Urban-Rural and Regional Voting Patterns in the California Senate Before and After Reapportionment

Abstract

HE CONSEQUENCES of gross disparities in the population size of state legislative districts have been the subject of numerous studies in recent years. No one argued the fact of malapportionment, but various researchers have often been at odds over the political and policy consequences of well or badly apportioned legislatures. Proponents of the one-man-one-vote doctrine argued that malapportionment distorted the representation of popular will in legislative bodies.' Legislators tend to take positions which will benefit their districts. Constituencies have distinct interests which are associated with the social and economic character of its people. The political concerns of urban people are different from the interests of rural residents. Likewise, the problems in one section of a state may vary considerably from those difficulties encountered in other sections. Therefore, if an apportionment system gives certain groups of people (e.g., rural) a disproportionate strength in the legislature at a cost to other groups (e.g., urban), then the interests of the favored constituents will be promoted to the detriment of the interests of people who are disadvantaged. Empirical verification of the one-man-one-vote doctrine has proven difficult. Studies of individual states have produced conflicting findings regarding the amount of urban-rural and regional conflict on roll-call votes.2 Comparisons of all states by several measures of the degree of malapportionment reported little or no difference in labor, welfare, highway, and education expenditures and policies, and no variation in the amount of party competition or the frequency of divided