Ethnicity

As previously reported, the Commission reflects the state’s racial and ethnic diversity. The numbers of Latino, African-American, Native American, and Asian-American applicants all meet or exceed their respective percentages of the state’s registered voters. (A spreadsheet showing the remaining applicants with party, ethnicity, gender, geography, and economic characteristics is here. A summary set of tables is here.)

Other Factors

As Proposition 11 makes clear, “diversity” is not limited to race and ethnicity, and the Panel’s selections reflect other elements of diversity, including party, education, and income.

Party

As required by Proposition 11, 40 of the remaining applicants are registered Democrats, 40 are Republicans, and 40 are not registered with either of the two major parties. The Citizens Redistricting Commission represents the first time that independent voters will have a significant voice in the state’s redistricting process.

Gender

Male and female applicants come very close to 50/50 balance, at 53 percent male and 47 percent female.

Education

Representing a notable but often-overlooked element of diversity, the remaining pool of applicants contains significant numbers of both University of California system graduates (53) and California State University system graduates (36). UCLA leads the pack, as 19 of the remaining 120 applicants earned either undergraduate or graduate degrees from UCLA. UC Berkeley can claim victory too, as more of the applicants (twelve) earned undergraduate degrees at Berkeley than at any other institution. Cal State Los Angeles leads the Cal State group, with 4 undergraduate alumni in the remaining pool.

Seven remaining applicants graduated from Stanford, and seven from USC. Fifteen Thirteen are Ivy league graduates, while five earned degrees at the Claremont Colleges. Three graduated from Loyola and four from the University of the Pacific. Two each graduated from of St. Mary’s and University of Texas, Austin. Rounding out the diverse educational experiences of the remaining pool are a single graduates from each of NYU, MIT, Johns Hopkins, Howard, and Pepperdine.

If you have done the math on the preceding paragraphs, you realized that many applicants have multiple degrees. Ninety-four percent (113) hold at least a bachelor’s degree. There are 23 law school graduates, 57 holders of Masters degrees, 29 doctorates, plus 3 currently earning their doctorates. Two have AA degrees, and 1 has a technical degree from IBT. Four of the 120 remaining applicants have no college degree.

(These numbers are slightly incomplete because four holders of graduate degrees did not provide their undergraduate degree or institution. A spreadsheet listing the remaining applicants and their educational backgrounds is here. A spreadsheet with the counts by school and degree is here.)

Click for full-size map

Geography

The Panel also achieved impressive geographic and regional diversity. Los Angeles County has the most remaining applicants (21), which is no surprise as the County has the most people. Yet the San Francisco “Bay Area” region matched the “Southern Coastal” region among remaining applicants, with 35 each. The “North Coastal” region has the fewest remaining applicants (5), which makes sense since it also has the smallest percentage of the state’s registered voters (1 percent). The North and South Central Valley and Mountain regions combine for 19 percent of the state’s registered voters, and they provide 22.5 percent of the remaining applicants. The heavily-Republican Inland Empire and heavily-Democratic Central Coastal regions each have a significant number of the remaining applicants (8 and 9, respectively), representing 7 and 9 percent of the remaining applicant pool. Those regions constitute similar 7 and 8 percents of the state’s registered voters. Twenty-nine of the state’s 58 counties are represented in the remaining pool. Kern and Sonoma counties are the largest counties with no residents in the remaining pool, and they are home to 1.8 percent and 1.4 percent of the state’s registered voters. None of the remaining 27 counties without representation in the remaining pool have over 1 percent of the state’s registered voters. Representing the state’s smaller counties, Humboldt, Plumas, Amador, Mendocino and seven other counties have at least one resident each remaining in the pool, though each is home to less than 1 percent of the state’s registered voters.

Income

While the Auditor’s income categories do not precisely match the Census Bureau’s categories, the applicants appear to represent some economic diversity. Middle-income earners, between $35,000 and $125,000 per year, represent approximately 44 percent of the state’s residents and 46 percent of the remaining applicant pool. As might be guessed based on the educational backgrounds described above, higher-income applicants are somewhat over-represented in the remaining pool, with roughly 28 percent of the state’s population earning over $125,000 and 50 percent of the applicants coming from that income range. Yet the “under $35,000″ income category is still represented, with 4 applicants in the remaining pool of 120.

Conclusion

California’s voters instructed the Applicant Review Panel to create a pool that reflected the state’s broad diversity, not just race and ethnicity. To date, the Panel clearly succeeded in that task. As it conducts interviews and narrows the pool down to the smaller pool of 60 finalists, it will become even more difficult to fully reflect the state’s diversity. Yet the Panel’s actions to date have shown its dedication to meeting this challenge.

According to the article, Johnson noted that “developers tend to be interested in campaigns in cities where they already have an investment.” He says, “sometimes [developers] give where they are developing, where they own the land already and where they’re working on plans [...] Developers don’t really go into towns they don’t own land in yet.” The article also quotes Rose Institute Senior Fellow Jack Pitney.

Pitney explains that “developers who already own land in a community are more apt to make sure their investment or plans are not compromised [...] Even if you already own land, you have to deal with government restrictions on how you use that property, and that automatically gives you a stake in government decisions. … If you don’t already own property it’s more speculative.”

Pitney also points out that another “reason for any group to make contributions to political campaigns would be to gain access to the politician.” The Sun quotes him as saying “Access – that’s the key word [...] a politician is much more likely to listen to a contributor than a non-contributor, with all other things being equal.” He does allow that contribution “do not guarantee outcomes, but they can guarantee that the politician is going to listen.” He concludes by noting that “it depends on what decision is before which governmental body [...] Elected officials do have a role to play in land use and consequently developers want to get their attention.”

Miller is quoted as saying that “with the exception of Schwarzenegger, who’s anomalous in a lot of ways, there hasn’t been a pool of Republicans from Southern California who are next in line to run statewide […] Instead, their base has increasingly become the Inland Empire and Central Valley, but there’s not a lot of [campaign] money in those areas. So you’ve got this weird situation where Republican candidates are coming from the Bay Area, and they’re much more socially moderate than the median voter in a Republican primary.”

Miller also discusses Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s decision to not run for governor. According to Miller, Villaraigosa “had an ideal platform to launch a bid for governor but decided against it last year, after a bout of bad publicity surrounding the breakup of his marriage and his city’s economic troubles.” Miller concludes by noting that “he would’ve been a natural.”

The Secretary of State has just released final turnout numbers for the June primary, and they show the strengthening of a trend that is rapidly changing the timing and tactics of all political campaigns. The numbers show that a majority (58 percent) voted absentee; that is, they voted by mail. This is virtually identical to the 59 percent of mail voters in the 2008 primary and should come as no surprise. The percentage of mail ballots has been rising steadily through the years, and has mushroomed in recent elections. In the comparable 2006 primary, 47 percent voted by mail; in 2002 it was 26 percent.

Until the 1970s, you had to be “absent” from home to receive an absentee ballot. Then the law was changed so anyone could obtain one, but you had to ask for an absentee ballot each election. A few years ago, the counties began a “permanent absentee voter” program. Today, millions of voters are classified as “permanent absentees.” They don’t have to ask for an absentee ballot; one is sent to them automatically. Most voters mail in their absentee ballots but many drop them off at the polls on Election Day.

The newly released Secretary of State figures show that most counties reported 60 percent or more voting by mail. In Santa Clara County, 75 percent voted by mail. An anomaly is Los Angeles County, which does not encourage voting by mail. Here only 36 percent voted by mail, and turnout was only 23 percent, ten percent below the state average.

The LA numbers suggest that voting by mail is a now a driver in overall voter turnout.

For instance, nearly 32 percent of voters turned out for the June 22 special election in SD 15, much higher than recent special elections. And the 77.5 percent of mail ballots was also high.

The results, which saw GOP Assemblymember Sam Blakeslee fall just short a majority with 49 percent of the vote to 42 percent for Democrat John Laird, were expected to be much closer. It is probable that Blakeslee’s strong showing resulted from the high absentee turnout as Republicans often do better with absentee voters than Election Day voters.

But there are lessons in the rise in voting by mail for both parties, and for people who follow elections. First, Election Night returns will be far short of the final results, so media reports of an “historically low turnout” Election Night will be wrong when all the votes are counted. The Rose Institute at Claremont McKenna College polled all the counties the day after the election and found that 1.3 million ballots still needed to be counted.

However, it should not be up to an academic institution to determine how many votes are uncounted. The Secretary of State maintains a web report on uncounted ballots, but it is not kept up to date as the counties proceed to do their count. The Secretary of State should maintain a daily update as the uncounted ballots are counted.

Secondly, the nature of political campaigns will change; a campaign that waits until the last two weeks to send mail to voters will miss the huge numbers of voters who have cast early absentees. Campaigns are realizing that you can “chase” absentee voters, and find out when they received their ballots and when they cast them. This could mean in some cases going to a voter’s home, picking up the ballot, and delivering it to the county. Smart campaigns time their mail to permanent absentee voters to coincide with the arrival of the ballot at the voter’s home.

There is some evidence the Meg Whitman campaign did this in the primary; if Whitman, or Jerry Brown for that matter, develops a sophisticated way to make sure absentee ballots are returned on time that could decide who wins the governor’s race this fall.

Finally, cash pressed counties would be wise to encourage voting by mail (Oregon already conducts many elections by mail and has found them more economical). Manning fewer precincts on Election Day can save money.

There is no question but that Californians like to vote by mail, making their decisions leisurely over the kitchen table rather than in a polling booth. Some day soon, maybe even this year, a majority of Californians will always vote by mail.

Among the 97 interviewees selected through Tuesday:

• 45 are male (46 percent) and 52 are female (54 percent).
• 13 are Asian American (13 percent), 23 are Latino (24 percent), 6 are Native American (6 percent), 9 are African American (9 percent) 1 is Pacific Islander (1 percent) and 6 are “Other” (6 percent).

For comparison, according to a 2008 surname analysis by the California Statewide Database, 49 percent of registered voters in California are male, 51 percent are female, 20 percent are Latino and 8 percent are Asian American. There are no surname lists for African Americans, but according to the Census Bureau’s 2006-2008 American Community Survey (ACS) data African Americans constitute 6 percent of the state’s total population, and in the 2000 Census African Americans constituted 6 percent of California’s voting age population. In 2000, Native Americans constituted 1 percent of the state’s voting age population and now (according to the ACS data) constitute just under 1 percent of the state’s total population.

In summary, looking at gender and ethnicity, the group selected so far for interviews meets or exceeds the diversity of the state’s registered voters in terms of women, Latinos, Native Americans, and African Americans. And 23 more Democrats remain to be added to the interview group.

More detailed analysis to follow, including analysis of the geographic diversity of the selected interviewees.

Until then, follow the ARP’s work on its video feed or through the Rose Institute’s Twitter updates. The Rose Institute is providing real-time updates to the list of “forwarded to interview” and “dropped” candidates in a Google Docs online spreadsheet. You must log into either a Google account or a GMail account (both are free) to access that link.

UPDATE: The ARP has finished selecting the interview group. The final gender and ethnicity data (drawn from the Auditor’s database): 47% female, 53% male;  37% White; 27% Latino, 13% Asian-American, 12% African American, 5% Native American,  1% Pacific Islander, 6% Other.

From the original 30,725 applications, 314 applicants remain. Of those, 72 received “Yes” votes from all three members of the Applicant Review Panel at its last meeting. It is expected, but not yet official, that all of those 72 will advance to interviews, leaving only 48 remaining spots in the final 120.

Among the 72 unanimous yes candidates, 18 are Republicans, 22 are Democrats, and 32 are “other” party members. As a result, the Panel now has to select 22 more Republicans, 18 more Democrats, and only 8 more “other” candidates. Among the 242 remaining applicants who did not receive three yes votes last meeting, there are 95 Republicans, 93 Democrats, and 54 “other” candidates. The odds are best for the remaining Republican candidates, as 23 percent of them will advance to the 120 interviewees. The remaining Democratic candidates face slightly longer odds, as only 19 percent of them will advance. The “other” party candidates face the longest odds as only 15 percent of them will advance.

The panel is also charged with ensuring the pool reflects the diversity of California, at least as well as possible within any relatively small pool of people. The 72 unanimous yes candidates include 37 men and 35 women. One big question is whether the Panel will aim for gender balance within each partisan pool, or just within the entire pool of 120. If they aim for balance within each pool the remaining Republican women have a good chance to advance: putting 20 Republican women into the interview stage requires approving 13 of the remaining 26 Republican women (those not in the pool of 72 unanimous yes candidates). Among the other partisan pools of applicants, 15 of the 32 “other” candidates in the unanimous yes pool are women, leaving openings for only 5 of the remaining 19 women (and for only 3 of the remaining 35 men in the “other” pool). Among the Democratic pool, 14 of the 22 in the unanimous yes pool are women and 8 are men, leaving spots for 6 of the remaining 41 Democratic women and 12 of the remaining 52 Democratic men. Again, we do not know if the Panel will aim for gender balance within each partisan subpool or only within the entire interview pool of 120.

Geographically, 11 people are in the unanimous yes pool from the “North Central Valley and Mountains” (9 of whom are from Sacramento); 25 are from “Southern Coastal” (including 17 from Los Angeles); 6 are from the “Central Coast”; and 4 are from the “Southern Central Valley and Mountain” region. Only 1 person is in this group of 72 is from the “Inland Empire” and only 1 is from the “North Coastal” region. Both the Inland Empire and North Coast representatives are registered Decline to State (the “other” partisan pool), so those 9 Republicans and 6 Democrats from the Inland Empire not in the unanimous yes group still have a high likelihood of making it into the interview pool. The odds are also relatively high for the 2 Republicans and 2 Democrats from the North Coastal region.

Los Angeles County, according to the Census Bureau’s 2006-2008 American Community Survey population estimates, constitutes 27 percent of California’s population. That translates into 32 people in a 120-person pool. Los Angeles currently has 17 people in the unanimous yes category, so about 15 of the remaining 52 applicants from Los Angeles with less than 3 “yes” votes may expect to advance. With relatively equal numbers between the parties in this group of 52 (21 Republican, 26 Democratic, but only 6 “other”), it is hard to predict who is likely to advance.

The 72 unanimous yes candidates include 46 white, 10 Latino, 9 Asian American, 3 African American, 2 Native American, 1 Pacific Islander, and one self-declared “Other” applicants. It has been noted by Common Cause and others that the pool of 314 is more diverse than the legislature. If the Panel is going to aim so high as to try to match the Latino, Asian and African American groups to their percentages among the entire population of California (according the Census numbers mentioned above), they would constitute 43, 15, and 7 members of the 120-person interview pool, respectively. If we are correct in the assumption that the 72 unanimous yes applicants are in the pool, then four additional African-Americans (among the remaining 24), six additional Asian Americans (among the remaining 18), 33 additional Hispanics (among the remaining 35), and only 5 additional Non-Hispanic White applicants (among the remaining 150) would make it into the interview pool. Keep in mind, however, that the demographics of California’s voters vary significantly from the demographics of its population, so even an interview pool that falls short of those goals could reasonably reflect the eligible population of redistricting commission members. And everything is relative: Common Cause and others have pointed out that the pool of 314 is already more diverse than the alternative redistricting authority: the legislature.

This analysis assumes that all of the final 314 candidates completed their Form 700 financial disclosure forms. There is a strong likelihood that some number did not, which will narrow the pool of candidates the Panel has available for consideration.

After the Panel selects the 120 for interviews and then whittles the pool down to its 60 finalists, applicants will still need to survive the “strikes” from each majority and minority legislative leader and then be chosen either in the initial random drawing or in the follow up commission selection stage.

The Applicant Review Panel’s responsibility to reflect the state’s diversity within the pool of 120 is challenging. It is inevitable that there will be those who complain of both real and imagined slights. The political atmosphere surrounding this November’s Propositions 20 and 27 further muddies the atmosphere. Once the final 14 Commission members are announced, the safeguards the authors wrote into Proposition 11 are likely to ensure a reasonably diverse and representative Commission, though no group of 14 (or of 120, be they the legislature or the interview pool) can ever fully reflect every aspect of California’s vibrant and varied people.

According to the article, Johnson says that ”most city retirement funds do not require any contributions from employees, unlike pension plans in the private sector.” Johnson says that “ultimately, it really comes down to very powerful public employee unions and city councils that aren’t doing the math.” Johnson does note that ”cities are becoming increasingly wary of paying for generous benefit packages as budgets tighten all over the state,” however  “reducing pension costs has been an uphill battle so far.” He concludes by noting that while “its very easy to grant new benefits…it’s close to impossible to reduce them once you’ve granted them.”

Claremont McKenna trivia: Rose Fellow Douglas Johnson and Monrovia City Manager Scott Ochoa (also quoted in the article) attended CMC together.

The suit against Amendment 7 focused on the amendment’s clarity. The attorney representing the Florida House of Representatives argued that Amendment 7 merely created “additional standards that [went] with the standards that presently exist.” Opponents of Amendment 7 believe the amendment would allow the state legislature to bypass the provisions of FairDistricts’s proposed Amendment 5 and Amendment 6. Ron Meyer, the attorney for the Florida state NAACP, argued that the “amendment is nothing if not deceptive, if not unintelligible…[the state legislature] could have…made [it] a very simple, straightforward amendment….and they chose not to do that for the very purpose of being able to hide the impacts.”

In his ruling, Judge Shelfer cited his own inability to comprehend the language of Amendment 7. Said Shelfer, “I’m not the brightest light on the Christmas tree, but it took me three days…to get a handle on what this amendment does.”

An appeal of Judge Shelfer’s verdict is set to go before the Florida Supreme Court. Meanwhile, separate law suits against FairDistricts Florida will have court hearings this week in Tallahassee.

San Diego’s City Charter requires that a Redistricting Commission be created at the beginning of every decade with the purpose of setting boundaries for City Council districts. The 2010 Commission will be the second independent redistricting commission in the city’s history. The final report from the 2001 Redistricting Commision is available here.

The City Charter says the Commision will be made up of seven members appointed by the Presiding Judge of the Municipal Court, San Diego Judicial District. The Charter outlines how “in the event that the Presiding Judge declines to make the appointments, they shall be made by a Municipal Court Judge selected by vote of the Judges of the Municipal Court, San Diego Judicial District. Should the Judges of the Municipal Court decline to so act, then the Redistricting Commission shall be appointed by a panel of three retired Superior Court Judges drawn at random by the City Manager [...] In the event that all of the preceding individuals decline to act, then the Redistricting Commission shall be appointed by a majority vote of the City Council . . . ”

According to the City Charter, appointees should “give the Redistricting Commission geographic, social and ethnic diversity, and [...] have a high degree of competency to carry out the responsibilities of the Commission. The appointees shall include individuals with a demonstrated capacity to serve with impartiality in a nonpartisan role. Each member of the Commission shall be registered to vote in The City of San Diego.”

Once Commisioners are chosen, they will hold at least four public meetings across the city before preparing an initial redistricting plan for the City Clerk. The Commisions must hold at least three public hearings discussing its initial map before adopting a final plan. In 2001, over fifty public meetings were held before a final map was reached.

Currently, the North Dakota legislature redistricts itself every ten years by the standard legislative process, with the bill subject to a gubernatorial veto. The new commission, while accepting legislative input, would not be required to implement any of the legislature’s suggestions, nor would the legislature vote on the commission’s plan. The commission itself would be required to hold regular public meetings during the redistricting process.

The initiative’s supporters will have to gather 25,688 valid signatures before August 4 in order to place the measure on the 2010 ballot. Should they fail, they will have another year in order to make the 2012 general primary ballot, or sooner if a special election is called after they have collected a sufficient number of signatures.

The Bismarck Tribune noted:

An amendment similar to the League of Women Voters’ initiative was introduced in the North Dakota House during the 2009 Legislature, sponsored by state Rep. Corey Mock, D-Grand Forks, who is the Democratic candidate for secretary of state. It was defeated, 58-34, with Republicans opposing the plan and Democrats favoring it.