Marin County is preparing to redraw its district boundaries in the short window of time between the release of census data this fall and December, when supervisorial candidates must begin preparing for next year’s election.
The county redraws its five districts after each 10-year census, but the pandemic delayed the 2020 census, posing significant challenges for this year’s process. The Census Bureau missed its April deadline to release redistricting data, and once the data is released in the fall, the county will only have until Dec. 15 to finalize the new map.
At the same time, new state legislation to ensure fair and equitable representation in the redistricting process is making the redrawing of borders less discretionary for county supervisors.
“They’re all great requirements to make sure people are represented,” Supervisor Dennis Rodoni said, “but it makes it a bit challenging this year because of the short timeline.”
The largest legislative change comes as the result of California’s reforms to the phenomenon advocates call “prison gerrymandering.” The census counts prisoners as residents of the areas in which they are incarcerated, which can boost the voting power of an area with a prison, despite prisoners themselves not being able to vote in most states. Starting with the 2020 census, California no longer counts incarcerated people as residents of the prison’s jurisdiction, but as residents of wherever they lived before prison.
This means that for the first time, the almost 4,000 incarcerated people at San Quentin will not be counted in Marin’s Fourth District, leaving Supervisor Rodoni’s district with a population deficit that must be remedied through redistricting.
“Right off the bat, we’re three to four thousand people short in District Four,” Supervisor Rodoni said.
Along with a shrinking population of permanent residents in rural Marin, this means that the Fourth District will need to incorporate some land from a neighboring district in order to balance the populations of each district. District Four, though often thought of as the West Marin district, has been absorbing pockets of the more populous eastern corridor since the 1980 census. Today, Supervisor Rodoni said, only a quarter of the district’s population lives in West Marin, with the remaining three quarters mainly in western Novato, Corte Madera and the Canal area of San Rafael.
“I think it’s most challenging for District Four because obviously you have a variety of communities you’re representing,” Supervisor Rodoni said. “You’re talking about representing the Canal area and Stinson Beach at the same time.”
Preliminary data show that although the county’s population may have fallen, Novato has grown, meaning that when the lines are redrawn, District Four will probably absorb more of the western side of Novato from District Five. According to California law, however, districts can’t be redrawn based on population shifts alone.
The state requires counties to engage in public outreach and minimize the division of neighborhoods and “communities of interest” to the extent possible when drawing district boundaries. Keeping these communities together unites them based on common interests and strengthens their voting power. Chris Skinnell, special counsel to the county from the law firm Nielsen Merksamer, is helping Marin comply with state elections code in the process.
“What constitutes a community of interest in one place may not in another, so it’s as much an art as a science to try and determine what they are,” Mr. Skinnell said.
The state’s Citizens Redistricting Commission is encouraging Californians to provide input by mapping their own communities using an online tool, and Marin County hopes to have a similar tool available next month.
“We really need the public’s help in order to define what a community of interest is,” said Dan Eilerman, the assistant county administrator. The Citizens Redistricting Commission’s online survey asks residents to name their community and describe its shared interests and values, and asks whether there are other areas they want to be grouped with or separate from.
The county also must hold four public sessions, both before and after the map is redrawn, to hear community feedback. At last week’s Board of Supervisors meeting, Mr. Skinnell suggested an ad hoc working group to encourage active public participation in both these hearings and in the mapping process.
Stephanie McNally, the director of advocacy and policy at the nonprofit Canal Alliance, spoke up at last week’s meeting to suggest herself as a potential member of the proposed working group. She led a county project to encourage participation in the census among historically undercounted communities like the Canal, and she believes continued community input on matters like redistricting is vital.
Although the changes to the district map will likely be small, Ms. McNally said they still offer opportunities for local government to better represent the low-income Latino community that Canal Alliance serves. She told the Light she sees an opportunity in the population shift spurred by the removal of the prison population from District Four.
“The question is, can we also take that opportunity to have that impact the re-drawing of those lines not just in response to San Quentin but also to be a more equitably representative county?” she said.
Find the Draw My CA Community Tool at drawmycacommunity.org