Think Fresno County’s redistricting maps are unfair? Don’t let politicians decide them
Unless there’s a proverbial fly in the soup, the Fresno County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday will approve a 2021 redistricting map that gives each of them the best chance of staying in power.
Which was so predictable, any schlub could’ve seen it coming. You can always count on politicians to do two things: look out for themselves first and their allies second.
The telltale signs have been flashing yellow at every step along the county’s redistricting journey.
First, individual supervisors spoke publicly about keeping the current district boundaries “largely the same” — comments they claimed were misinterpreted when the American Civil Liberties Union came knocking.
Next, the board’s Republican majority appointed an advisory commission stacked with conservative voices.
Now, they’re all set to approve a new map whose lines were drawn by a GOP strategist.
Whether this process or the final product runs afoul of federal and state redistricting laws prohibiting partisan favoritism or discrimination isn’t for me to say. (I’m not a lawyer, nor pretend to be.) But unless civil rights groups decide to take the county supervisors to court (with potential backing from California Attorney General Rob Bonta, author of the 2019 Fair MAPS Act), the question will be moot and the boundaries set until 2031.
No matter how much the voter demographics of Fresno County will have changed by then.
Because more than half of all Fresno County residents live in the city of Fresno (add Clovis and the percentage increases to nearly two-thirds), having a mix of compact, urban districts and sprawling rural ones is unavoidable. It’s all about where those lines are drawn.
Keep tiny school district together; divide Clovis
So when Supervisor Buddy Mendes opines about keeping a tiny school district together, you can’t help but wonder why he doesn’t apply the same rationale to an entire city.
With roughly 120,000 residents in a county of 1 million, there’s no good reason for Clovis to overlap multiple districts. Why shouldn’t Fresno County’s second-largest city be contained in one? Except if the county supervisors did that, only one of them would stand to benefit from the wealthy, Republican hotbed.
More strategic, then, to slice off northwest Clovis (between Willow and Minnewawa avenues, to be precise) in order to help balance out more Democratic-leaning neighborhoods in central and northwest Fresno. Which helps explain why District 2 voters keep electing Republicans like Steve Brandau.
But you don’t hear elected officials or their appointees discuss keeping Clovis whole in public meetings — even though the Fair MAPS Act states geographic entities like cities or census designated places should be kept intact “to the extent practicable” when drawing county district boundaries.
The map county supervisors are set to approve makes minor tweaks around Fresno and Clovis to help balance population disparities. However, that all-important slice of northwest Clovis in District 2 remains virtually intact. Surprise, surprise.
Independent redistricting commission needed
This echoes my original point about politicians acting in ways that benefit themselves and their allies. They can’t help it. Unless, of course, the citizens they represent take away their ability to do so.
In Fresno County, that will require a citizen-led initiative stipulating the creation of an independent commission with the authority to draw the district boundary lines every decade. Because county supervisors in general (and the current Republican majority in particular) are not going to give up those duties willingly.
During my research, I came across only four of California’s 58 counties with their own independent redistricting commissions: Los Angeles County, San Diego County, Santa Barbara County and San Francisco County.
Why is that? In most places, I suspect it isn’t an issue. Simply because California counties tend to either be coastal Democratic strongholds or inland areas that are steadfastly Republican.
Fresno County fits neither box. The electorate here twice rejected Donald Trump as president but also voted to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom. We’re not so easy to categorize, especially now that registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by nearly 8 percent countywide.
But until that voting majority strips county supervisors of the power to draw their own districts, a dwindling minority will continue to hold sway.
