So, just out of curiosity, I decided to see what the election stats would look like in Orange County after Loretta Sanchez's district is restored to an effective Latino majority. Note, for the record, that I do not say if the majority-Latino seat is restored because I don't have any doubt that it will be. Maybe I'll be proven wrong, but I think this is such an open & shut case in terms of the VRA that I'm simply going under the assumption that it's a matter of when and how.
In any case, what I've done on the map below is manipulate the minimum number of proposed districts so as to restore an effective Latino majority to CA-47. It's actually ridiculously easy (the #1 reason why it's inevitable so far as I'm concerned) and is no more out of sync with the guidelines of the Redistricting Commission than is the proposed map. If anything, it is more in keeping with them in my view, which is all the more reason why the attempt to eliminate the Latino majority district strikes me as inexplicable.
As an aside, perhaps the Commission is under the false impression that creating majority-Latino seats elsewhere in the state is sufficient in the exchange. If so, then their legal counsel should be fired immediately. The Supreme Court has made it abundantly clear that each local minority population must be evaluated on its own merits in terms of the VRA. If, rather, the issue at hand is to provide some kind of greater Asian opportunity district, then it's beyond dispute that a minority population that can form an effective, compact majority trumps one that cannot.
What I've basically done is actually quite straightforward: I've swapped Westminster and Fountain Valley out of CA-47 into CA-46 in exchange for the heavily Latino part of Anaheim from CA-40. The rest of Anaheim (which is split in the draft maps between CA-40 & CA-48, eliminating whatever alleged argument in favor of dismantling the CA-47 Latino majority due to municipal boundaries) now goes to CA-40, along with the western half of Orange. CA-48 then picks up all of Irvine (incidentally putting Campbell back in the district) and finally the lines between CA-46 & CA-48 are tidied up in Laguna Hills. I have not manipulated the districts that enter Orange County from San Diego or Los Angeles.
In any case, here's my proposed alternative, followed by demographic & election stats:
So, here's how my districts compare to the draft maps of the Redistricting Commission.
CA-40 (Royce-R)
Proposed LHBYL: 46.7% Obama - 50.0% McCain
Alternate LHBYL: 45.7% Obama - 52.4% McCain
CA-46 (Rohrabacher-R)
Proposed OCCST: 48.6% Obama - 48.1% McCain
Alternate OCCST: 46.2% Obama - 51.9% McCain
CA-47 (Sanchez-D)
Proposed WESTG: 51.3% Obama - 45.2% McCain (48% Latino VAP)
Alternate WESTG: 58.8% Obama - 39.3% McCain (60% Latino VAP)
CA-48 (Campbell-R)
Proposed STHOC: 43.9% Obama - 53.0% McCain
Alternate STHOC: 47.3% Obama - 50.9% McCain
The election stats for the proposed Commission districts are from this link. The election stats for my alternate districts are from mapping them in the 'special districts' version of California on DRA. It'd be nice to have Brown/Whitman stats for my alternates, but I don't.
So, what do y'all think?