Race and Partisanship in California Redistricting: From the 1965 Voting Rights Act to Present

Abstract

After the Voting Rights Act passed in 1965 and its protections were broadened ten years later to include “language minorities,” the law made the ballot more accessible to Black and Brown voters. Oliver Richomme explains that they would not merely participate in elections but became integrally involved in California's redistricting process, further complicating an already convoluted practice. Additional factors in the second half of the twentieth century made the drawing of lines on a map increasingly contentious.In Race and Partisanship in California Redistricting, Richomme argues that race and partisanship are closely linked to redistricting and that the political forces and events within a decade influence the subsequent decades’ redistricting process. To study the connection between race and partisanship and how redistricting changes over time, Richomme studies fifty years of California's history of redistricting. He claims that as the state's racial diversity continues to grow along with their demand for equitable representation (largely within the Democratic Party), redistricting reform will generate racial and partisan polarization. With no alternative to achieve racial fairness in electoral politics, the author insists that redistricting will persist as a “conundrum of American society” (p. 373).Race and Partisanship in California Redistricting starts to chart the evolution of redistricting in the 1960s. Chapter 1 explains how the courts in the sixties ended malapportionment in California, giving Black and Brown people in urban centers a stronger political voice. As these voters entered the political arena, they increasingly sought representation from candidates of their own background and so, instead of incumbent protection being a priority in the redistricting process, race rose to the top and became entangled with this political exercise. The second chapter describes how the California Supreme Court entered the redistricting process in 1971, adding another element to influence how boundaries were drawn. As California's Latino population grew between 1970 and 1980, both the Democratic and Republican Parties courted the Latino vote. With much at stake, chapter 3 shows how the Democrats strategically selected Black and Brown politicians to advance a redistricting model that increased the number of people of color elected within the party.By the late 1980s, Latino voters mobilized to advance their political gains and turned to the federal courts to redraw election districts while the Republican Party, in the 1990s, attempted to use direct democracy. Chapter 4 shows how Latinos successfully argued before the US District Court that Los Angeles County intentionally diluted Latino's voting power, leading to the creation of a majority district. The fifth chapter covers California's Republican Party, which spent millions of dollars, after losing political ground, to pass initiatives to make the redistricting process favorable to their party. The propositions failed and instead of appealing to Latino voters, Republican Governor Pete Wilson's anti-immigrant measures pushed the Latino community away and toward the Democratic Party. These chapters clearly demonstrate the significant role the federal courts and direct democracy had on redistricting negotiations.In the last four chapters, Richomme demonstrates how divisions within the Democratic Party, passage of the California Voting Rights Act in 2001, and creation of the California Redistricting Commission in 2008 contributed to shifting the redistricting process away from the legislature to an independent citizens commission. The evolution of the state's drawing of election maps has mitigated partisan gerrymandering, but an independent redistricting commission still “needs to find the right balance between race and politics” (p. 371) writes Richomme.Race and Partisanship in California Redistricting succeeds in tracing California's history of redistricting. Richomme identifies key political events that moved both the Democratic and Republican Parties to continuously alter their approach to redistricting. And after the 1960s, using race to engineer majority-minority districts to achieve fair and equal representation seemed unavoidable. What is not fully explored is how the redistricting process has undermined the nation's supposed belief in color blindness. While both parties embraced the rhetoric of fair and equal elections, they remain grounded on a winner-take-all philosophy that is willing to use race as they see fit to win elections.This text builds on the growing scholarship that traces the total effects of the Voting Rights Act and its impact on redistricting process, particularly in California. As discussions about race and politics continue to dominate headlines, this important work can help people understand how these conversations will potentially shape the creation of new election districts.