Politics & Government

Rohnert Park's Legislative and Congressional Boundaries Shift East and South

The city, which for the past 10 years has largely been lumped with the majority of Sonoma and Marin counties, is now grouped with cities as far east as Sacramento.

Maps released Monday that draw new congressional and legislative boundaries — looping in and out of California’s 58 counties — have dramatically altered Rohnert Park's political landscape for the next 10 years, at least.

There's a clear shift in districts of the bedroom community of 40,000, just minutes from Sonoma County's largest and most historic cities — Santa Rosa, Petaluma and Healdsburg. Rohnert Park is now largely grouped in with cities east to Sacramento County, down south to Vallejo in Solano County and large swaths of Napa County.

The maps cut large parts of Marin and Sonoma counties, which were formerly compact both legislatively and congressionally, apart. Here's how the new Assembly, Senate and Congressional districts look:

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  • Rohnert Park, which in 2001 was clumped in the 6th Assembly District with Sebastopol, parts of Sonoma Valley, Santa Rosa and Marin County, is now separated from Cotati and Petaluma, and looped into District 4 with Napa, parts of Sonoma Valley such as Boyes Hot Springs and large swaths of Sacramento County. The previous district was represented by Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael.
  •  Rohnert Park is now grouped in with Senate District 3, which includes Rohnert Park, Cotati, Petaluma and Sonoma on the west side, and stretches east to Sacramento County, south to Vallejo and also includes Napa and Solano counties. The 2001 Senate District 3 looked vastly different than 2011's. It encompassed southern Sonoma County (including Rohenrt Park and Petaluma), Marin County and the eastern part of San Francisco. The 2001 district was represented by Sen. Mark Leno of San Francisco.
  • In 2001, Rohnert Park, Santa Rosa, Petaluma, Novato through Marin County to Mill Valley were all in Congressional District 6, which ended at the northern Sonoma County border. But now, Sonoma County is split in half. Rohnert Park is now in Senate District 5, grouped with part of Lake County, Sonoma Valley including St. Helena and Calistoga, Santa Rosa, Cotati, Napa, south to Benicia, Hercules and Martinez. Rep. Lynn Woosley, who currently represents the area, is retiring.

Political buffs have said the citizen group charged with drawing the new districts will likely give Democrats an advantage over Republicans statewide.

"Well, it is a blue state, so what do you expect," said David McCuan, an associate professor of Political Science at Sonoma State University who specializes in the study of California electoral politics and public policy.

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“The reason these maps are so important, is because they’ll effect what politicians decide to run and where,” McCuan said. “This is like crack for political junkies.”

The new maps also show many incumbents have been drawn out of their districts — giving redistricting priority instead to communities of interest that give equal representation to minority groups — a primary goal of this year's citizen panel charged with drawing the lines.

Communities of interest and contiguity are the basic bread and butter of drawing political lines, McCuan said.

Voters called for a nonpartisan, transparent approach to redistricting when they passed by propositions 11 and 20 in November 2008 and 2010, respectively, ultimately creating the 14-member Citizens Redistricting Commission. Made up of five democrats, five republicans and four independents, the commission is the first of its kind in California. Previously the districts were drawn by lawmakers.

McCuan said when the propositions were written, one of the main goals was to break up districts that were drawn for incumbents' political gain, a process known as gerrymandering.

“Far too long, Californians have been frustrated by a legislative process that drew districts that primarily supported the reelection of incumbent legislators,” said Vincent P. Barabba, a member of the commission in a news conference Monday. “The voters showed they wanted fundamental government reforms."

Thus, redistricting officials this year were "charged with the responsibility to create districts that provided candidates of all political persuasion a fair chance to be elected,” Barabba said. 

Barabba added that based on Props. 11 and 20, the maps adopted did not consider incumbents, potential candidates or political party registration in redrawing the districts. 

Elections held since 2001, Barabba said, “resulted in an environment considered safe by incumbents as demonstrated by the fact that in the 765 elections in congressional and legislative districts since 2002, only 5 seats have changed party.” 

New districts are touted as being more competitive, and follow criteria set forth by the California Supreme Court that require them to represent communities of interest, be contiguous, compact and have relatively equal populations.

Although the commission was charged with drawing communities of interest together for equal representation during elections, new maps show that population and geography play arguably an even bigger role. The evidence is how large Sonoma County with larger populations have been sliced and diced to fill in holes in surrounding districts.

“One reason Rohnert Park and Petaluma are grouped with Sacramento, parts of the valley and cities south to Vallejo is because the commission at times has to trade off population and communities of interest,” McCuan said. “Often cities with higher populations, including Rohnert Park and Petaluma, are cut up quite a bit partly because they have larger populations.”

Take Congressional District 2 for example, which stretches from the Golden Gate Bridge up the northern California coast to the Oregon border, splitting Sonoma County in half. More populated cities in and near the Bay Area are largely used to fill in holes in districts to the north, which generally have smaller populations.

Furthermore, "when there's only 40 State Senate districts, they tend to be very large, because the population decreases as you move north, so you have to fill it in with the larger cities," McCuan said. 

Though commission spokesperson Robin Wilcox said the commission is confident that the maps will prevail against legal challenges and the new districts will be supported by the public, McCuan disagrees.

It’s likely the new redistricting lines will be challenged either in court or a statewide ballot referendum, McCuan said. 

Early on it looks like minority groups and republicans will challenge the new district boundaries, which largely favor democrats in a majority blue state, he estimated.

The sole commissioner who voted against approving the new maps, Michael Ward, said it appeared that although the new redistricting process — aimed at being open and transparent without the hubbub of partisan politics — was flawed. 

According to the commission, more than 2,700 members of the public spoke at 34 commission hearings across the state and about 20,000 comments were received in writing.

“The commission has carefully considered the varied interests throughout the state and has successfully balanced those interests in crafting fair and representative districts,” officials said.

But Ward didn’t agree.

“The Citizens Redistricting Commission has certified maps that are fundamentally flawed as a result of a tainted political process,” Ward said.  “I believe that propositions 11 and 20 were necessary to clean up our politics and end the process of partisan and special interest gerrymandering. But this commission simply traded the partisan backroom gerrymandering by the legislator for partisan backroom gerrymandering by average citizens.”

“Throughout this 8-month process,” Ward added, “as a member of this commission, I had the sense that decisions were being made outside the public’s view. I felt that I could not get answers to questions or an explanation for the rationale for drawing some boundaries in certain ways.”

McCuan said the process is sort of like new software.

“The first iteration of the software will have bugs and problems that need to be altered,” he said. “But the commission should be commended for the job they’ve done. The lines are always going to be fodder for being attacked.”

The maps were officially certified by the Secretary of State Aug. 15 that shape new electoral district boundaries for California’s 53 congressional, 40 State Senate, 80 State Assembly and 4 State Board of Equalization districts.

Now that the final redistricting maps were submitted to the Secretary of State for certification, the public has 45 days to file any complaints, which will be reviewed by the California Supreme Court.

The maps will take effect in time for the June 2012 primary, unless the courts issue an order precluding their use, Wilcox noted.

Editor's note: Click here to view the commission's statewide maps. Rohnert Park's are included in the PDFs to the right. This article originally stated there were 40 Congressional Districts. There are, in fact, 53. There are 40 Senate districts in California.


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