The order from the Supreme Court, in instructing us to follow the criteria set forth in Reinecke, required us to join adjacent Assembly districts in creating Senate districts, a practice now known as "nesting." Because we are also required to comply with the Voting Rights Act, we would be excused from this requirement if to do so would require us to violate the Act. However, we did not
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find any conflict between the act and the nesting that we propose, and so our plan consists of fully nested Senate districts. We designed Assembly districts in part to allow for easy and appropriate nesting and since our Assembly districts have already been described in some detail, we shall be more brief in the following descriptions. Since our Senate districts differ in substantial ways from the existing Senate districts, and population changes since 1980 have, in effect, moved entire Senate districts from one area to another (e.g. from central Los Angeles to more southerly reaches of the state) it is impossible to provide a numbering scheme which closely parallels the existing districts.(59) We have tried to assign the numbers rationally.(60)
Senate District 2: Assembly Districts 1 and 7. This is located in the same general area of the current Senate District 2, and extends from Del Norte County on the north through Vallejo in
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the south. Since there are only three Assembly districts north of the Golden Gate and Carquinez Strait, one of them had to be joined with an Assembly district to the south. The only two possible combinations were to join Santa Rosa and Napa to northern Contra Costa County or Marin and Southern Sonoma counties to San Francisco. We chose the latter as being preferable.
Senate District 3: Assembly Districts 6 and 13. This also is located in the same general area as the current Senate District 3. It does divide San Francisco and includes all of Marin County and some of Sonoma County. We did have, however, requests submitted to us supporting such a division of San Francisco.
Senate District 8: Assembly Districts 12 and 19. This includes the remainder of San Francisco and is similar to the current Senate District 8. It also allows a substantial Asian community in San Mateo County to be included with the bulk of the San Francisco Asian community.
Senate District 7: Assembly Districts 11 and 15. This includes most of Contra Costa County as does the present Senate District 7.
Senate District 9: Assembly Districts 14 and 16. This includes most of the geographically compact African-American population of the East Bay and creates a district which is 32.4
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percent African-American and almost 60 percent minority in population. It is both a functionally compact district and complies with the Voting Rights Act. The Senate has suggested that putting as many as 30 percent African-Americans in a single district may constitute "packing," but this is contrary to testimony of many African-American representatives who appeared before us suggesting that an effective African-American majority district should have, at minimum, close to 35 percent African-American population. We also note that there has never been an African-American heretofore elected to the Senate from any area included in our proposed district.
Senate District 10: Assembly Districts 18 and 20. This area contains most of the area along the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay south of Oakland.
Senate District ll: Assembly Districts 21 and 24. This resembles the current Senate District 11, and consists of the southern part of San Mateo County and the more southerly part of the Santa Clara Valley.
Senate District 13: Assembly Districts 22 and 23. This district has a minority population of over 50 percent, composed mainly of Latinos and Asians. It covers the northern part of Santa Clara County.
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Senate District 15: Assembly Districts 27 and 28. This district reunites previously divided Monterey and Santa Cruz counties and resembles the current Senate District 17.
Senate District 1: Assembly Districts 3 and 4. This district includes the "Mother Lode" counties and other mountain counties.
Senate District 4: Assembly Districts 2 and 8. This district
includes almost all of the agricultural parts of the Sacramento Valley.
It makes whole both Butte and Yolo counties
County, [corrected
text] which had been divided for population equality reasons
in formation of the constituent assembly districts.
Senate District 6: Assembly Districts 5 and 9. This district is located wholly within Sacramento County.
Senate District 5: Assembly Distric"provisions. (see <I>Delaney</I>v.
<I>Superior Court</I> (1990) 50
Cal. 3d. 785, 802-803 (ballot arguments are accepted sources from which
to ascertain voters intent and intent of voters governs interpretation
of constitutional provisions enacted by them]); White v. Davis (1975)13
Cal 3d. 757, 775 (ballot argument identifies the principal "mischiefs"
at which the constitutional amendment is directed].)"ts 10 and 17.
This district includes the southern part of Sacramento County and almost
the whole of San Joaquin County.
Senate District 12: Assembly Districts 25 and 26. This district reunites Stanislaus County and the City of Modesto. It
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includes the more northerly parts of the San Joaquin Valley.
Senate District 14: Assembly Districts 29 and 32. This district consists of the "non-Latino" Assembly districts in the southern part of the San Joaquin Valley.
Senate District 16: Assembly Districts 30 and 31. As noted earlier, these Assembly districts were drawn so that, when paired, they would produce a Senate district which is 50.8 percent Latino in population and has a total minority population of 64 percent.
Senate District 17: Assembly Districts 34 and 36. This district combines the two Assembly districts located in the Mojave and other desert regions east of the Sierra Nevada into a Senate district, thus preserving the integrity of this geographic region.
Senate District 18: Assembly Districts 33 and 35. This district includes Santa Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and the western part of Ventura County.
Senate District 19: Assembly Districts 37 and 38. This district includes the eastern part of Ventura County and an
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adjacent part of the northwest sector of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles.
Senate District 20: Assembly Districts 39 and 40. This district combines the two Assembly districts in the San Fernando Valley with the greatest number of minorities, the result being a Senate district with a 46 percent Latino population and a 58 percent total minority population.
Senate District 21: Assembly Districts 43 and 44. This district includes the suburbs of Glendale and Pasadena to the north and northeast of the City of Los Angeles.
Senate District 22: Assembly Districts 45 and 46. This district is centered on downtown Los Angeles and the eastern part of the City. It is heavily Latino and has a substantial Asian presence as well.
Senate District 23: Assembly Districts 41 and 42. This district includes the Hancock Park and Westwood areas of the City of Los Angeles as well as Beverly Hills, Santa Monica and the Malibu area.
Senate District 24: Assembly Districts 49 and 57. This district includes much of the San Gabriel Valley and is a Latino majority district.
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Senate District 25: Assembly Districts 51 and 52. This is an African-American majority district centered on Inglewood, Watts and the north part of Compton.
Senate District 26: Assembly Districts 47 and 48. This is the second African-American majority district in Los Angeles County. It includes the Crenshaw and Exposition Park areas of the City of Los Angeles as well as Culver City.
Senate District 27: Assembly Districts 54 and 56. This district includes the Palos Verdes Peninsula, Lakewood, Downey and most of Long Beach.
Senate District 28; Assembly Districts 53 and 55. This district includes much of the area bordering on Santa Monica Bay including Torrance and the area inland from Torrance including Carson and part of Compton.
Senate District 29: Assembly Districts 59 and 60. This is the easternmost Senate district in Los Angeles County and the problems involved in constructing the constituent Assembly districts described earlier are magnified by the combination of the two into this Senate district. Even though somewhat oddly shaped, virtually all of the population is located within 10 miles of West Covina (the central point in the district) and it is well served by freeways.
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Senate District 30: Assembly Districts 50 and 58. This district is the third Latino majority Senate district and it is located in the area southeast of downtown Los Angeles and includes Huntington Park, Montebello and Norwalk.
Senate District 31: Assembly Districts 63 and 65. This district combines the two Assembly districts in San Bernardino County with the smallest minority populations.
Senate District 32: Assembly Districts 61 and 62. This district combines the two Assembly districts in San Bernardino County with the largest minority populations. The resulting Senate district is just over 40 percent Latino and over 55 percent in total minority population. The new district is similar to the current Senate District 34.
Senate District 33: Assembly Districts 71 and 72. This district includes most of interior Orange County.
Senate District 34: Assembly Districts 68 and 69. This district combines the two Assembly districts in Orange County with the largest minority population. The resulting Senate district is almost 44 percent Latino and almost 60 percent in total minority population because of a substantial Asian presence.
Senate District 35: Assembly Districts 67 and 70. This
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district includes most of coastal Orange County.
Senate District 36: Assembly Districts 64 and 66. This district includes the westernmost part of Riverside County.
Senate District 37: Assembly Districts 75 and 80. This district includes the most rural part of San Diego County, all of Imperial County and eastern Riverside County. Several persons who appeared before us urged us to consider combining Imperial County with the Latino part of San Diego in legislative districts, and MALDEF and the Senate both combine these areas in the Senate districts that they recommend.(61) We considered this alternative (which in our planning would have to be done by combining a somewhat re-drawn Assembly District 79 with Assembly District 80) but ultimately rejected the concept. Though there are a large number of Latinos both in San Diego and Imperial County they are widely separated and do not constitute a single geographically compact minority group. Further, the interests of urban Latinos may
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well be different than those in agricultural Imperial County. Finally, to connect them with anything but a narrow corridor(62) along the border in Southern San Diego County would dilute the existing minority population in our proposed Assembly District 79.
Senate District 38: Assembly Districts 73 and 74. This district includes the northern part of San Diego and the southernmost part of Orange County. It reunites Carlsbad, which was split in the underlying Assembly districts for population equality reasons.
Senate District 39: Assembly Districts 76 and 78. This district combines the two Assembly districts in southern San Diego County with the smallest minority populations.
Senate District 40: Assembly Districts 77 and 79. This district
combines the two Assembly districts in southern San Diego County with the
largest minority populations. Though the resulting district is only 32
percent Latino, it is 55 percent in overall minority population due to
a substantial Asian and some African-American population. The district
also reunites Chula Vista.
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