"For the past 12 years, LaMalfa, a Republican, has represented California's first congressional district, a sprawling, mostly rural expanse in the northeast corner of the state. But thanks to Proposition 50-California's counter to Republican gerrymandering efforts in Texas-LaMalfa's home will soon lie in a new district that reaches from the Nevada border all the way to the affluent wine country of Sonoma, near the Pacific Ocean."
"Another successor district will connect the remote Oregon-California-Nevada vertex to the suburbs of San Francisco, an eight-hour drive away. It will be shaped almost exactly like the 19th-century political cartoon that coined the term Gerry-Mander. LaMalfa can still run for Congress next year, taking his pick of either of those two new districts. This gives him the option of losing to a Democrat by perhaps 30"
Proposition 50 redraws California congressional maps to combine distant, diverse regions into single districts, displacing Republican incumbents like Doug LaMalfa. New districts link the Nevada border to Sonoma and the Oregon-California-Nevada vertex to San Francisco suburbs, producing heavily Democratic electorates. LaMalfa can run in new districts but faces likely defeat by large margins. Most Republicans oppose federal involvement in redistricting despite partisan consequences. Federal legislation would be the only effective remedy for widespread partisan gerrymandering as traditional constraints erode. California may drop from 11 Trump-voting districts to five under Prop 50, eliminating many Republican seats.
Read at The Atlantic
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