentation,
15 but we've done this now for five times. This is first time
16 we've ever had a group of -- I don't want to say everyday
17 citizens -- but residents of a city coming up on their own and
18 making a case.
19 We've generally had people who are talking,
20 representing an interest group.
21 But I want to thank you for doing that. I know
22 it's a long ride, but it was very effective, and we'll do all we
23 can and make sure that your wishes are granted. Thank you for
24 being here.
25 Mr. Berlanga, if you give the letter from your
26 Council Member to the Sergeant, that's great.
27 MR. TUTEUR: Mr. Chairman, I'm John Tuteur,
28 Registrar of Voters of Napa County.
26
1 I wanted to echo what you just said. I'm
2 impressed by the City of Daly City residents. I wish you lived
3 in Napa County. I've held two workshops on redistricting and
4 had nobody show up yet. Wonderful for them. They can all move
5 to Napa County with no reservations.
6 Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, I'm just
7 here very briefly. I am conducting a redistricting in Napa
8 County that we must do for the supervisorial districts, for the
9 college board, and for our local board of education.
10 I'm simply here to deliver a message from our
11 Board of Supervisors as their representative. We also ask that
12 Napa County retain its single district status. We currently are
13 represented by one Member of Congress, Congressman Thompson, who
14 lives in Napa County, by Senator Chesbro, of course, and by
15 Assembly Member Wiggins.
16 And my Board has simply asked me to continue that
17 process as far as the Senate districts are concerned.
18 I've appeared before the Assembly Committee
19 working on reapportionment. You have the resolution. I don't
20 need to read it.
21 I'd be happy to answer any questions, if there
22 are any, and otherwise I'll let you get on to your agenda.
23 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Thank you, sir. You've got to
24 do the same thing.
25 MR. TUTEUR: Right, exactly.
26 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Thank you for being here. Our
27 best to your Board.
28 Terry Leach and Michael Barnett from the
27
1 Lamorinda Democratic Club.
2 MR. BARNETT: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm Michael
3 Barnett, President Of the Lamorinda Democratic Club.
4 Lamorinda is three cities, Lafayette, Moraga, and
5 Lamorinda, which adjoin Walnut Creek and the other central
6 Contra Costa County cities. We are separated from the urban
7 Alameda County cities of Oakland and Berkeley by the East Bay
8 Hills, but also by many differences in weather, and therefore
9 water usage, energy, occupation, transportation, and politics.
10 I represent a very young and energetic and very
11 active club. At the same time, I'm also an educator and a
12 physicist at a national laboratory in Berkeley, and a 17-year
13 resident of Lafayette.
14 I feel confident that virtually all of my
15 neighbors want Lamorinda to remain in the 17th Senatorial
16 District and the 10th Congressional District, where our
17 interests, we believe, would be most effectively represented. I
18 note that Lamorinda is a swing district which has increasingly
19 voted Democratic, and our club is certainly very active in
20 trying to continue this trend.
21 For more details now, though, I would like to
22 turn this over to Terry Leach. Thank you.
23 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Thank you.
24 MS. LEACH: Thank you.
25 I'm Terry Leach. I'm a resident of Orinda, and I
26 am the Vice President of the Lamorinda Democratic Club and an
27 alternate member of the Contra Costa County Central Democratic
28 Committee. I also perform pro bono legal services for the
28
1 Chicano-Latino Caucus of the CDP.
2 I am also a health care attorney and formerly a
3 public health nurse, and have worked in Yolo, Yuba, Nevada,
4 Sacramento, and Contra Costa Counties. So, I have lived in many
5 of the Northern California counties, and studied and lived -- I
6 went to graduate school in Berkeley in Alameda County, and lived
7 in Alameda County for a long time. So, I feel that I'm very
8 familiar with many of the Northern California counties.
9 And to follow-up on much of what Michael said, we
10 are here to represent the Board of the Lamorinda Democratic
11 Club, a very vibrant and growing group of Democrats and moderate
12 Republicans who are asking that you consider the community of
13 interest that exists in central Contra Costa County when you're
14 making your decisions to redistrict.
15 Some specific details that might be of use to
16 you, Acalanes High School District is comprised of high schools
17 in Walnut Creek, Lafayette, Orinda and Moraga. And high school
18 students are free to attend any of the high schools in any of
19 those district schools, and they do. They go back and forth
20 between the schools freely.
21 Similarly, because there are often not class
22 offerings that work with the children's schedules, they often
23 attend Diablo Valley College in Concord. Two hundred and
24 twenty-two students, for example, from Miramonte High School in
25 Orinda this summer alone are attending DVC, the junior college
26 in Concord, my high school son being one of them.
27 It is very common for people in the Lamorinda
28 area to look at Walnut Creek and the cities adjacent to Walnut
29
1 Creek as part of their home community when they're making
2 decisions, educational decisions.
3 Similarly, I am a health care attorney. I
4 started my health care career as a candy striper at John Muir
5 Hospital, went all the way up to being one of their attorneys
6 not so recently. And it is very common for residents of the
7 Walnut Creek area and the Lamorinda area, and all of the
8 adjacent areas, to receive their health care from the John
9 Muir/Mt. Diablo Health Care System.
10 In addition, we have very serious shared
11 transportation needs. As any of you know who live west of the
12 tunnel, the tunnel is getting more and more well used as our
13 residents travel from the Lamorinda and Walnut Creek areas. It
14 used to be just to San Francisco, but now we travel to Oakland.
15 We travel to Fremont, travel all over, as jobs have moved
16 throughout the Bay Area. And I don't need to tell you that; you
17 know all of that. Congestion increases.
18 There is much that unites our neighbors who we
19 feel that we have much in common with now in Alameda County.
20 There is much that unites us. And we would hate to have what
21 consider a di minimus issue, like transportation, bring us apart
22 when we actually have so much that we could work together on.
23 And we would hate for an issue like that to take the bigger
24 issues that affect our daily lives.
25 And particularly myself as a public health nurse,
26 and as a health care attorney, I care deeply about the
27 vulnerable people who are not being cared for. That is why most
28 of the people in our Democratic organization have joined. And
30
1 we hate to see other issues get in the way of that.
2 I don't want to go any further, but just to say,
3 as somebody so eloquently said, so many people so eloquently
4 said from Daly City, again, we are Democrats. We are
5 Republicans. We are young; we are old. And we do believe,
6 though we would be delighted to have you, Mr. Perata, to
7 represent us, and I know we would get adequate -- excellent
8 representation, we also feel that the communities of interest
9 that exist in central Contra Costa County are such that the
10 majority of the residents would feel that their needs would be
11 better served.
12 Thank you very much.
13 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Thank you. Thank you both for
14 being here.
15 Could we have the African American Community
16 Advisory Committee on Redistricting come forward, please. You
17 all can sit up at the table.
18 Once again, we will not be insulted, Terry, if
19 you want to leave.
20 MR. DOVE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good to see
21 you again.
22 CHAIRMAN PERATA: You too.
23 Give your name for the record, please.
24 MR. DOVE: My name is Adrian Dove, and I'm the
25 Director of Research for African American Advisory Committee,
26 Community Advisory Committee on Census Redistricting. It's a
27 group that's composed of virtually all of the African American
28 community organizations located in Los Angeles, and with some
31
1 sprinkling in other parts of the state.
2 We're here today to focus primarily on the
3 Congressional redistricting. We're focused and will be
4 submitting a set of maps for the entire state. We'll also be
5 submitting comments on the very finely crafted submittal that is
6 coming forth from MALDEF. We do so with a lot of respect,
7 although we do have some differences in some of the areas and
8 some agreements.
9 We will be submitting a complete map, but our
10 focus is primarily on the 9th District, the 32nd, the 35th, and
11 the 37th, the Watson, Waters, MacDonald and Barbara Lee.
12 We recognize that to move one line anywhere is to
13 impact all the lines in the entire state, and there's no way
14 around it. The volume of block groups across the entire state
15 is a massive undertaking, and so that's why we're focusing on
16 the Congressional rather than on all four, the Senate and
17 Assembly.
18 We view -- now I'm going to speak about what some
19 of the parameters and the criteria behind our map drawing, but
20 we view this as more than just a map drawing exercise. That the
21 definitions of terminology play an equal part. And so, we will
22 be submitting proposed terms of definition.
23 To get straight to that in the short time that we
24 have, we believe that to use other than the inclusive black
25 category called INC-B would be to diminish our population
26 statewide by about four-and-a-half percent.
27 So, now there's a problem, because some of those
28 numbers in our inclusive are also counted in the category called
32
1 "Others", the Tiger Woods category, I guess. Anybody that's
2 black and Asian, or black and anything else, except black and
3 white, is counted as not black.
4 In addition, on a different question, Question
5 Seven is the race question. Question Six, Hispanic ancestry.
6 If a person checks Hispanic on Question Six, and black on
7 Question Seven, they're extracted from the black count. It
8 isn't a large number. It's a growing number over years because
9 of intermarriages and a lot of things like that. As the society
10 comes closer together, those lines obliterate.
11 On the one hand, we want to make sure that the
12 Hispanic population is not deprived of receiving its full
13 count. On the other hand, we want to also make sure that the
14 entire black population, including Tiger Woods, is counted.
15 And so, we've come up with a term that defines
16 our community, and we also challenge that it is -- suggest that
17 it is no longer a race, and that maybe the concept of race is no
18 longer valid. Maybe it never was.
19 But in any case, what we are describing is our
20 group as a cohort of the African American experience. And a
21 cohort of the African American experience is defined as any
22 person who is one-eighth or more, and the census used to call
23 that Octoroon, anyone who is one-eighth or more descended from
24 ancestors who came to the United States involuntarily, and who
25 was forced to work on a job without pay, and was denied the
26 right to quit that job and take another one with pay, or to
27 start a business, those obliged to have their children also work
28 and live on the premises, and who was further defined in Article
33
1 I, Section 2 of the Constitution as three-fifths of a person.
2 Any such person, regardless of their race, creed, color, or
3 national ancestry, shall be considered a cohort of the African
4 American experience.
5 And we're proposing that definition for a number
6 of reasons, but for the limited purpose of redistricting, so
7 that such a count can be drawn from the census, the column
8 called INC-B, and it can be done without interfering with the
9 DOJH count for Hispanics. So, we want to have a situation where
10 it's a win-win, and everyone wins.
11 And we would propose that this definition be
12 included in the bill that transmits the redistricting plan. We
13 will propose it again in writing.
14 At this point, I'd like to bring forth our second
15 and third speaker, which is the Reverend Bill Campbell, who's
16 the Coordinator for our group.
17 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Thank you, Mr. Dove.
18 REV. CAMPBELL: Thank you very much, Adrian.
19 Indeed, to Chairperson Perata, to the Members of the Committee
20 of the Legislature, ladies and gentlemen.
21 As noted, I am the Reverend Monroe Campbell,
22 Coordinator of the African American Community Advisory Committee
23 on Redistricting and Senior Pastor-elect of Mount Gilead Baptist
24 Church in Los Angeles.
25 I'm appreciative of Mr. Dove who preceded me, and
26 I will be followed by Mr. Larry Aubry, who is both a member of
27 the Steering Committee of the African American Advisory
28 Committee on Redistricting, as well as a member of the Executive
34
1 Committee of the Los Angeles NAACP.
2 We've obviously previously made presentations
3 before you in Los Angeles on July 17th. And then we've also
4 made presentations before your corresponding committee in the
5 Assembly in their Los Angeles and San Bernardino hearings. And
6 in fact, attached to the document I placed in your hands are
7 copies of those previous statements. Indeed, our repeated
8 appearance before you is reflective of the gravity with which we
9 view the work in which you are engaged and its significance for
10 our community.
11 Whereas some may view the task assigned to you as
12 a simple expression of the political machinery of our nation and
13 state at work, for us it is of far greater significance. The
14 task in which you are involved is fundamentally rooted in the
15 directives and mandates of the United States Constitution,
16 Article I, Section 2. That provides for the initial
17 apportionment of the United States Congress and the initial and
18 subsequent census and corresponding reapportionment.
19 Within that very document and section, legally
20 ratified June 21st, 1788, and fully ratified May 29th, 1790, our
21 fore parents were legally acknowledged as not free, and
22 enumerated at a value of three-fifths of a person. This was
23 such until the respective dates of the 13th, 14th and 15th
24 Amendments, December 6th, 1885 [sic], July 9th, 1868, and
25 February 3rd, 1870 that abolished slavery, provided for us being
26 respected individually as full citizens, and then extended to us
27 the right to vote.
28 This is, therefore, primarily an issue of civil
35
1 and human rights. It is in recognition of the character and
2 importance of this that the Los Angeles NAACP convened a series
3 of meetings of community organizations and leaders, as Mr. Dove
4 alluded to, that led to the formation of the African American
5 Community Advisory Committee on Redistricting to give attention
6 to the redistricting process in the state of California.
7 We have subsequently convened an additional
8 series of community information meetings with participants from
9 both the greater Los Angeles community and from other sections
10 of the state, including Northern California and broader portions
11 of Southern California, to give attention to this process and
12 lend and blend their strengths to assure that we have an
13 effective community voice in the redistricting process.
14 In coming together, we have had several
15 concerns. We're concerned that as those whose fore parents were
16 treated with such constitutional and legal disregard, and whose
17 freedom and citizenship were foundational to this nation's Civil
18 War, we not again lose status through the redistricting
19 process.
20 Secondly, we're correspondingly concerned, as
21 those who clearly gave leadership in causing there to be written
22 and approved the Voting Rights Act of this nation, that we not
23 be eliminated from benefitting and having effective voice and
24 representation through a redistricting process that engages a
25 new logic and language that could possibly negate and overshadow
26 our presence.
27 Thirdly, we're concerned that those elements that
28 inform and reflect and constitute our communities of interest be
36
1 made known and understood.
2 And fourthly, we're concerned that in the actual
3 redrawing of lines, that there not be a process that will result
4 in retrogression, and that there are good and valid reasons to
5 maintain the districts where we do have representation that is
6 readily identified with our communities of interest and without
7 a reduction in the number of such districts. These include the
8 9th, the 32nd, the 35th, and the 37th Congressional Districts,
9 the 25th and 26th State Senate Districts, and the 47th, 48th,
10 and 51st and 52nd State Assembly Districts. In addition, there
11 is profound community identity in the 14th Assembly District.
12 It's for that reason that we have drafted and
13 will be submitting a redistricting plan and proposal, again
14 Mr. Dove alluded to, consistent with your prerequisites for
15 electronic submission.
16 Let me share with you at this time some of the
17 observations that we have previously offered to you of the State
18 Senate Elections and Reapportionment Committee and to the
19 Assembly Elections, Reapportionment and Constitutional
20 Amendments Committee. The character of understanding our
21 community warrants understanding the institutions, businesses,
22 social and cultural organizations that serve our community. It
23 is also valuable to understand both residency and mobility and
24 migration patterns that typify our community.
25 For example, the churches of our community are
26 more than places of worship. They are social, cultural,
27 educational, and institutional centers. This is a matter that
28 is well attested by ecclesiologists, and can even be viewed in
37
1 popular culture. And the role of church leaders from our
2 community is indeed in the societal history of this nation.
3 Comparably, local businesses reflecting culinary,
4 cosmetological, art, and artifact influences are further
5 indicative of interests and presence. There are additionally
6 businesses such as Golden State Life Insurance that have
7 intensive service areas that correspond to the community's
8 presence and interests.
9 As this is noted, there should also be attention
10 given to mobility and migration patterns. In the Los Angeles
11 area, for example, there's a westward migration in the 32nd
12 Congressional District that has resulted in the areas of Leimert
13 Park, Crenshaw, Baldwin Hills, View Park, Windsor Hills, and
14 Madera Heights constituting the greatest concentration of
15 African American wealth and business volume in this nation.
16 There are also migratory patterns such as the
17 movement from Watts to Willowbrook to Compton to Gardena to
18 Carson that has implications of unity in the 52nd Assembly
19 District. They need to be held together because it constitutes
20 one community of interest.
21 And then, these also have comparable patterns in
22 the 25th and 26th State Senate Districts, and at the same time,
23 the distinctions, such as the fact that the 26th District serves
24 largely sections of the City of Los Angeles, whereas the 25th
25 District serves a number of smaller cities and identified areas.
26 The patterns that I referred to you in Los
27 Angeles we have also found in many instances in parallel forms
28 in sections of Northern California, in the East Bay area running
38
1 north and westward from Oakland, Emeryville, Berkeley, Albany,
2 San Pablo, and Richmond.
3 We see this in new emerging areas of Southern
4 California, such as in the Inland Empire.
5 So, as you pursue your task, I urge you to please
6 take these matters into consideration. Again, Mr. Dove shared
7 with you, Mr. Aubry will share further with you.
8 Finally as you advance, I pray God's blessings
9 upon you, that you will do so with wisdom and a sense of the
10 historic moment.
11 Thank you.
12 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Thank you.
13 SENATOR JOHNSON: Question, Mr. Chair.
14 Reverend Campbell, you and I think Reverend Dove
15 referred to your intention to submit specific plans.
16 When may we anticipate seeing those specific
17 plans or portions of plans? Do you intend to submit an entire
18 plan for each of the levels: the Senate, the Assembly, and
19 Congressional, or partial plans?
20 What is your intention, and when may we
21 anticipate seeing these actual plans?
22 MR. DOVE: We are proposing we will be submitting
23 a Congressional plan for the entire state. And for the Assembly
24 and the Senate, partial plans for the state.
25 I understand that in order to get full
26 consideration, it has to be a comprehensive plan of the entire
27 state. But I also understand that a partial plan will receive
28 some consideration.
39
1 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Do you know when those will be
2 submitted, sir?
3 MR. DOVE: Next week.
4 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Great, thank you.
5 SENATOR JOHNSON: I do think it's important that
6 we have very specific recommendations for us, get this into some
7 real nitty-gritty, if you will.
8 MR. DOVE: Right. We know that it has to be more
9 than talk, so we have the maps, actual maps, and the
10 accompanying tables, and the proposed piece of legislation for
11 the definition as well.
12 SENATOR JOHNSON: Thank you.
13 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Mr. Aubry. And then, when you
14 conclude, we're going to take a break so the stenographer can
15 regain feeling in her hands.
16 MR. AUBRY: Thank you, Mr. Chair.
17 My name's Larry Aubry, A-u-b-r-y, with the
18 African American Community Advisory Committee on Redistricting.
19 My remarks will be relatively brief. I do want
20 to say I'm right on the point you were just asking about, and
21 that is with regard to redistricting maps. Our committee will
22 address the entire state, as Mr. Dove has just said, but we'll
23 focus primarily on the following areas, which will be the
24 Congressional, as he explained, but we will submit the partial
25 on the others.
26 Congressional District 9 in Alameda County,
27 that's working very well we feel, and there's no need to fix
28 that as far as we're concerned. We propose to include other --
40
1 include entire Cities of Oakland, Berkeley, Emeryville, and
2 communities to immediate north which are within the same
3 community of interest.
4 Protection of Congressional Districts 32, 35 and
5 37, the lines between these three districts to remain solid with
6 necessary increases to be drawn from elsewhere.
7 Congressional District 35, to draw from areas in
8 Congressional District 36, and 36 drawing and exchanging from
9 some territories within Congressional District 38 as the two
10 coastal districts.
11 Congressional District 37 to retain Lynwood and
12 expand into Long Beach.
13 Congressional District 32 to expand north into
14 Hollywood and still relate to the synergy and the UC-USD --
15 University of Southern California area.
16 And also to assist in creating -- to work with
17 the Latinos in creating the districts which can draw Latino
18 districts from surpluses in Congressional District 26 and
19 Congressional Districts 30 through 31 and 33, 34 and 38, to
20 create additional Latino competitive districts.
21 And then, to deal with the Inland Empire
22 situation with that Triangle we talk about, the African American
23 so-called Triangle, in my colleague's words, the cohort
24 districts there, Fontana, Rialto, Westside, San Bernardino, into
25 a single Congressional district. That can be done with
26 substantially maintaining the current configuration we feel.
27 Collaborate with the Asian Pacific Islander
28 American and Latino communities of interest to join them in
41
1 maximizing the impact of their voting power in the Congressional
2 districts.
3 Finally, coordinate with the Valley Vote, Valley
4 meaning the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles County, and all
5 other communities of interest to assure optimum participation
6 and collaboration after the redistricting process is completed.
7 We would like to see this Committee, we'd like to
8 see the Legislature, actually, the Legislature determine and
9 decide ultimately what's happening with redistricting and not
10 the courts. That to us is optimum.
11 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Here, here.
12 MR. AUBRY: Thanks a lot.
13 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Thank you, gentlemen.
14 SENATOR JOHNSON: I have a question.
15 I think it may have been Reverend Dove who
16 commented earlier that at some point, you're going to provide us
17 with greater definitions --
18 MR. AUBRY: This week.
19 SENATOR JOHNSON: -- of the terms. You've talked
20 about districts, and it's unclear to me what standard you are
21 proposing in terms of legal standard as the appropriate standard
22 for us to be looking at.
23 Are we talking about a majority minority within a
24 given district? Are we talking about influence districts, as
25 they've been referred to? In making those kinds of
26 determinations, is the appropriate standard to combine various
27 minority groups -- African American, Hispanic, Asian Americans
28 -- into a totality within a given district of minority persons?
42
1 What are the appropriate standards that we should
2 be looking at?
3 MR. AUBRY: Mr. Dove has been crunching these
4 out. He'll respond to that question.
5 MR. DOVE: Senator Johnson, I'm going to humbly
6 say I'm not a reverend, but thank you for that compliment.
7 The percentage of the cohorts of the African
8 American population is a shrinking percentage relative to the
9 rest of the state. And so, one community has no international
10 immigration to cause us growth.
11 So, our percentage in each of those Congressional
12 districts are similar in the county. We have a Supervisor,
13 Yvonne Burke, that represents a district that is 28 percent
14 African American. The rest of the district was carefully
15 designed so there wouldn't be impaction, packing of any other
16 specific group.
17 Well, to be blunt, to make sure that all the
18 Hispanic population wasn't crowded into the 1st and the 2nd
19 District only, and that there was a distribution around. In
20 fact, they had 70 percent in the 1st District, which was beyond,
21 you know, safe. And so, there was an effort to do a
22 distribution all around, but not to put all of that in the 1st
23 or the 2nd.
24 And in these three Congressional districts,
25 they're bordered on one side by concentrations of Hispanic
26 population, and on the other side by concentrations of white
27 upper-middle class population, conservative.
28 And I don't mean to stereotype like that, but
43
1 it's kind of like the general lay of it. And so, as a result --
2 and then there's the Asian population's mixed in between.
3 So, we're looking for the new America where no
4 one group predominates totally, and so that we have a mixture,
5 and it becomes competitive.
6 SENATOR JOHNSON: I'm not sure if it was you or
7 one of the other witnesses that raised the issue of
8 retrogression.
9 How do we balance the Voting Rights requirement,
10 as I understand it, to avoid retrogression, and yet recognize
11 the changing demographics and the decline in percentages, at
12 least, of the African American community?
13 MR. AUBRY: May I just respond briefly.
14 I just want to say, I think, Senator, that one of
15 the things, and Mr. Dove is explaining specifically how we're
16 going about this, but one of the things is that it can be done
17 in a quite general sense, almost generic, as far as we're
18 concerned. It can't just be counting numbers and counting
19 heads. If you do that, we're out of the ball game. Do you know
20 what I'm saying? If it's the numbers game entirely, it's over.
21 I don't think that's the intent of either the law
22 or the courts in that regard. So, it's with that in mind.
23 SENATOR JOHNSON: Then, if I can go back to a
24 portion of the question that I asked which hasn't been addressed
25 yet, what is the appropriate test to look at races, minority
26 groups as a whole, and say, this is an opportunity to perhaps
27 elect a minority, but that minority may be Hispanic, may be
28 African American, may be Asian American, or Pacific Islander, or
44
1 whatever?
2 What is the appropriate test? And then, how do I
3 balance that with the need to avoid retrogression?
4 MR. DOVE: Senator, that's precisely what we
5 wrestled with.
6 The test is to distribute the numbers as evenly
7 as possible to create a condition in which there can be
8 collaboration between a lot of groups, of all the groups.
9 So, we're calling it for the African American
10 community the cohorts, and the cohort alliances with other
11 groups. And so, if we have no super majority in any one of
12 these particular areas that we're avoiding the retrogression in,
13 it becomes competitive for all the groups. And let the best
14 person who can bring together all the communities the best
15 become the candidate in a wave of the future.
16 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Just in general response to
17 both, there's a larger legal issue here that we're going to take
18 up when we get into the conference.
19 But also, it would be very helpful, since this is
20 the second time that we've discussed this, to have in writing,
21 as you indicate, the definition, because it's hard to follow
22 unless I've got some previous information.
23 But thank you all.
24 We're going to take a break so she can relax for
25 a minute.
26 We've just been joined by Senator Polanco, whose
27 timing is impeccable.
28 We'll break for ten minutes. Thank you.
45
1 [Thereupon a brief recess
2 was taken.]
3 CHAIRMAN PERATA: We're going to reconvene.
4 We have representatives from MALDEF here. Come
5 forward and make your presentation.
6 How many of you are there?
7 MR. GONZALEZ: Hi. I'm speaking on behalf of
8 the Willie Velazquez Institute. My name is Zachary Gonzalez.
9 I'm the Redistricting Coordinator.
10 We're here presenting two plans today to the
11 Committee, and I would like to give a very, very short insight
12 of what went into preparation and planning for these two
13 redistricting plans.
14 We held about 35 redistricting workshops
15 throughout the community. To name some of the counties we
16 visited: San Diego, Imperial, Riverside, San Bernardino,
17 Ventura, Kern, Tulare, Fresno, Stanislaus, san Juaquin, Contra
18 Costa, Alameda, Santa Clara, Monterey, Orange, and Los Angeles.
19 All meetings were open to the public, and local
20 media often covered these workshops.
21 At each meeting we distributed our publications:
22 "The Importance of Redistricting in Your Community," developed
23 by MALDEF, the NAACP, and APALC, and "Fair Redistricting in
24 2000," developed by the Willie Velazquez Institute.
25 We provided a legal overview of the redistricting
26 parameters, and we asked the community to apply their local
27 knowledge and experiences to the communities and to the census
28 tracts. We provided them with a very hands-on community-based
46
1 look at the redistricting process.
2 The community members were also asked to
3 incorporate our socio-economic maps with their issues that unite
4 and divide their communities. If they needed access to mapping
5 software, we provided free net meeting mapping available to
6 anybody with a PC and a modem connection.
7 In each workshop we tried to convey a message
8 that redistricting is a changing process. If the lines change
9 in one community, it may adversely affect a community down the
10 road.
11 We drew the lines around communities of interest,
12 and we adjusted the lines as a whole as the state came
13 together.
14 Throughout the entire process, we have been in
15 constant contact with the community. We also helped them with
16 their local redistricting efforts on the supervisorial and city
17 council levels. We provided technical and legal assistance they
18 needed to create these local supervisorial and city council
19 districts.
20 Throughout our workshops we were able to receive
21 first-hand knowledge of neighborhoods. Not just information on
22 housing and income, but information on local community events
23 and local community-based programs. Information that you
24 cannot receive on a web site or a census information center.
25 Information that cannot be calculated by any kind of data base.
26 Our redistricting efforts were a statewide
27 project that were aimed at giving the Latino community a greater
28 voice in the governance of California and the nation.
47
1 In April, we gathered our community groups
2 together in Sacramento for a Latino Summit on Fair
3 Redistricting. Over 150 community members from all over the
4 state came and shared their experiences, and heard from
5 experiences and advice from such as honorable men as Cruz
6 Reynoso, who called for collaboration and understanding of the
7 experiences of all minority groups in the redistricting process.
8 To conclude, I would like to convey that the maps
9 that will be presented today are a culmination of over a year's
10 worth of community outreach.
11 I thank you for your consideration.
12 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Thank you.
13 MR. REYES: Good afternoon. Thank you, Chairman
14 Perata, Members of the Committee, for the opportunity to address
15 you on this, our redistricting plans that we submit today.
16 My name is Steve Reyes, R-e-y-e-s. I am with the
17 Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
18 My testimony today is focusing primarily on the
19 legal framework that we have adopted in developing our plans and
20 as illustrated in the packets and the plan submittals that you
21 have before you today.
22 First, I want to assure you that, as I did during
23 the July 17th hearing in Los Angeles, that our plans are fully
24 compliant with all state, federal, constitutional and state law.
25 Our plans respect traditional voting rights criteria,
26 traditional redistricting criteria. They are -- they comply
27 with the one person-one vote rules. For example, our Senate
28 plan has a .27 overall deviation, and only a .07 percent average
48
1 deviation.
2 Our Assembly plan fares equally as well, given
3 the smaller size of the ideal district, coming in at an overall
4 deviation of .47 percent, and an average deviation of .15
5 percent.
6 Where possible and where unnecessary, we avoided
7 cutting city and county lines.
8 In addition, a very important factor in our
9 redistricting process and the maps we developed has been, as
10 Zachary Gonzalez mentioned, the incorporation of community
11 interest concerns. This has been a very crucial and important
12 aspect of our redistricting project that is spanned over 35
13 cities throughout California.
14 There's also a very crucial and important element
15 that we, as MALDEF and William C. Velazquez Institute, want to
16 ensure that is incorporated and respected during your
17 deliberations and your voting, your review of the plans that are
18 submitted, and the community interest testimony that is
19 submitted to you, and that is the respect of the Voting Rights
20 Act.
21 What the Voting Rights Act guarantees at its
22 essence is equal access, a fair, open process. It levels the
23 playing field, or attempts to level the playing field, so that
24 all people, minorities, can have an equal chance to elect a
25 candidate of their choice.
26 There are -- there has been the perception that
27 the Voting Rights Act is a dead letter, that it no longer has
28 the force that it once did before.
49
1 The Voting Rights Act and the Equal Protection
2 Clause of the 14th Amendment protect minority voting strength.
3 The 14th Amendment still protects the intentional dilution of
4 minority voting strength.
5 In Los Angeles during the last decade, a federal
6 court and a court of appeals, the Ninth Circuit Court of
7 Appeals, found that the Board of Supervisors did intentionally
8 discriminate against minority voters in the way it drew its
9 district lines. And we've seen that process replicated so
10 throughout the redistricting process during the past decades,
11 from the '60s on forward.
12 As a result of the Shaw line of cases, the Shaw
13 v. Reno line of cases, there has been that common misperception
14 again that the Voting Rights Act is no longer a functional
15 statute with regards to redistricting. This is inaccurate, and
16 I want to make sure that everybody realizes that it's
17 inaccurate.
18 What the law does say, the Shaw line of cases
19 does say is that race cannot be a predominate factor. In our
20 plans, race is clearly not a predominate factor. We've
21 incorporated volumes of community interest information in
22 developing our maps. We've referred to socio-economic
23 information and other types of data that does really illustrate
24 how communities are bound together.
25 As Zachary Gonzalez mentioned, we have striven to
26 obtain that less tangible information from community members
27 themselves, some of which you have heard, of the type you've
28 heard today earlier.
50
1 I want to emphasize that the information we were
2 obtaining, and the way we've incorporated it into our map, fully
3 respects the Voting Rights Act. Because minorities have been
4 historically underrepresented, and have not had the same access
5 to the political process that other citizens have largely
6 enjoyed, we want to make sure that that process is respected.
7 Let me jump back a bit to the Voting Rights Act
8 and with respect to our plan. As I mentioned, we are fully
9 compliant and incorporate traditional redistricting criteria.
10 And what the Voting Rights Act does say is that you have an
11 obligation to create and to protect minority voting rights. And
12 if this means you must take race into account as a factor in
13 considering the drawing and development of a district line, you
14 must.
15 The Federal Voting Rights Act is still good law.
16 It's not going away, and we, as MALDEF, will be here, and we're
17 poised and ready to ensure that the Voting Rights Act is
18 enforced. Our experts are, as we speak, gathering evidence
19 about racial polarization, racially polarized voting in Los
20 Angeles. And preliminary analysis has revealed the existence of
21 racially polarized voting.
22 We have to ensure, and I'm sorry, you have to
23 understand that the Voting Rights Act does at its essence
24 guarantee an equal process. That's what MALDEF is here to do.
25 We want to ensure that minority communities are not -- are not
26 diluted, their voting strength is not diluted.
27 With regards to a point, a question that you
28 posed to the previous panel about majority minority coalition
51
1 districts, there is growing evidence that there are such
2 districts where minorities in such districts have common bonds,
3 and vote similarly, and are voting cohesively, and under a
4 Section Two analysis, may be protectable as such. This is a
5 very important point to realize, for example, in some of the
6 Congressional districts that Reverend Bill Campbell was
7 mentioning and Adrian Dove was mentioning. Those may present
8 those similar -- those types of protectable communities.
9 You do not have to diminish the voting strength
10 of African Americans in those areas to protect Latino
11 communities, as our maps have shown. We've maintained the
12 voting strength of African American communities in those areas,
13 and we have ensured that the Latino community does maintain the
14 protections and guarantees provided by the Voting Rights Act.
15 If you have any questions, I'd be happy to
16 answer them for you. If not, I will turn it over to Amadis
17 Velez.
18 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Thank you.
19 MR. VELEZ: Chairman Perata and Members of the
20 Committee, my name is Amadis Velez; A-m-a-d-i-s, last name
21 Velez, V as in Victor, e-l-e-z.
22 I am the California Redistricting Coordinator for
23 the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. I will
24 be -- well, I'm an attorney by trade, but my work on
25 redistricting has transformed me and changed me into an
26 activist, and a community organizer, and educator.
27 Today, what I'll be doing is describing the
28 countless hours that have gone into preparing the Senate and
52
1 Assembly Congressional plans. My focus will be on specific
2 areas of growth that create potential gains for the Latino
3 community and also respects the integrity of other communities.
4 As I mentioned in the previous hearing in Los
5 Angeles, the unadjusted census shows that California gained
6 approximately 4 million new people over the last decade. It
7 also tells us that Latinos were 80 percent of those 4 million
8 people.
9 We don't need to rely on the census to realize
10 that Latinos are growing in California. A stroll through
11 practically any city in California will suffice.
12 Our proposal is really quite simple, keep
13 communities that are similar together. Keep black communities
14 together. Keep them whole. Give them the opportunity to elect
15 the representatives of their choice.
16 Zachary Gonzalez and Steve Reyes already
17 explained to you some of the parameters that went into the
18 creation of these plans. We followed all redistricting
19 criteria, all traditional redistricting criteria.
20 Our plan keeps communities together in a way that
21 promotes equal representation, including representation for
22 minorities.
23 I will describe the different areas of focus
24 throughout the state, and I'll start with the Senate districts.
25 I'll do regional areas first, then I'll switch over to Assembly
26 so you can see similarities in Senate and Assembly. And then
27 we'll move to a different area of the state.
28 So I'm not in your line of vision, I guess the
53
1 screen is behind me. I'll sit down and speak from there.
2 SENATOR JOHNSON: You're not really expecting us
3 to be able to see that from here.
4 MR. VELEZ: We'll zoom in.
5 We'll start in Los Angeles, which is truly a
6 tremendously large area. To understand redistricting in Los
7 Angeles, you have to understand the massive under-population of
8 the districts in that area. You combine all the Senate
9 districts that are partially or wholly in Los Angeles, with the
10 exception of District 32, which is mostly in San Bernardino, you
11 have an under-population of about 600,000 people.
12 Similarly for Assembly, you have an
13 under-population of about 500,000 people. Necessarily, people
14 or districts that are located close to the county line, county
15 boundaries, will be moved further out of Los Angeles and into
16 either Ventura, or San Bernardino, or Orange Counties, or even
17 Riverside County.
18 In Los Angeles, I'd like to start with Senate
19 District Number 20 in the San Fernando Valley. We've kept this
20 district more or less the way it was drawn before. And the
21 reason why is because it really does represent a community of
22 interest in the San Fernando Valley, especially in the City of
23 San Fernando and the corridor surrounding it.
24 There are issues that people in that community
25 face about potential succession from the City of Los Angeles.
26 There's issues with poverty. There's issues with affordable
27 housing. And at our workshops in San Fernando, people mentioned
28 that they wanted to make sure that their districts were not
54
1 changed in any dramatic way, in particular at the Congressional
2 level, but also at the Senate and Assembly level.
3 There's sufficient population here for two
4 Assembly seats that really represent the Latino community. One
5 of them has a substantially large population, and another one is
6 one that we would call an influence seat over the next decade.
7 SENATOR JOHNSON: Could you put some numbers to
8 that? What do you define as an influence seat? What do you
9 regard as a seat that would --
10 MR. VELEZ: For the definitions on influence
11 seats, they're legally protectable seats under Section Two.
12 I'll defer to Steve Reyes.
13 MR. REYES: Certainly there is a -- when we look
14 at Section Two seats, and we have listed several Section Two
15 seats in the proposal, in part, I believe, Appendix A or B of
16 our proposals, and certainly those are protectable.
17 Now, there's districts that --
18 SENATOR JOHNSON: Excuse me. Just on that point
19 with respect to influence districts, is it your position that
20 the Voting Rights Act requires the creation of so-called
21 influence districts?
22 MR. REYES: Well, the courts have not decided the
23 matter conclusively yet. They still may be protectable under
24 the Voting Rights Act.
25 Influence districts, I'm sorry, getting back to
26 what I was saying earlier, when we have a Section Two district,
27 that is guaranteed and mandated by the Voting Rights Act. It
28 has to be drawn.
55
1 Now, districts that comprise populations less
2 than that Section Two required population for that particular
3 area will qualify as influence districts. And indeed, when you
4 look at influence districts, they do give some opportunities,
5 and perhaps more so than other districts, opportunities to
6 influence the outcome of an election, and allow those community
7 members to have more of a voice in electing a candidate of their
8 choice.
9 There are no hard and fast numbers.
10 SENATOR JOHNSON: Or any numbers.
11 You didn't even try and give me a ballpark of
12 what would constitute an influence district. I mean, I have to
13 assume it's somewhere between zero and one hundred percent.
14 MR. REYES: And you'd be correct.
15 [Laughter.]
16 SENATOR JOHNSON: And I have to assume that
17 you're going to sit there and not answer the question.
18 MR. REYES: Because it varies by region and by
19 district, you cannot assign a specific number to an influence
20 district, or what may qualify as an influence district. It
21 really depends on the population that is contained within that
22 district.
23 SENATOR JOHNSON: So, just to recapitulate, you
24 think that the issue of whether the Voting Rights Act requires
25 the creation of an influence district is an open question --
26 MR. REYES: It is.
27 SENATOR JOHNSON: -- I guess you would say.
28 MR. REYES: Yes.
56
1 SENATOR JOHNSON: Now, in terms of the
2 requirements of the Voting Rights Act, I believe it's been
3 referred to as the Gingles test.
4 MR. REYES: Sure.
5 SENATOR JOHNSON: Am I correct that the test is a
6 sufficient population of a minority group that is also
7 sufficiently compact?
8 MR. REYES: Exactly.
9 SENATOR JOHNSON: That if in the creation of an
10 alternate district, that the division of that population could
11 be avoided and still meet the other criteria, that's the first
12 test in Gingles?
13 MR. REYES: That is correct. If there is a
14 sufficiently large and geographically compact minority community
15 such that they have an opportunity to elect a candidate of their
16 choice, and thereby dividing that community would dilute that
17 voting strength, yes.
18 SENATOR JOHNSON: And that case stood for three
19 propositions, but I gather that the State Supreme Court and the
20 Masters basically assumed if Criteria One were met, and I think
21 they used the characterization of "out of an abundance of
22 caution," that if the first criteria were met, they presumed
23 that the second two were met.
24 Do you agree with that? And do you think that
25 this Legislature should be bound by that, certainly it wasn't a
26 rule, but that principle that the Masters acted on in the last
27 reapportionment?
28 MR. REYES: Well, the Special Masters were
57
1 understandably under very strict time constraints.
2 What we've done is provided you, in our report
3 here, an analysis of these Section Two prongs, such that you
4 could be confident that the adoption of the districts we propose
5 here will satisfy them, at the same time maintaining that
6 respect for traditional redistricting criteria.
7 We've looked at these different prongs, and we've
8 looked at the historical discrimination that has, unfortunately,
9 persisted and denied Latinos and other minority groups
10 opportunities to fully participate in the process.
11 So, we believe we've provided you here with
12 sufficient evidence, and we will continue to provide the
13 Committee with more as we acquire this.
14 SENATOR JOHNSON: And each individual district
15 that you're proposing here, I've just been handed this, but that
16 would tell us the concentration of each --
17 MR. REYES: Yes, there are demographic -- there
18 are tables in the first half of the reports that have the voting
19 age population, the registration percentage, the total
20 population percentage.
21 SENATOR JOHNSON: It would be helpful as you go
22 through your presentation here if you could refer to that and
23 give us some idea of the percentages, and some idea of what you
24 feel are the percentages that would be required to meet the
25 Voting Rights Act, and a phrase used earlier, to level the
26 playing field.
27 I personally would feel more comfortable if I
28 could get an answer on what constitutes an influence district.
58
1 Thank you.
2 CHAIRMAN PERATA: You know, I don't want you to
3 go through this district by district. You just dropped this on
4 us, and I can read and be a much more intelligent recipient of
5 the discussions.
6 So, if you would, particularly with the Senate
7 plans, since we're drawing that one, if you could just sort of
8 do some highlights. Then we can go back through and look at
9 this, and if we have some more specific questions, we can ask
10 them of you at that time.
11 You've done pretty exhaustive work here, and we
12 wouldn't do it justice.
13 MR. VELEZ: Certainly. What I'll do is, I'll
14 speak about the certain highlights throughout the state. There
15 are certain key areas that have to be put on the record that we
16 must say.
17 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Yes, please do.
18 MR. VELEZ: But I won't go through every
19 district. I mean, if I went just Los Angeles alone, I'd be
20 here --
21 CHAIRMAN PERATA: You'd be here by yourself.
22 [Laughter.]
23 MR. VELEZ: I'll just get started then.
24 In Los Angeles, one of the areas of primary
25 concern for our organization, and for the community, is the
26 southeast portion of Los Angeles, what's called the Gateway
27 Cities. It's a whole collection of cities, starting with
28 Huntington Park, and Commerce, and Maywood, South Gate, I could
59
1 go on. But there's over 20 cities on the eastern portion,
2 southeastern portion of Los Angeles. And we feel that a
3 district can be drawn here, both at the Senatorial level and at
4 the Congressional and Assembly level.
5 In terms of the Senate, if you take -- much like
6 we did in Congress, the Congressional plan, if you take the
7 cities of Huntington Park and combine it with South Gate, and
8 Lynwood, and Downey, that's all one community of interest
9 there. They have very similar commonalities in terms of
10 religion. They have similar commonalities with overcrowded
11 schools, and very large transportation projects that are
12 interrupting their communities. And these people have the
13 ability to elect a representative of their choice.
14 The district is on the screen right there in
15 blue. It's the 27th Senate District. It runs from Huntington
16 Park down to Long Beach down to the south.
17 We have done the same thing on the Assembly.
18 It's really the basis of our Congressional, Senate, and Assembly
19 districts. On the Assembly, we take the cities of South Gate,
20 and then combine it with Downey and also Bellflower.
21 SENATOR JOHNSON: On that point, I take it -- I
22 don't know; I haven't looked -- have you nested Assembly seats
23 within Senate districts, as the Masters did in the last
24 reapportionment? And wouldn't all of the arguments that you've
25 made with respect to community of interest apply even more if,
26 in fact, the districts are nested?
27 MR. VELEZ: We have not nested our districts,
28 although many districts do fit substantially --
60
1 SENATOR JOHNSON: Wouldn't that be entirely
2 logical, that you would nest the districts, since you looked at
3 all of these, quote, "communities of interest" considerations?
4 MR. VELEZ: For questions on the logic of
5 nesting, and the pros and cons, I'll defer to Steve Reyes, who
6 is the voting rights attorney here.
7 MR. REYES: Well, there's a variety of community
8 interest type data. Some, as Amadis has mentioned, do relate in
9 the way and the manner we have in fact nested substantial
10 portions of Assembly districts within Senate districts.
11 However, as community of interest information and input comes in
12 a variety of circumstances and a variety of formats, it comes
13 from testimony, people that we've spoken to about some of the
14 problems they've experienced, perhaps, with the 710 Freeway, it
15 does not just deal with the fact that you have been nested
16 within a particular district in the past.
17 And we believe, if I can add, we believe that by
18 not being forced to nest districts, you are then able to more
19 fairly represent and protect minority voting strength and make
20 sure that the Voting Rights Act is preserved.
21 SENATOR JOHNSON: Why would that be, particularly
22 if you started out with the assumption that you will create
23 districts in a fashion required by the Voting Rights Act, and
24 these communities of interest that you've discussed? And you
25 start with Assembly districts, and then combine two Assembly
26 districts into a Senate district.
27 You wouldn't answer the question about what
28 constitutes an influence district, but if one-half of a Senate
61
1 district were a minority district by your definition and by the
2 Voting Rights Act definition, wouldn't it logically follow that
3 you're not only following communities of interest, but you're
4 also, at a minimum, probably creating an influence district at
5 the Senate level?
6 MR. REYES: In some cases.
7 SENATOR JOHNSON: I'm tripping over how you get
8 to, you know, if we cross this line here in a Senate plan, you
9 know, we're violating some community of interest. But if we
10 cross that same line in an Assembly district or in a
11 Congressional district, we're not violating a community of
12 interest.
13 That's a tough stumbling block for me.
14 MR. REYES: Well, the first part really goes to
15 the definition of some of the terms you used earlier.
16 In assuming that if you have a district that is a
17 Section Two Assembly district, that by its mere virtue of being
18 included in a Senate district, that then creates a similar type
19 Senate district, that is not entirely true.
20 When you're looking at Assembly districts under
21 Section Two analysis, that population that geographically
22 compacts a sufficiently large population in an Assembly
23 district, where it meets those criteria, may not constitute that
24 same population requirement in a Senate district, which is, of
25 course, as you know, double the size.
26 SENATOR JOHNSON: Yes, somewhere I picked that up
27 over the years.
28 But my point was with respect to a definition,
62
1 which I haven't gotten yet, of an influence district. And it
2 would seem to me that combining Assembly districts certainly
3 could be done in a fashion that would create minority --
4 majority minority districts at both an Assembly and a Senate
5 district level. But at an absolute minimum, if you've got one
6 minority majority Assembly district, and you combine that with
7 another, you're going to have, at a minimum, an influence
8 district by my definition.
9 MR. REYES: And in some cases, in many cases, we
10 have done that.
11 SENATOR JOHNSON: I take it that the answer to
12 the question of why you didn't nest districts is, you just
13 decided not to do it.
14 MR. REYES: Well, no, because there were
15 community interest concerns that informed that.
16 In a Senate district, there may have been
17 communities that aligned more with maybe a core Assembly
18 district in one direction rather than in another direction,
19 which, as you know, the large population of that Senate district
20 does include a number of different -- can potentially include a
21 number of diverse communities, socio-economically diverse,
22 linguistically diverse. And to pair and automatically pair a
23 district, an Assembly district, two Assembly districts in that
24 way might adversely affect that community interest.
25 SENATOR JOHNSON: You get into any danger of
26 either compaction or dilution of voting strength by not
27 following boundaries, common boundaries that is, by nesting of
28 districts.
63
1 MR. REYES: As our maps have been drawn, they do
2 not.
3 SENATOR JOHNSON: How do we define, and I'm
4 sorry, Mr. Chairman, I'll make this my last question, at least
5 for the moment, what constitutes vote packing in your opinion?
6 And what constitutes vote dilution in your opinion?
7 MR. REYES: Packing occurs where minority
8 communities are concentrated into one district, where they might
9 otherwise be constituting an effective majority in two or more
10 districts.
11 SENATOR JOHNSON: A majority. It would
12 constitute a majority in two or more.
13 MR. REYES: Yes, exactly.
14 And fracturing a community exists where a Latino
15 community that does have that ability to elect a candidate of
16 its choice is divided and that population distributed among two
17 or more districts.
18 SENATOR JOHNSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
19 MR. VELEZ: As I was saying, Senate District 27
20 is really one of our primary areas of focus in the entire state
21 at all levels, Congressional, Senate, and that area, and also
22 Assembly.
23 Other areas in Los Angeles, of course, are the
24 four or three other ones that I haven't described in Los
25 Angeles, which are Senate Districts 22, 24, and 30. Those still
26 retain many of the communities that they currently have. They
27 do, however, move more towards an eastward direction to pick up
28 growing communities, say, for example, in West Covina, and
64
1 Covina, and Downey, and Artesia, Hawaiian Gardens.
2 With regard to the two traditionally African
3 American districts in Los Angeles, we preserve them and maintain
4 their viability and their integrity and their compactness.
5 Another area of focus has been in the Inland
6 Empire, which has grown tremendously over the last decade. In
7 Senate District 32, we keep all the cities together, undivided,
8 with the exception of Pomona, because there's a certain
9 community called Phillips Ranch which members of the community
10 identified as not belonging with the rest of Pomona, and really
11 associating with parts of Orange County or East Los Angeles
12 County.
13 The cities of Ontario and Fontana, Colton are all
14 kept together, and a larger portion of San Bernardino is kept
15 together. Because of population constraints, the entirety of
16 San Bernardino cannot be kept in one district.
17 Also in the Inland Empire, farther out towards
18 the Palm Springs area, is the Senate District Number 40, which
19 we run from a community of interest starting in Coachella
20 Valley, running down to Imperial County. We've done this with
21 Assembly and Congressional and Senate level.
22 However, because the Senate districts are so
23 large in population, nearing a million people, or 840,000
24 people, we also run part of that district on the southern ends
25 of it to another community of interest which runs along the
26 border to San Diego. And we feel that this is one that is
27 legally protectable by the Voting Rights Act.
28 In the Central Valley, we keep the districts in
65
1 Bakersfield, that's based out of Bakersfield, and Fresno
2 together, where it currently is. There's a very cohesive
3 community of interest there, particularly with farmworker
4 concerns, with affordable housing, very high unemployment rates.
5 People are very adamant about with making sure that their
6 community was not divided, and that certain communities that
7 were not included in this district last time be included. One
8 of these cities is the City of Porterville, which has quite a
9 large farmworker community and was not included in the district.
10 We have included it in both our Congressional, Assembly, and
11 Senate districts.
12 Also, just north of that district is Senate
13 District 14, which includes the County of Stanislaus. Many of
14 the cities in the Central Valley really have a dividing line
15 running through Highway 99, and Stanislaus County's one of the
16 clearest examples, where the west county is very poor, poverty
17 stricken area of farmworkers, and the east county is much more
18 affluent. So, much of our district runs along Highway 99. Some
19 cities, in fact, are split for that reason, one of them being
20 Turlock, and another one being Modesto.
21 Going to the San Francisco Bay Area, our Senate
22 district includes -- part of the district grows -- the whole
23 area is short in population, grows north in Marin County rather
24 than in San Francisco. And it unites the area of Mission, and
25 there's some community members from San Francisco who will be
26 testifying today, unites the area of the Mission with Daly City
27 down to the south. The Mission is a community of interest along
28 that corridor, really making up a diverse community which faces
66
1 severe housing shortages, and the potential for unemployment now
2 with certain economic crises in the Bay Area.
3 In Monterey County for the Senate district, we
4 really keep it more or less the way it is now, which is with
5 Santa Cruz County area, and also San Benito, and Salinas County
6 and Monterey County.
7 We on the Assembly level do include certain
8 cities, such as the City of Pajaro, which was not included in
9 the old Assembly District 28. We include it in the district.
10 Of course, a small farming town, representative of what's
11 called the Pajaro Valley, where they have many issues about
12 housing, and farmworker issues with, for example, the use of
13 pesticides. And they want really to have one representative
14 that represents their best interests.
15 In San Jose, the district is kept more or less
16 the way it is now, but on the Assembly level, we do support and
17 respect the Asian community as they draw their districts, which
18 include the cities of Cupertino, and Santa Clara, and parts of
19 San Jose called Berryessa. Also, that would be Assembly
20 District 22, and also another district just north of it, which
21 is currently held by Assembly Member Ellen Corbett, which would
22 include the cities of San Leandro, and Fremont, and Hayward.
23 In the East Bay, Senate District Number 9 is kept
24 more or less along its current borders. It grows more
25 northwards into the Hercules area.
26 And on the Assembly side of things, we believe
27 that the African American community was divided in the west
28 Oakland portion of the Assembly district and should be reunited
67
1 with the rest of Oakland. Of course, there's too much
2 population in Oakland-Alameda and Piedmont to constitute one
3 Assembly district, so we believe that certain areas in the
4 Oakland Hills, perhaps, should stay with the Berkeley area, and
5 more of west Oakland, which would be running along Shadduck
6 Avenue, should stay with the rest of west Oakland.
7 The City of Emeryville has changed over the last
8 ten years and really shares lot in common now with the areas of
9 Berkeley. It's probably become a more affluent area with a lot
10 of development there.
11 Another area is Contra Costa County, where
12 there's a core area of four cities: Bay Point, Antioch,
13 Pittsburgh, and Brentwood. It's an area where there's severe
14 shortage of major employers in the region, and people must
15 commute quite long distances to work. And people want to make
16 sure that they have a representative there who is able to
17 advocate to bring in more employers to the region to make it
18 easier for employers to set up shop in that region. And our
19 plans across the board really keep together those core
20 communities there.
21 That is a survey of the highlights of our MALDEF
22 and Willie C. Velazquez Redistricting Plan. Those were the
23 Senate seats. I could also go into the Assembly districts, but
24 I think that for the interests of time, I'll defer to other
25 speakers we have ready.
26 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Senator Ortiz.
27 SENATOR ORTIZ: I was kind of curious going
28 through the various booklets.
68
1 I take it that, it sounds like you did nothing
2 either in the Congressional, nor in the Senate, nor -- I don't
3 finds in your materials anything on the Sacramento area. Maybe
4 you can respond as to why that was not done.
5 MR. VELEZ: In Sacramento we did not do a
6 workshop.
7 SENATOR ORTIZ: You didn't do maps in any of your
8 proposals. You spent a lot of time in L.A. County, Central
9 Valley, part of the Bay Area.
10 I guess there's a glaring absence of the
11 Sacramento area, and I'm just curious as to why that was
12 avoided, or not time spent on this stuff.
13 MR. VELEZ: In terms of the maps, we will have
14 maps of the entire state available on our web site.
15 SENATOR ORTIZ: My question was, why did you not
16 do any maps in this region?
17 MR. VELEZ: It wasn't one of our key focus areas
18 throughout the state.
19 SENATOR ORTIZ: And how did you determine your
20 key focus areas?
21 MR. VELEZ: Most often it was based on requests
22 from the community, or where there was a substantial large and
23 growing a Latino population where we would go.
24 SENATOR ORTIZ: Well, it's fairly easy to do when
25 you go to L.A., I suspect.
26 MR. VELEZ: Yes, in L.A. the population is nearly
27 50 percent of the city.
28 SENATOR ORTIZ: Well, Sacramento's part of the
69
1 Central Valley, and for you to have ignored this part of the
2 region, I think, is a glaring absence, and it says a lot about
3 MALDEF's inability to address other parts of the state.
4 I need to go on record as well with the
5 Congressional plan.
6 MR. VELEZ: We believe that the current districts
7 as they are now, we really do take in a lot of the Latino
8 populations in Sacramento.
9 SENATOR ORTIZ: Which districts would those be
10 that you understand in this region?
11 I mean, even the information that you did provide
12 on the definitions of certainly the Senate district is factually
13 incorrect. And some of your historical data about where people
14 have been elected is also factually incorrect.
15 I would love to take sometime outside of this
16 hearing to correct the numbers in your '96 and '98 analysis of
17 who got elected in seats outside of L.A., for example, in my old
18 Assembly district, as well as my Senate district.
19 You may want to correct your numbers there.
20 MR. VELEZ: Certainly.
21 I would like to now ask for the integral part of
22 our team here to read a letter into the record, a few letters
23 from community members, and then we have some community members
24 from San Francisco who also want to testify.
25 CHAIRMAN PERATA: We can take the letters and
26 they'll be entered into the record, and then we can allow the
27 live bodies to come on up and speak, in any order that you
28 want. Give those to the Sergeant.
70
1 MR. REYES: Real quick, we just want to read the
2 names of the letters.
3 The first is a letter by Congressman Xavier
4 Becerra. The second by Guadalupe Rodriguez Corona from San
5 Diego, and the third is from Louis Reyes from the Whittier area.
6 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Thank you.
7 MR. BELL: Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and
8 Members of the Committee. My name is Jorge Bell. I am the
9 Associate Dean of Financial Aid of City College of San
10 Francisco.
11 I have been an educator for the past 20 years and
12 a resident of San Francisco for the past 25 years.
13 I am here today because I want to make sure that
14 the 13th Assembly District takes into account the reality of the
15 Mission corridor. Mission Street runs into Daly City. Many of
16 the students that I help come from Daly City now. Many of the
17 students who used to live in San Francisco have moved to live in
18 Daly City. Many of the students are the children of immigrants.
19 I am here to make sure that the 13th Assembly
20 district is drawn to reflect this reality.
21 I am also here in support of the plan being
22 proposed by MALDEF, in particular the 13th Assembly District.
23 Thank you.
24 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Thank you, sir. Could we have
25 the spelling of your last name, please?
26 MR. BELL: It's Bell, B as in boy, e-l-l. My
27 first name is Jorge, J-o-r-g-e.
28 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Bell just like it sounds.
71
1 Thank you, sir.
2 Next.
3 MS. TULIER: Good afternoon. My name is Valerie
4 Tulier. Last name is T as in Tom, u-l-i-e-r.
5 I'm the Facilitator of the Latino Steering
6 Committee in San Francisco, California.
7 Before I publicly speak, I always honor the
8 ancestors that walked this land before, and with their spirit
9 and permission, may I be blessed to speak today, in front of you
10 today.
11 I'm glad to see this mural, although that is not
12 an accurate portrayal of an indigenous person of the California
13 nations here, but at least it's somewhat of an effort, because
14 usually we're invisible or completely absent from history in
15 pictures.
16 First, I'd like to also honor MALDEF in their
17 efforts to do a redistricting plan. I must be honest with you.
18 I take offense at attacks on their work, being that MALDEF is an
19 organization that has been around for a long time, but does not
20 have an unending wealth of resources to do the work that they
21 need to do. So, I must say that for the record.
22 I do want to say that historically, district
23 lines have been drawn to ensure the mainstream status quo
24 maintain its political power in this country since Columbus got
25 lost and happened to arrive here.
26 Redistricting in a fair and equitable manner,
27 such as recommended in the MALDEF proposals, will be a genuine
28 attempt to undo the political disparity in hopefully providing
72
1 authentic representation that has been absent in this political
2 system.
3 The proposal presents a well balanced approach
4 towards establishing the 13th Assembly District for the diverse
5 communities of interest that reside in the southern and eastern
6 portions of the City and County of San Francisco. It also
7 includes portions of Daly City that is similar to the
8 demographic and economic characteristics, to the geographically
9 adjacent southern and eastern portions of the City and County of
10 San Francisco.
11 This proposal additionally links the African
12 American communities of Bay View, Hunters Point, and Ingleside,
13 now currently split between the 12th and 13th Assembly
14 Districts, as well as being inclusive of the Latino, Asian,
15 Filipino, and gay communities.
16 The neighborhoods in the 13th Assembly District
17 plan have the following demographics: Asians, 27 percent;
18 Latinos, 24 percent; African Americans, 10 percent; and whites,
19 35 percent.
20 The neighborhoods that would benefit from this
21 plan include the Tenderloin south of Market, Castro, Mission,
22 Burling Heights, Petrero Hill, Bay View, Hunters Point,
23 Excelsior, Ingleside, and Daly City.
24 In an effort to level the playing field, I ask
25 that you accept this proposal as a just and fair one in order to
26 give voters a fair opportunity of having their interests
27 represented.
28 Although redistricting does not necessarily
73
1 guarantee 100 percent voting equity, it at its very minimum can
2 at least set the ground for us to have that opportunity.
3 Thank you very much.
4 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Thank you.
5 MS. NAVAS-O'BRIEN: Good afternoon, Senate
6 Committee on Election and Reapportionment Committee.
7 My name's Lorena Navas-O'Brien. I'm 45 years
8 old. I'm a re-entry student at City College of San Francisco.
9 During my three years of being a student there at City College,
10 I have been able to service the students and give back to what
11 City College has given me. Number one, I've been President of
12 the Honors Committee. I've also been Vice President of Cultural
13 Affairs. I've been on the Academic Senate. I'm very, very much
14 a part of the community within City College as well as my own
15 community.
16 I'm here, and I've added on MALDEF's proposal as
17 the next item that I want to support, and how they really do
18 want to balance out the way representation is the being done.
19 Unfortunately the representation is not there currently, and it
20 will not be given the right support if we were to go with the
21 plan that you have currently.
22 What I want to do is, traditionally, Assembly
23 districts have failed to unite San Francisco's gay and lesbian
24 communities. This proposal unifies not only the Castro, but
25 includes the Pope, Gulch, Barrow Heights, Hays Valley
26 neighborhoods, comprised of substantial percentages of San
27 Francisco's gay and lesbian population. The issues concerning
28 this district include: housing, economic development,
74
1 transportation, education, Health, and immigration rights.
2 This past decade has seen the working class
3 population of San Francisco move southward as cost of living has
4 increased. The neighborhoods along the Mission corridor share
5 more in common, both politically and economically, with their
6 neighbors in Daly City than with the western half of San
7 Francisco.
8 Residents of the Mission Street corridor on both
9 sides of the San Francisco and Daly City line shops worship and
10 participate in civic organizations with each others'
11 communities. The Mission Street corridor is a commercial area
12 that stretches from the 16th Street in the north Daly City and
13 the south, and is the commercial hub for Latinos, Filipinos, and
14 African Americans.
15 The southward migration of the Latino community
16 is reflected in the increased demographic presence of Latinos in
17 the Excelsior District and Daly City, many of whom who are
18 homeowners as well as I am. The southern portion of San
19 Francisco and northern Daly City are pro-labor strongholds, with
20 the highest union memberships in the area. The existence of the
21 Sierra Monte Mall, Cosco, Target, and K-Mart in Daly City have
22 become shopping beacons for the residents of the southern and
23 eastern San Francisco who are economically compatible with the
24 residents of Daly City.
25 In terms of religious worship, residents
26 throughout the Mission Street corridor attend church together.
27 Latinos, Filipinos, Irish Americans, predominantly Catholic
28 constituencies of the region, mix and congregate at the same
75
1 medias: Epiphany and Corpus Christi Catholic parishes at the
2 southern edge of the border between Daly City and San
3 Francisco.
4 Otherwise, the big losers will likely be Latinos.
5 With a third of the state's population and only six
6 Congressional seats, Latino voters will be either packed into a
7 few districts, or cracked across several to dilute their
8 strength.
9 Diluting strength has been basically something
10 that I've seen, even in City College. Considering the fact that
11 we are 47 percent of the population, we only have two people in
12 administrative positions. It really is experienced there.
13 So, what I'd like to say in closing basically is
14 that we are asking that you at least consider the information
15 that MALDEF has put together.
16 I do apologize for the fact that maybe not all of
17 the information was maybe included, but they've done a
18 tremendous job in representing the community of the Latino
19 population.
20 Thank you very much.
21 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Thank you.
22 MR. REYES: A quick few words to add.
23 I want to mention that our plan did include the
24 Sacramento area. It's not represented in there, but it is
25 represented in the shape files that you will have access to
26 because we redistricted the whole state. The entire state has
27 been redistricted.
28 I just want to clarify for the record that, as
76
1 recommended by your guidelines in producing a map that reflects
2 the districts across the whole state.
3 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Do you have this up on a web
4 site?
5 MR. REYES: Yes. We have our maps on the web
6 site. The data files and the shape files, the GIS files, are
7 entirely different things.
8 SENATOR ORTIZ: Let me just clarify what's in
9 there. Because it's not on your web site, nor in any of your
10 printed materials --
11 MR. REYES: That is correct.
12 SENATOR ORTIZ: -- do you have Sacramento, nor, I
13 believe, your district.
14 MR. REYES: All of that is contained in the shape
15 files that --
16 SENATOR ORTIZ: Where are the shape files?
17 MR. REYES: The shape files are submitted --
18 actually, right after we adjourn here, we will be traveling to
19 your office, the Senate Elections office, to submit --
20 SENATOR ORTIZ: And the reason they're not in the
21 packet complete --
22 MR. REYES: They are data files. And they would
23 be just a listing of blocks and tracts by district.
24 SENATOR ORTIZ: You don't have a full map?
25 MR. REYES: We do have a full map. The full map
26 is in the shape files that you saw on Steve Ochoa's computer
27 here. They illustrate the districts for the entire state.
28 They are just not -- those particular areas, for
77
1 example, like, we did not recreate in the printed maps here, we
2 did not recreate the northern most counties in the state.
3 SENATOR ORTIZ: And let me go on record.
4 I have the highest of expectations of MALDEF.
5 I was involved in local redistricting, and it's because I expect
6 more from my community.
7 And I think the challenge is for MALDEF and
8 activists throughout the State of California to understand the
9 nuances and where we're going in the next 10 to 20 years as a
10 community. And that's the really difficult part, is to try to
11 figure out how people get elected, and continue to be advocates
12 for communities throughout the State of California, including
13 Latino communities and districts that aren't super majority
14 Latinos.
15 And that's the sophistication that I expect from
16 my community.
17 MR. REYES: I believe that sophistication is
18 reflected in our plan, and it has -- the discussions with
19 community members who have precisely those same concerns do
20 inform our map and the lines we draw. That is a part of
21 crucial --
22 SENATOR ORTIZ: Maybe at some point I'll
23 understand why they're not included in all of the materials that
24 you've submitted for the rest of the state.
25 CHAIRMAN PERATA: I do know that you have made
26 arrangements to go over and give us the information.
27 Anything further?
28 MR. VELEZ: I'd like to conclude by saying that
78
1 we have created new opportunities for communities throughout
2 California in our plans. And whether or not you adopt our
3 specific lines, the districts that you propose have to reflect
4 the changing face of California.
5 As a result of the 1990 redistricting, we have a
6 more diverse, or many more diverse faces walking the halls of
7 this very building.
8 We continue -- we hope that your plans will
9 continue with providing full diversity in the representation of
10 this state.
11 Thank you very much.
12 CHAIRMAN PERATA: I want to just, first of all,
13 thank you for the enormous amount of work that you've done, and
14 for the cogency of what you've done.
15 And just to assure you that under Section Five,
16 we are required and will consider the plans very carefully.
17 So, thank you for your presentation here and
18 everywhere else you've been. And I'm sure we'll see you again.
19 Thank you.
20 We have a few more speakers. I'd like to ask
21 Joel Szabat. Joel, are you still here? I was just kidding when
22 I said you might want to come to Sacramento.
23 MR. SZABAT: I have the great honor of actually
24 living here, Senator. In fact, my Senator is here also.
25 I'm Joel Szabat, representing Chinese American
26 CEOs of Silicon Valley.
27 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Spell your last name, Joel.
28 MR. SZABAT: It's S as in Sam, Z as in zebra,
79
1 a-b-a-t.
2 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Thank you.
3 MR. SZABAT: Thank you.
4 I had not actually planned to testify here today.
5 I've submitted testimony, had the opportunity to testify before
6 your Committee in San Jose.
7 I just want to touch upon the plan that was
8 presented from MALDEF, and some of the observations and concerns
9 from the Asian Pacific Islander community.
10 I know CACEO and CAPAFR, who've testified at many
11 of your hearings before, have worked very closely with the
12 MALDEF representatives. They were hoping to be able to come up
13 with a plan that could be supported by both the Latino and also
14 Asian Pacific Islander community.
15 Unfortunately that was not the case. CAPAFR's
16 plan will be released next week. And I think there's a couple
17 of highlights for the reasons for differences that I wanted to
18 touch upon.
19 As I've testified before, currently out of 172
20 Congressional legislative districts, two of them have Asian
21 Pacific Islander pluralities. We don't believe that that's an
22 acceptable number. We think 10 would be a far more reasonable
23 number compared to both the state of the API population in
24 California and the way that districts have been drawn, other
25 majority minority districts in the state.
26 But under the MALDEF plan, not only does that
27 number not increase, but the number drops from two to zero,
28 which we find an odd juxtaposition and a serious dilution of the
80
1 API voting strength at a time when the Asian Pacific Islander
2 community is the fastest growing population in California.
3 Not to walk over the whole state, but just to
4 touch upon a couple of key areas, a great deal of discussion was
5 made here today about pulling together the community of the 13th
6 Assembly District in San Francisco. Unfortunately, that unity
7 comes at the expense of the Asian Pacific Islander community,
8 primarily in the 12th District, currently represented by
9 Assemblyman Shelley. Currently that district has an API
10 plurality.
11 Looking at the figures in the book, the MALDEF
12 plan, they state that under their redistricting proposal, that
13 would drop to 37 percent API and 47 percent non-Hispanic white.
14 Similarly, Assemblyman Dutra's District, the 20th
15 Assembly District, currently under the current census data has
16 reached an API plurality. Under the MALDEF plan, that would
17 drop 37 percent Asian, 39 percent non-Hispanic white.
18 And then finally, some talk was made before about
19 compact districts and communities of interest. The most heavily
20 compact API population in the State of the California today is
21 in Los Angeles, along the axis from Monterey Park, heading up
22 towards El Monte in Monrovia. That area could be an Assembly
23 district with 50 percent API population. Under the MALDEF
24 plan -- and it's currently represented by Assemblywoman Judy
25 Chew. Under the MALDEF plan as presented today, it's a 40
26 percent Asian population and 42 percent Latino population.
27 I know that CACEO, CAPAFR, other members, have
28 worked very closely with MALDEF and with other organizations,
81
1 trying to find ways of creating cohorts for majority of minority
2 districts. And they're certainly, and we're certainly, willing
3 to do that, but we don't want the Asian Pacific Islander
4 community to be the filling in somebody else's pastry. We'd
5 like to see that we have an opportunity to have some districts
6 for our own community as well.
7 So, that's just my observations based on a very
8 quick read, and we know that you'll take that into
9 consideration. We look forward to working with the Committee
10 staff, with MALDEF, and with other organizations as you go
11 forward with redistricting.
12 Thank you, Senator.
13 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Thank you, sir.
14 Trudy Schafer, League of Women Voters.
15 MS. SCHAFER: I'm Trudy Schafer, representing the
16 League of Women Voters of California, Mr. Chairman and
17 Committee.
18 I will just state that our -- we are a
19 nonpartisan, grassroots, multi-issue, national organization. We
20 promote an open governmental system that is representative,
21 accountable, responsive. We believe a democratic government
22 depends upon the informed and active participation of its
23 citizens at all levels of government.
24 And based on a 1987 study of reapportionment and
25 redistricting, our members support a process and standards that
26 promote fair and effective representation with maximum
27 opportunity for public scrutiny. Those standards, in the
28 consensus of our members, the standards on which a redistricting
82
1 plan should be based, would, as you could expect, track with the
2 Constitutional and legal requirements that you must follow, and
3 that you have laid out in your materials.
4 Specifically, we believe that those standards
5 should include districts of substantially equal population,
6 geographic contiguity, protection from diluting the voting
7 strength of a racial or linguistic minority.
8 To the extent possible, they should also include
9 respect for boundaries of cities and counties, and the
10 protection and preservation of communities of interest.
11 Our members also believe that redistricting plans
12 should not be based on incumbent protection or preferential
13 treatment of one political party. While such standards
14 admittedly fly in the face of political practice, we believe you
15 should recognize that these are standards by which the general
16 citizenry is likely to judge your work.
17 I'm here today, however, more to talk about the
18 process by which you are attempting this very important exercise
19 of redistricting. The League applauds your efforts to hold
20 hearings around the state for the public to tell you about the
21 needs and interests of their communities and their regions.
22 We do hope, however, that you are exchanging the
23 information you've received with the Assembly Committee, because
24 we did feel that neither House's schedule of hearings was as
25 extensive or has made citizen access as easy as could have been
26 desired.
27 The most critical element of the redistricting
28 process, however, is coming up in the next month-and-a-half.
83
1 It is especially important for the public to have full
2 information about the redistricting plans you propose, with time
3 to examine documentation and maps, and the opportunity to give
4 meaningful input that could result in improvements to your first
5 proposals. Allowing sufficient time for advanced notice for
6 public review and evaluation of the proposed plans is a critical
7 point. Affected groups must be able to assess all the
8 representational implications, the fairness in their eyes,
9 inherent in your proposals.
10 Equally important as the overall time allowed is
11 the need for a schedule that allows the public's input to be
12 meaningfully acted upon. It's not enough to hear public
13 comments and move immediately to a vote without allowing time
14 for amendment and improvement, and we hope that your schedule
15 will allow for that fact.
16 The perceived danger is that plans will be
17 announced at the last minute, the very last minute, with the
18 public essentially kept in the dark, unable to judge how you
19 have used the information that you are collecting in these
20 hearings and in the plans that individuals and groups are
21 submitting.
22 We urge you not to allow a scenario like that to
23 happen, where citizens will feel betrayed by political
24 considerations. Nowhere more than in the redistricting process
25 is it your duty to ensure the alert, informed, and communicative
26 citizenry that is so essential to our participatory democracy.
27 We wish you the best, and we hope that you will
28 provide us with a process that truly brings everyone in.
84
1 Thank you.
2 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Thank you.
3 I feel compelled to add that throughout the
4 number of hearings that we've held up and down the state, there
5 have been, and I mentioned earlier, there's really been just one
6 group of individuals, and that was the citizens from Daly City.
7 So, as much as you and I would love to, as a
8 former civics teacher, would love to say people were just dying
9 to participate, that is demonstrably not the fact.
10 The second issue -- and that's, of course, why we
11 have the League of Women Voters, because you can represent a
12 broad constituency of interests.
13 The second fact is inescapable. We have to
14 conclude our work under a deadline. The information from the
15 Census Bureau was provided to us not too long ago. We then have
16 all these hearings and different points of view that have to be
17 registered and worked into a plan. And then we have to pass
18 this law by the time we leave on the 14th of September.
19 And the registrars, in order to comply with the
20 time constraints they're under for the earlier primary, now in
21 March, have even more severe time constraints.
22 So, I just say that as a matter of fact in the
23 record. We are going to try to do as best we can with the time
24 allotted to us, but we cannot set our schedule. The
25 Constitution and past practice really sets things for us, and
26 we're simply going to try to do the best we can with the time
27 allowed.
28 I would hope, and I know you will monitor the
85
1 process carefully. Certainly, the credibility of the League
2 speaks volumes for those people who couldn't be here today, I'm
3 sure wanted to be, but couldn't be. And we'll just do the best
4 we can and hope that we do have a statute, because like you, I
5 believe this is a process best served by the representative
6 democracy working and not giving it over to the courts.
7 I appreciate your vigilance, and I'm sure I'll
8 see you again here.
9 MS. SCHAFER: Thank you, Senator. We do
10 appreciate all of those elements, and we recognize that your
11 time is very limited.
12 But we also know that the legislative process
13 manages to stretch itself out, or squeeze itself in, as the time
14 is allowed. And so, it's very important that you try to aim for
15 much earlier than the adjournment date.
16 CHAIRMAN PERATA: We'll do our best.
17 MS. SCHAFER: Thank you.
18 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Thank you.
19 Monica Brown. You're representing Fairfield, I
20 understand. Oh, no?
21 MS. BROWN: No.
22 CHAIRMAN PERATA: You're from Fairfield?
23 MS. BROWN: Yes. I'm sorry if I wrote that
24 wrong.
25 Hi, I'm Monica Brown, and I live in Fairfield,
26 and I'm a teacher there. Where I live, I live in -- I didn't
27 know you were teacher, either. That's cool. But I'm a math
28 teacher.
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1 And thank you for having it in the afternoon,
2 because I taught summer school this morning.
3 CHAIRMAN PERATA: That's why we did it.
4 MS. BROWN: Thank you.
5 I'm slightly nervous here, but I speak in front
6 of school boards.
7 I live in Cordelia Villages, which is where 680
8 and 80 intersect. And what I'd like is, I'd like Cordelia
9 Villages to be part of Fairfield. For example, my ZIP is 94585,
10 which is Suisun. My taxes go to Fairfield, but I don't belong
11 to anybody.
12 And this isn't to cast anything negative about
13 the people that represent me right now. But I live in Cordelia,
14 but I'm part of AD 7. I'm not part of AD 8.
15 But Helen's district goes all the way down to
16 Benicia. And it doesn't seem fair or right that we get kind of
17 snubbed, but she gets Benicia, but not us.
18 And it's the same thing with Congress. I like
19 Mike Thompson, but we have George Miller. I don't think George
20 kind of remembers us on the other side of the bridge.
21 And the other thing, too, is, I like him. I'm a
22 Democrat.
23 CHAIRMAN PERATA: He speaks very fondly about you
24 and Cordelia.
25 [Laughter.]
26 MS. BROWN: I don't think George knows who I am,
27 but that's okay.
28 And it's the same thing with the Senate district.
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1 I mean, I like Wes. But I'd like to be part of Senate
2 District 2. So, I just feel like we're part.
3 I'm involved in politics. I'm the Political
4 Action Chair of our local, but I'm only here representing
5 myself. I'm not representing anybody else. I have to be real
6 careful on that one, because sometimes they see me talking, and
7 they think that I'm representing 1300 teachers, and I'm not.
8 I'm just here as a person.
9 So, it would be really nice if we'd be part of
10 something, you know? And I know nothing about Vallejo, but we
11 really don't belong to Vallejo. We belong to Fairfield.
12 So, if you could just look at our four precincts,
13 and just kind of remember us when you're putting it together at
14 the midnight hour, or however you do it. And I just ask if, for
15 the next ten years, if we could be part of something, that would
16 be very nice.
17 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Thank you. The fact that your
18 are here, we'll certainly do that.
19 MS. BROWN: Well anyway, thank you very much.
20 This is really cool. I never get the chance to come to the
21 Capitol.
22 CHAIRMAN PERATA: We're here a lot, so if you
23 want to stop by again.
24 MS. BROWN: Well, you know, I teach where 680 and
25 80 intersects, that little country school right there?
26 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Oh, yes.
27 MS. BROWN: That's my school. You're more than
28 welcome to come by, and I'll show you the part that doesn't
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1 meets the Field Act.
2 [Laughter.]
3 MS. BROWN: And the portables that have, you
4 know, the mold and that kind of stuff. But anyway, that's my
5 school.
6 So, feel free to come by. I'd love to take you
7 guys for a tour.
8 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Thank you.
9 MS. BROWN: Thank you very much.
10 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Thanks for being here.
11 David Clements, sitting there patiently.
12 MR. CLEMENTS: Thank you. My name is David
13 Clements. I'm here representing the Black American Political
14 Association of California.
15 I received a call just this morning from Percy
16 Pinkny, our State President, and he asked me to come. And I'm
17 ill prepared to talk, to have a technical discussion about
18 redistricting.
19 But I can state unequivocally the BAPAC position,
20 that we are very concerned about the plight of African Americans
21 in California. And this is the year 2001, and in 1903, W.B.
22 DuBois spoke about the condition of African Americans in this
23 country and said the issue of the Twentieth Century would be the
24 issue of the color line.
25 And one of our requests is that when you consider
26 your policy discussions, that you can consider the fact that we,
27 the children of slaves in this country, there has indeed been an
28 adverse impact that has come from the way political decisions
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1 have been made in the areas of the inner cities and in the rural
2 areas as it specifically relates to African Americans.
3 And so, the issue of race is an issue, and we
4 wish you to consider that. Not in the sense of blame one group
5 against another, but the fact that there has been an economic,
6 educational, and moral impact on the condition of African
7 Americans that have come all the way from the Civil War up until
8 now, and that is an issue.
9 So, numbers alone won't be the answer to the
10 problems that we have. Because of those several conditions,
11 there has been an African American Diaspora, a movement of
12 people, because they are attempting to make a living and help
13 their families.
14 BAPAC requests systemically the ability to
15 communicate with this Committee. We would like to discuss with
16 your consultants areas of mutual beneficial situations for us to
17 discuss the redistricting issues with you.
18 We support the African American organization that
19 was here discussing these issues with you, but our issue is
20 human dignity and social justice for all races, the white and
21 the black, and the Latino, and the Asians, and so forth. Each
22 great ethnic group has great issues before this Committee, and
23 we do recognize that.
24 So, we just wanted to let you know we are here,
25 and we have 55 chapters and over 100,000 members, and we can
26 arrange for hearing formats that will be credible. And if you
27 wish, we would love to participate with you if we have an
28 opportunity. And we'll be in touch with your consultants.
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1 CHAIRMAN PERATA: Thank you, sir. Appreciate you
2 being here.
3 That concludes our hearing, so we will adjourn.
4 Thank you all.
5 [Thereupon this portion of the
6 hearing of the Senate Committee
7 on Elections and Reapportionment
8 was terminated at approximately
9 3:50 P.M.]
10 --ooOoo--
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1 CERTIFICATE OF SHORTHAND REPORTER
2
3 I, EVELYN J. MIZAK, a Shorthand Reporter of the State
4 of California, do hereby certify:
5 That I am a disinterested person herein; that the
6 foregoing transcript of the hearing of the Senate Committee on
7 Elections and Reapportionment was reported verbatim in shorthand
8 by me, Evelyn J. Mizak, and thereafter transcribed into
9 typewriting.
10 I further certify that I am not of counsel or
11 attorney for any of the parties to said hearing, nor in any way
12 interested in the outcome of said hearing.
13 IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this
14 ______ day of __________________, 2001.
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_______________________
19
EVELYN J. MIZAK
20 Shorthand Reporter
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