I understand why people ask me to speak at events like this. I’m an elected official in Woodland that some people identify with the time I spent in Iraq with the Marine Corps.

Yet, these sorts of things are the hardest things that I do as an elected official.

My worst days as Mayor involved the deaths of SSGT Jimmy Arroyave and Highway Patrol Officer Andy Stevens. Giving condolences to family members is not something I am good at…. But all you can do is try.

I was at a Veterans event in Davis when Vince asked me to speak today. Clearly Vince has a memory problem. Two years ago when I was the Veteran’s Day speaker at the Court House I completely lost my composure as I spoke in front of the family of PFC Casillas.

PFC Casillas was a soldier from Arbuckle that was killed in Afghanistan. A hero. Watching his family mourn his loss was not the sort of thing I would wish on anyone. It got me. It got all of those around them.

These things are hard for me. Very hard. I know they are hard for many… Read More

First of all, Prop 11 and Prop 20 did not cause Congressmen Miller, Royce, and potentially Dreier to run against each other in 2012. California demographic and political changes did that. These two ballot measures also did not cause Gallegly and McKeon to be lumped together. While the number of Republicans in the California Congressional delegation will shrink, the losses are nowhere near where they would have been if the staff of Speaker Perez would have been able to draw the maps over at 1020 N Street. Then we would be talking about losing nine seats instead of three.

Prop 11 and Prop 20 probably saved the political careers of people like Buck McKeon, Mary Bono Mack, Jeff Denham, Brian Bilbray and Dan Lungren. At least under these maps, people like Lungren have a fighting chance. He would rather run against Ami Bera in the seat he is scheduled to… Read More

The Voting Rights Act protects the ability of certain communities to be grouped together in redistricting process. That will continue to happen in Orange County.

The attached document will give you an idea of the magnitude of the population densities in Orange County.

The minimum for the County of Orange will be one district in the State Senate that will likely be held by a Democrat (the replacement for Senator Lou Correa), one Congressional seat (held by Democrat Loretta Sanchez), and at least one Assembly seat (currently held by Assemblyman Jose Solorio).

The real question is what districts are drawn beyond these minimums. I actually think we could see more.

Consider this, most people think of Assemblyman Chris Norby’s seat as a… Read More

The Redding Searchlight reported 80 people attended the meeting. That is probably right if you include staff and the commission. By my count 26 took the time to address the commission.

You can read the Redding Searchlight article here. It was far easier to find the article about the motorcycle accident I saw on the freeway than the commission hearing at Shasta College.

Here is the issue. Clearly a group was there that was organized requesting that the commission draw a Senate, Assembly, and Congressional district described in the article. The attempt would be to lump the more liberal coastal areas in with the conservative inland areas.

For most of the commission members it seemed pretty clear that this was their first time in the area and it may be their last. So the one of the few things that they will think of when they consider drawing districts in the north state is the configuration mentioned in the article.… Read More

A district like this would elect a Republican under the right circumstances.

I hope that the beach communities are out there registering voters. Bumping this seat up to 38% GOP would make all the difference in the world.

See map here.… Read More

The North State has a couple issues. One is that it is tradition to have a 101 District (AD 1), and I-5 District (AD 2) and a 395 District (AD 3). The commission is not required to do this but it would make sense.

The other issue is that Yuba County is a Section 5 County. It is going to remain whole. It would just make sense to keep it together.

So with that I throw out this district for consideration. I started in Modoc, and included the entire counties of Lassen, Plumas, and Sierra. Then I added all of Butte, Yuba,and Sutter. After all of this I was just a few thousand residents short of an Assembly district. So in looking at communities that identified more with Yuba/Sutter I added in the community of Rough & Ready. This community tends to associate more with the Yuba Sutter area than the rest of Nevada County.… Read More

Now that the data is in it is probably worse that I expected.

The big issue for her is if Imperial County is included in her district, or in the one currently represented by Congressman Filner (possible candidate for Mayor of San Diego).

As you can see by the attached maps Imperial County makes all the difference in the world to her.

At this point just based on the Voting Age Population of Latinos I would bet that Imperial ends up in her district. If that happens Assemblyman Victor Manuel Perez ends up in Congress. That is a shame.

New District – All Riverside County … Read More

Consider the City of Sacramento. The incorporated area is 814 people more than the ideal population for an Assembly District.

This district would place two newly elected Members of the Assembly together in the same district. Assemblyman Richard Pan and Assemblyman Roger Dickinson both live in the incorporated city so one would have to move or they would have to run against each other in this Democrat controlled district.

The other thing that this would do is pack most of the solidly Democrat areas into one district. The other two districts that are likely to come from the remainder of Sacramento would at least be competitive for Republicans.

I plan on publishing a number of maps in the coming weeks but this is the first one.… Read More