Latino voters would see a major boost in political clout under new congressional and legislative districts approved unanimously Monday by the independent citizen panel charged with redrawing the state’s political map.
Although the panel, created by voter initiative in 2008, does not take partisan balance into account in drawing district lines, the maps it produced all but guarantee that Democrats will retain super majorities in the Legislature and their current lopsided majority in California’s congressional delegation.
Nearly one-third of the state’s 52 new congressional districts would have a majority of Latino citizens of voting age under the new maps. That’s an increase of three districts even as California lost a seat for the first time in its history because its population did not grow as fast as other states’.
Latino civil rights advocates said the increase in political power — which probably will lead to an increase in the number of Latino representatives — was fitting since much of the state’s population growth over the past decade has taken place in their communities.
“This is a substantial increase in the potential for candidates supported by the Latino community to be elected to Congress,” said Thomas A. Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
“It’s a long time coming and appropriate for a state that is now 40% Latino in population and 27% of registered voters,” Saenz said.
Advocates for Black and Asian American voters, who had feared their communities’ voices would be diminished under earlier drafts of the maps, said they were pleased by the final product.