Due to the Voters FIRST Act, California citizens are becoming more involved in politics, with the 2020 Citizens Redistricting Commission being one example. The application deadline for the Commission had to be extended to August 19 because of the massive influx of new applications. As of right now, there are 13,735 submitted applications, but there have been days when the Commission received 1,000 applications a day.
What is the 2020 Citizens Redistricting Commission? Essentially, after the census data is released, California must update the lines of the congressional, State Senate, State Assembly, and the State Board of Equalization districts to represent the census data. Furthermore, the Commission is comprised of 14 members who represent each political party—five Democrats, five Republicans, and four independents. Each member has to meet specific eligibility requirements: being a registered voter under the same political party since July 1, 2015, and participating in two of the last three statewide elections.
Once the application process closes, the panel reviews the applications and selects the best 120 applicants, whom they interview in Sacramento. The applicants are broken down into three groups of 40 based on political parties. The 120 applicants are cut to 60, where the three subgroups become groups of 20.
The subgroups are then presented to several legislative leaders where they may remove a maximum of two applicants from each subgroup. The remaining candidates are then given to the California State Auditor. Then, the Auditor must randomly choose three Republicans and three Democrats along with two independents, and those selected will create the first eight members of the Commission. Finally, the first eight members will choose the last six members of the Commission.
The Commission is tasked with creating the new geographic districts so that the population is equally distributed among them. The newly decided boundaries will then be displayed on four maps for each of the districts, which the Commission will vote on. To be finalized, three Commission members from each political party must approve the maps, with the Secretary of State certifying it.
With applications originally opened on June 10, the Commission appreciates the increase of applications because it shows that California citizens want to be more involved. The application extension allows Californians to have a say in the redistricting of California.
