Government

California’s 2020 Redistricting Commission Is Accepting Applications: Only 253 African Americans Have Applied

Published

5 years ago

July 21, 2019

Gerrymandering, or the creation of voting districts that look like jigsaw puzzle pieces to meet political goals, is a problem the California Redistricting Commission seeks to avoid.

The 14 appointees to the commission should reflect the diversity of the state’s population and there is already concern that Black people may be counted out.

As of Sunday this week, a total of about 4,226 Californians had applied for a position on the CRC, which will convene next year and last through 2030.

Of that number, about 6 percent – or approximately 253 applicants – are African Americans.

On the website of the CSA, which guides the work of the commission, there are daily updating charts and graphs that capture the ethnicity and other demographic information of the people who have applied so far.

The CSA says it wants Californians of all backgrounds who have a history of civic engagement to apply in an effort to make sure the group selected is a close reflection of the state’s general population in terms of region, comity, income, age, race, ethnicity and other profile information.

“We are thrilled about the number of applications submitted since the application period opened on June 10,” said Elaine M. Howie, California State Auditor. “But the work is not done yet. We want to make sure that all Californians are represented in the initial application pool. That means we need even more of the State’s talented and diverse citizens to take up this once in a decade opportunity and apply by August 9.”

Every 10 years, California appoints a new commission after the U.S. Census. It is tasked with mapping or re-drawing the state’s electoral lines based on geographic and other data changes in the state population over the decade between census counts.

In 2008, California voters approved the commission through a constitutional amendment called “The Voters First Act” or “Proposition 11” that handed the power of drawing electoral maps over to the hands of citizens. The policy was set up to avoid the political influence of government officials or special interest groups on the redistricting process.

Before the passage of Proposition 11, the state Legislature was responsible for drawing its own electoral districts.

“The politicians were choosing their districts instead of the districts choosing their politicians,” said Mario Blanco, a member of the outgoing 2010 commission, detailing how the former process of redistricting before prop 11 was vulnerable to gerrymandering.

Then, in 2011, California voters approved Proposition 20, an initiative that expanded the responsibilities of the commission to drawing California’s U.S. Congressional districts as well.

The 2020 Commission will include five Democrats, five Republicans, and four who are either registered without, or “independent” of, any political party,” said Fernandez.

The citizens of California, through the California State Auditor (CSA) office, sets up the commission and tasks it with drawing the 120 legislative districts for the state’s U.S. Congress, Assembly and Senate elections.

To qualify, an applicant must be a registered voter who has been a member of the same political party or no political party since July 1, 2015. He or she must have also voted in three statewide general elections. The CSA also employs other criteria to narrow down the pool of applicants.

Last year, a total of 30,000 Californians applied to be on the commission, which gets narrowed down through eligibility requirements, essay questions and letters of recommendation. A random drawing reduces the applicant pool to 60, leaders of the state legislature, further reduce the list that the state auditor and the preliminary members of the commission bring down to the final 12.

The commission hires its own staff and works independently within pre-set guidelines established by the CSA. Commissioners are paid a stipend of between $300 – $400 per week and all expenses related to work will be reimbursed.

“Nationally, we are seen as the alternative, the model, of how you can do redistricting better and in a more inclusive way,” says Connie Malloy, another member of the 2010 commission.

To apply or track demographics visit: shapecaliforniasfuture.auditor.ca.gov.

Tanu Henry, California Black Media

Posts by Tanu Henry, California Black Media

Activism

U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries Speaks on Democracy at Commonwealth Club

Based on his first speech as House minority leader, “The ABCs of Democracy” by Grand Central Publishing is an illustrated children’s book for people of all ages. Each letter contrasts what democracy is and isn’t, as in: “American Values over Autocracy”, “Benevolence over Bigotry” and “The Constitution over the Cult.”

Published

12 hours ago

December 22, 2024

Oakland Post

: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries at the Commonwealth Club World Affairs Council on Dec. 2. Photo by Johnnie Burrell. Book cover: "The ABCs of Democracy" by Hakeem Jeffries.

By Linda Parker Pennington
Special to The Post

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries addressed an enthusiastic overflow audience on Monday at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club, launching his first book, “The ABCs of Democracy.”

Based on his first speech as House minority leader, “The ABCs of Democracy” by Grand Central Publishing is an illustrated children’s book for people of all ages.

Each letter contrasts what democracy is and isn’t, as in: “American Values over Autocracy”, “Benevolence over Bigotry” and “The Constitution over the Cult.”

Less than a month after the election that will return Donald Trump to the White House, Rep. Jeffries also gave a sobering assessment of what the Democrats learned.

“Our message just wasn’t connecting with the real struggles of the American people,” Jeffries said. “The party in power is the one that will always pay the price.”

On dealing with Trump, Jeffries warned, “We can’t fall into the trap of being outraged every day at what Trump does. That’s just part of his strategy. Remaining calm in the face of turmoil is a choice.”

He pointed out that the razor-thin margin that Republicans now hold in the House is the lowest since the Civil War.

Asked what the public can do, Jeffries spoke about the importance of being “appropriately engaged. Democracy is not on autopilot. It takes a citizenry to hold politicians accountable and a new generation of young people to come forward and serve in public office.”

With a Republican-led White House, Senate, House and Supreme Court, Democrats must “work to find bi-partisan common ground and push back against far-right extremism.”

He also described how he is shaping his own leadership style while his mentor, Speaker-Emeritus Nancy Pelosi, continues to represent San Francisco in Congress. “She says she is not hanging around to be like the mother-in-law in the kitchen, saying ‘my son likes his spaghetti sauce this way, not that way.’”

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Activism

MacArthur Fellow Dorothy Roberts’ Advocates Restructure of Child Welfare System

Roberts’s early work focused on Black women’s reproductive rights and their fight for reproductive justice. In “Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty 1997)”, she analyzes historical and contemporary policies and practices that denied agency to Black women and sought to control their childbearing—from forced procreation during slavery, to coercive sterilization and welfare reform—and advocates for an expanded understanding of reproductive freedom.

Published

13 hours ago

December 22, 2024

Oakland Post

Dorothy Roberts. Photo courtesy of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Special to The Post

When grants were announced Oct. 1, it was noted that eight of the 22 MacArthur Fellows were African American. Among the recipients of the so-called ‘genius grants’ are scholars, visual and media artists a poet/writer, historian, and dancer/choreographer who each receive $800,000 over a five-year period to spend as they see fit.

Their names are Ruha Benjamin, Jericho Brown, Tony Cokes, Jennifer L. Morgan, Ebony G. Patterson, Shamel Pitts, Jason Reynolds, and Dorothy Roberts. This is the eighth and last in the series highlighting the Black awardees. The report below on Dorothy Roberts is excerpted from the MacArthur Fellows web site.

A graduate of Yale University with a law degree from Harvard, Dorothy Roberts is a legal scholar and public policy researcher exposing racial inequities embedded within health and social service systems.

Sine 2012, she has been a professor of Law and Sociology, and on the faculty in the department of Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.

Roberts’s work encompasses reproductive health, bioethics, and child welfare. She sheds light on systemic inequities, amplifies the voices of those directly affected, and boldly calls for wholesale transformation of existing systems.

This work prompted Roberts to examine the treatment of children of color in the U.S. child welfare system.

After nearly two decades of research and advocacy work alongside parents, social workers, family defense lawyers, and organizations, Roberts has concluded that the current child welfare system is in fact a system of family policing with alarmingly unequal practices and outcomes. Her 2001 book, “Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare,” details the outsized role that race and class play in determining who is subject to state intervention and the results of those interventions.

Through interviews with Chicago mothers who had interacted with Child Protective Services (CPS), Roberts shows that institutions regularly punish the effects of poverty as neglect.

CPS disproportionately investigates Black and Indigenous families, especially if they are low-income, and children from these families are much more likely than white children to be removed from their families after CPS referral.

In “Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families—and How Abolition Can Build a Safer World (2022),” Roberts traces the historical, cultural, and political forces driving the racial and class imbalance in child welfare interventions.

These include stereotypes about Black parents as negligent, devaluation of Black family bonds, and stigmatization of parenting practices that fall outside a narrow set of norms.

She also shows that blaming marginalized individuals for structural problems, while ignoring the historical roots of economic and social inequality, fails families and communities.

Roberts argues that the engrained oppressive features of the current system render it beyond repair. She calls for creating an entirely new approach focused on supporting families rather than punishing them.

Her support for dismantling the current child welfare system is unsettling to some. Still, her provocation inspires many to think more critically about its poor track record and harmful design.

By uncovering the complex forces underlying social systems and institutions, and uplifting the experiences of people caught up in them, Roberts creates opportunities to imagine and build more equitable and responsive ways to ensure child and family safety.