Supervisors call for redistricting process review

When the San Diego County Board of Supervisors approved the redistricting of the county’s supervisorial districts, some citizens criticized the Board of Supervisors for having the final vote and called for an independent restricting commission. State law and the county charter currently preclude an independent commission, but the Board of Supervisors is exploring a process for the 2021 redistricting to have such independent discretion.

“I think that making that change would be a good government reform that we should all pursue,” said Supervisor Greg Cox.

A 4-1 Board of Supervisors vote Oct. 11, with Bill Horn in opposition, directs the county’s Chief Administrative Officer to return to the board in 120 days with recommendations on changing the California Elections Code and the San Diego County Charter to permit the county to establish a court-appointed independent panel of retired judges. The motion to amend the county charter also seeks to require that at least three supervisorial districts have some unincorporated territory and that at least two districts have a significant amount of unincorporated territory.

“My biggest concern is to make sure we have representation,” said Supervisor Dianne Jacob, whose Second District includes much of the county’s unincorporated area.

“She has to look at the health of those communities as much as I do,” Horn, whose Fifth District also includes numerous unincorporated communities, said of Jacob.

“The unincorporated area needs to be represented,” Horn said. “I don’t represent the City of San Diego. A lot of my opinions are based on what is in the unincorporated communities.”

All five current members of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors participated in the 2001 and 2011 redistricting process. For this year’s redistricting the Board of Supervisors created a Redistricting Advisory Committee to hear public input and produce proposed district maps, and on June 28 the county supervisors directed county staff to prepare an actual redistricting ordinance based on a Redistricting Advisory Committee proposed plan.

The American Civil Liberties Union claimed that the Redistricting Advisory Committee plan would violate the Voting Rights Act because it did not create a district in which Hispanics and African-Americans constituted a majority of the voting-age population, and county staff was also directed to evaluate that claim as well as the ACLU’s proposed plan. The Redistricting Advisory Committee plan included a 48.96 percent designated minority voting-age population in District One which would have been 40.96 percent Hispanic and 7.70 percent African-American. When Asian-Americans were included, the minority population of the First District would have been 59 percent.

On Aug. 2 county staff reported that the Redistricting Advisory Committee plan was legally defensible, but the county supervisors voted 5-0 to direct the creation of a “majority-minority” district while preserving most of the advisory committee’s plan. That map has a 51.84 percent Hispanic and African-American voting-age population in District One.

“It seems like we are reacting to a very vocal minority that came in here at the last moment,” Horn said. “I don’t want to let a small vocal minority change a system that I think is very fair.”

A county government (and its associated staff) serves two functions. The first is as an agent of the state for both incorporated cities and unincorporated communities. Notable roles in this capacity include the Registrar of Voters, the court and correctional systems, the tax collector, the county recorder, public health, environmental health, and the Department of Agriculture, Weights and Measures (which includes agriculture in cities as well as unincorporated areas and also assures the accuracy of scales and gas pumps throughout the county). The county’s other function is as the substitute for a city council (and city staff) for unincorporated communities. This includes planning and land use, roads, flood control, parks, libraries, and law enforcement. (The county also operates eight airports, two of which are in incorporated cities, and several cities contract with the county for library or law enforcement services.)

“The needs of unincorporated citizens are similar to but different to those of cities,” said Supervisor Pam Slater-Price, who lived in Encinitas before that town became an incorporated city after a 1986 election. “We definitely need to have some kind of protection for people who live in the unincorporated area.”

Encinitas and Solana Beach became the county’s 17th and 18th cities after the 1986 election. The section of the county charter which states that redistricting occur “in such a way that the area of at least two districts is as substantially outside the City of San Diego as the population will permit” has never been changed. Currently approximately 85 percent of the county’s population lives in incorporated cities.

In November 2008, the state’s voters passed Proposition 11, which took state legislative redistricting away from the state legislature and placed it under the control of an independent commission. The November 2010 election rejected Proposition 27, which would have repealed Proposition 11, and also passed Proposition 20, which added Congressional districts to the independent commission process. “California voters have spoken twice loud and clear,” Cox said.

“I don’t have an problem with an independent panel,” Jacob said. “Why is a panel of retired judges better than a panel of citizens?”

In 1991, when registered Republican Pete Wilson was California’s governor and Democrats controlled both houses of the state legislature, an impasse in the redistricting process led to a panel of retired judges drawing the lines for that decade’s state-level districted offices. “It may be the best way to do it,” said Supervisor Ron Roberts.

Roberts acknowledges that judges aren’t always impartial. “Judges are not perfect, and we have seen that. Judges have strong interests in some cases,” he said.

“There may be a better process,” Jacob said. “I don’t believe there’s any process that’s going to guarantee a fair outcome.”

Jacob noted the need for protection of the panel from undue influence to prevent “backroom deals.”

“I have a problem with trying to fix something that’s not broken,” Horn said.

Horn noted adverse experiences for some unincorporated communities from joint powers agencies whose board members are not directly elected. “We’re directly accountable to the voters,” he said. “The commission is not accountable to the voters.” (Horn himself is the unincorporated area’s representative on the joint powers North County Transit District board and also represents the unincorporated area on the San Diego Association of Governments board.)

The supervisors who supported the Oct. 11 motion did not promise to vote for a specific proposal once that is brought to the board.

“This is the first step in a process that’s going to have some significant impact,” Roberts said.

“We might as well start at least a conversation,” Slater-Price said. “It’s 10 years off, so this is a good time to get it started.”

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