Panel Releases New Voting District Maps Largely Disfavored by Los Alamitos

An independent panel tasked by California voters to design new legislative districts released its first drafts of maps Friday, and they place Los Alamitos in Congressional and Assembly districts that city officials are vehemently opposed to.

In the proposed Congressional district, Los Alamitos and Rossmoor would go from its current district of Orange and Los Angeles County cities under Republican Dana Rohrabacher to a largely Democratic district anchored by cities such as Long Beach, Paramount, Lakewood, Cerritos, and Hawaiian Gardens.

Seal Beach on, on the other hand, would anchor the north end of a coastal Orange County district that goes down to Laguna Niguel.

For the proposed State Senate district, Los Alamitos, Seal Beach and Rossmoor would fit into an Orange County District that included Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, Costa Mesa, Irvine, Laguna Beach, Tustin, Villa Park and Irvine.

For the proposed Assembly district, Rossmoor, Los Alamitos and Seal Beach would be part of a coastal district that goes from Los Alamitos down to Dana Point with the inland city of Costa Mesa.

It is the proposed Assembly district that Los Alamitos officials came out in opposition to earlier this week in hopes of influencing the California Citizens Redistricting Commission. City leaders lobbied to keep Los Alamitos with similar small cities such as La Palma and Cypress along the gateway to Los Angeles County.

In a letter to the panel this week, Los Alamitos Mayor Kenneth Stephens wrote, “Accordingly, my colleagues on the City Council and I believe strongly that Los Alamitos has developed important working relationships with those cities and has created significant “local communities of interest” that would be substantially weakened by the proposed districts that would include larger coastal communities. Our strength and identity is, in part, developed by the relationships and commonalities shared with Cypress, La Palma, Garden Grove and Stanton. We feel to be placed in a “coastal district” with larger, affluent coastal communities would serve only to marginalize a small but important city in Orange County. Our concerns in many cases will simply not be their concerns.”

At least in these first drafts of maps, the panel was not swayed by the city’s concerns. Los Alamitos officials aren’t the only ones disappointed by the first draft. Representatives of Latino groups have claimed that the new districts dilute the voting power of the growing Latino population, and the Los Angeles Times is reporting that Democratic and Republican analysts believe that the new district will result in Democratic gains in Congress and both state houses.

In 2008, California voters opted to have a nonpartisan commission design the district maps to avoid the kind of gerrymandering that allows the two political parties to create districts designed to protect or bolster their power. There is still time to comment on the proposed districts at the California Citizens Redistricting Commission website. Final district maps are expected to be completed in August.

Editor's Note: Click on the maps to the right for a clear look at your city's proposed dsitrict.