1. WHAT IS REDISTRICTING? It’s the process of drawing electoral district lines. For congressional, state assembly, state senate or city council districts.

2. Reapportionment v. Redistricting The census counts the number of people who live in all the states and in the country. With the census numbers comes the process of federal reapportionment and redistricting. Reapportionment is the process of deciding how the 435 members in the House of Representatives will be distributed among the 50 states. Changes with every census because states gain or lose population. Redistricting draws the lines so that each electoral district, local, state or federal districts has the same number of people. Lines changes with after every census because a district loses or gains people.

3. Example: California Congressional Districts Reapportionment after 2010 census: California gets 53 congressional districts or 53 representatives in the House of Representatives. Was first decade in long time that California didn’t add any congressional representatives. Redistricting draws those 53 districts to contain the same number of people : 702, 905

4. State legislative districts Same process as Congress where mandate is to draw districts with same number of people in the districts. State law governs the drawing of legislative districts Example: California has 40 Senators. After 2010 district each Senate district had to have a population of 931,349. Example: California has 80 Assembly districts. Each district had to have a population of 465,674.

5. Who draws the districts? In most instances the state legislators draw the state districts and a governor approves the maps. Congressional districts usually are also drawn by a state legislators and approved by the governor For city lines, usually the governing city body, i.e. city council or city board of supervisors. County supervisors draw the County district lines In some states and cities, commissions draw the lines.

6. Recurring issues in redistricting Drawn to favor a political party control of the state legislature Drawn to protect a political parties control of the Congressional districts in a state Drawn to protect an incumbent’s seat Do not keep together a “community of interest” Drawn to split up the voting power of a political party or racial group

7. California examples