{"id":325351,"date":"2020-04-27T05:04:46","date_gmt":"2020-04-27T12:04:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/?post_type=blog&#038;p=325351"},"modified":"2022-03-29T15:50:07","modified_gmt":"2022-03-29T22:50:07","slug":"fairer-redistricting-california","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/blog\/fairer-redistricting-california","title":{"rendered":"Maps: The Fight for Fairer Redistricting and Voting Rights"},"author":5642,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"sync_status":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","castos_file_data":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[461441],"tags":[327142,9392,440761,1211],"industry":[],"esri-blog-category":[478532],"esri_blog_department":[478192],"class_list":["post-325351","blog","type-blog","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-equity-social-justice","tag-equity","tag-redistricting","tag-representation","tag-social-justice","esri-blog-category-analytics","esri_blog_department-gis-for-good"],"acf":{"video_source":"","video_start":"","video_stop":"","short_description":"California\u2019s Fair Maps Act takes cues from the Dolores Huerta Foundation to ensure district maps match the demographic makeup of a community.","pdf":{"host_remotely":false,"file":"","file_url":""},"flexible_content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"sidebar","layout":"standard","image_reference":null,"image_reference_figure":"","spotlight_image":null,"section_title":"","spotlight_name":"","position":"Right","content":"California\u2019s new Fair Maps Act has taken cues from the Dolores Huerta Foundation to make certain that district maps match the demographic makeup of a community.\r\n\r\nKey Takeaways\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>Dolores Huerta Foundation uses GIS to map fair representation for Kern County, California board of supervisors.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Maps provide a common ground to display unfair divisions for Latino and Sikh populations<\/li>\r\n \t<li>California\u2019s Fair Maps Act prevents future redistricting from unfairly dividing communities.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>","snippet":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"As the US undergoes a year of intense campaign coverage that will culminate with a presidential election, it\u2019s worth remembering the importance of politics at the grassroots level. The outcome of local contests, often for positions and appointments that attract minimal attention, can have a profound effect on people\u2019s everyday lives. Maps play an important role in driving and defining these struggles.\r\n\r\nIn 2011, Kern County, in California\u2019s agriculture-rich Central Valley, redrew the districts for its board of supervisors. The new map split the county\u2019s largest Latino community between two districts.\r\n\r\nLatinos account for more than half of Kern\u2019s population, but the new map made them a minority in both districts, and effectively limited their representation on the board. Seven years after the redistricting, a federal judge ruled that it violated the Voting Rights Act. As part of the settlement, California officials redrew the map of Kern\u2019s supervisor districts.\r\n<h3><strong>Remapping the School District<\/strong><\/h3>\r\nThe Dolores Huerta Foundation (DHF), an organization that advocates for underrepresented communities in the Central Valley, saw an opportunity to address the similarly askew Kern High School District, the largest in the state. Trustees oversee school board elections that influence the education of over 38,000 students."},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":330411,"image_position":"center","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"\u201cNot only did we have only one Latino on the board, we had three trustees in the wealthiest part of Kern County who live within three miles of one another, for a school district that covers 2,500 square miles,\u201d said Sophia Garcia, a DHF analyst. \u201cOne of those trustees was in charge of the rural farm worker communities we work with. Folks there have had to fight with city government and the board of supervisors for things like sidewalks, sewers, a pool, and money for a skate park, so that kids can have recreational facilities.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe trustees on the school board wield an even larger influence on the lives of Kern County youth. The decisions they make address issues like curriculum, the allocation of resources, migrant education, LGBTQ support, and cultural literacy training for staff and teachers.\r\n\r\nThe obvious inequities in the current school district map provided the impetus for the state to avoid another legal challenge. \u201cThe Kern County Board of Supervisors had been sued for the same reason,\u201d Garcia said. \u201cOnce they lost, and the judge called for new maps to be drawn, the school district said, \u2018We don\u2019t want to go to court\u2014we\u2019ll just go through the expedited public redistricting process.\u2019\u201d\r\n<h3><strong>Mapping Underrepresented Populations<\/strong><\/h3>\r\nThe question now for DHF was how to present its plan for more equitable redistricting. Garcia and her colleagues used a geographic information system (GIS) to create maps that displayed their new proposed boundaries. The GIS allowed them to show relevant information as layers on the map.\r\n\r\n\u201cWe used population data, but we wanted to make it visual,\u201d Garcia said. \u201cSo you could see where the Latino population lives, contrasted with where all the trustees live. The map clearly shows who benefits from the way the lines were drawn in 2011, and how this division negatively impacts our Latino communities\u201d"},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":330431,"image_position":"center","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"The presentation of the map served two related purposes. It was a concise way to condense a large amount of supporting material to present their plan. Just as importantly, it rallied the community. Convincing busy people of the importance of school board elections can be a tough sell. By bringing the map to the communities it represents, DHF helped people see and understand the inequity in a way that mere numbers could not.\r\n<h3><strong>Making Voices Heard<\/strong><\/h3>\r\nDolores Huerta, president of DHF, co-founded the National Farm Workers Association in 1962 with C\u00e9sar Ch\u00e1vez. The foundation still uses Ch\u00e1vez\u2019s preferred organizing tactics, relying heavily on home visits to build solidarity. As word spreads, small meetings sow the seeds for larger gatherings. Interest in DHF\u2019s efforts for the Kern County school board motivated people to attend the public hearings and voice their support.\r\n\r\n\u201cMaps and data are vital for redistricting work, but we don\u2019t stop there,\u201d Garcia explained. \u201cTo educate, motivate and empower residents to attend board meetings the foundation and I held community meetings for three months. And we attended every board meeting on Monday nights. Some of them lasted until 11 p.m. From beginning to end, we had community members present. We even held a press conference with over 60 people in attendance.\u201d"},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":330421,"image_position":"center","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/app\/uploads\/2020\/04\/KHSD_Redistricting_Map_HD2.jpg"},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"While the Kern High School District did not adopt the DHF Community map in its entirety, the work paid off. Garcia credits the campaign with motivating and empowering the community to understand the importance of redistricting.\r\n\r\n\u201cWorking in this foundation, you see that various people in power tend to disregard what community members say at school district meetings, city council meetings, board of supervisors meetings,\u201d she said. \u201cBut when you put a map in front of them, they can\u2019t refute that.\u201d\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nLearn how <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/arcgis\/products\/esri-redistricting\/overview\">maps bring clarity to the redistricting process<\/a>."},{"acf_fc_layout":"sidebar","layout":"standard","image_reference":null,"image_reference_figure":"","spotlight_image":null,"section_title":"","spotlight_name":"","position":"Center","content":"<h2><strong>Redrawing California<\/strong><\/h2>\r\nThe redistricting work done by the Dolores Huerta Foundation (DHF) recently got a boost from California lawmakers. The <a href=\"https:\/\/leginfo.legislature.ca.gov\/faces\/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200AB849\">Fair Maps Act<\/a>, signed into law in October 2019 by California Governor Gavin Newsom, requires cities and counties to use standardized, fair redistricting criteria that prioritizes communities when drawing district lines to ensure political boundaries fairly and accurately represent the population.\r\n\r\nThe law obliges governments to revisit\u2014and, if necessary, redraw\u2014district maps every ten years, in response to the decennial U.S. Census data. It also takes steps to help the public remain engaged in this process.\r\n\r\n\u201cCalifornia cities and counties are now required to have more community engagement,\u201d Sophia Garcia, a DHF analyst, explained. \u201c[The new law] mandates transparency of the data and requires that maps be published well ahead of time.\u201d It also strengthens the importance of defining \u201ccommunities of interest\u201d when redistricting, while tightening loopholes created by prior vague definitions of the term. Some past efforts have given incumbents an inherent advantage by considering where they live when defining these communities.\r\n\r\nThe bill also takes important steps toward accounting for California\u2019s multicultural makeup. Californians speak over 200 languages, and more than 40 percent speak a language other than English at home. In Kern County, where DHF does much of its work, a large Sikh community in Bakersfield has made Punjabi the third-most common spoken language.\r\n\r\n\u201cIn the past, there were never any Punjabi translators at public redistricting meetings,\u201d Garcia said. \u201cBecause of this law, there will now have to be translation assistance so that they can share their thoughts on the proposed maps. The Sikh community can now feel comfortable attending the meetings and have a tangible understanding of what the maps are saying, what the maps mean, and be able to make comments about them.\u201d\r\n\r\nDHF\u2019s redistricting work has not stopped there. They are currently involved in the Kern Community College Redistricting campaign and are creating a \u201cRoadmap to Redistricting Community Toolkit\u201d to share steps and methods that others can follow to ensure fair representation.","snippet":""}],"references":null},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.9 (Yoast SEO v25.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Maps: The Fight for Fairer Redistricting and Voting Rights<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"California\u2019s new Fair Maps Act took cues from the Dolores Huerta Foundation to ensure redistricting maps match the demographic makeup of a community.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/blog\/fairer-redistricting-california\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta 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