Good morning. (Here’s the sign-up, if you don’t already get California Today delivered to your inbox.) We’ve known for a while that California’s population growth has slowed to historic lows in recent years as immigration has dwindled and birthrates have plummeted. That’s true for some states across the country and the country as a whole. But it’s not true for every state. As my colleague Robert Gebeloff reported, some states, like Texas, grew rapidly over the 2010s. And that, experts say, could result in California losing a congressional seat for the first time in history. [Read more about why some states are growing, stalling or shrinking.] According to an analysis from the Brookings Institution, California is projected to lose one representative, while Texas is slated to gain three in the next round of reapportionment, which will follow the 2020 census. I called Eric McGhee, a political participation expert with the Public Policy Institute of California, and Karin MacDonald, who was the principal technical consultant to the state’s redistricting commission in 2011, to talk about how the process actually works. So this is tied to the census? The same census that the state is worried undocumented immigrants or their families will be afraid to participate in? In short, Mr. McGhee told me, yes. Reapportionment is directly tied to the decennial census. As the law stands now, the seats are supposed to reflect the entire population of each district — not just U.S. citizens — and there won’t be a question about citizenship. But Mr. McGhee said there’s still lingering concern that California’s population could be undercounted. On the other hand, even if you based your projections on the 2010 census — “which was by all accounts a pretty good census,” he said — California might still be on track to lose. As far as we know, California, unlike, say, West Virginia, hasn’t actually lost residents. The state’s still growing a little. Why are we on track to lose a seat? “It’s a zero-sum game,” Mr. McGhee said. “So your state can grow — California has grown in population — but not grow enough compared to other states and lose out as a result.” It wasn’t always this way, he said. For much of American history, seats were added without a limit. “So it was like, ‘You get a seat, and you get a seat!’” Mr. McGhee said. That Oprah-like approach continued until 1911, when the number was capped at 435. Still, California kept growing, which meant that the state continued to gain seats, even as others lost them. But in 2011, the state’s 53 representatives stayed flat for the first time. Mr. McGhee said that, relatively speaking, there most likely will be little reshuffling this time around, since population growth at the national level has slowed. But California is still likely at risk. So, say the census goes perfectly and California still loses a seat. What happens then? The census always takes place during years ending in zero. And redistricting, the process of deciding how to draw the boundaries of all legislative districts, happens the year after that — regardless of whether the number of seats has changed.
In 2011, as a way of trying to remove partisan influence over the process, the state enlisted an independent, nonpartisan citizens commission to redraw the lines. Ms. MacDonald said the commission’s top priority was to ensure that the population of each district was equal. Then, she said, the commission was told to keep cities and counties in the same district as much as possible. Another criterion was keeping “communities of interest” intact, which involved gathering public input from around the state. According to a ProPublica report from the time, that distance didn’t fully stop the state’s Democratic Party from influencing the process. Still, in many other states, legislatures are in charge of redrawing the maps, which makes the process much more explicitly partisan.
Ms. MacDonald said that this time around, she doesn’t know exactly how a new commission will tackle its task. They’ll have their work cut out for them. It’ll be tough to accurately account for those displaced by fire. And some regions, like the Inland Empire, have gained residents forced to leave more expensive urban areas, like Los Angeles, shifting the distribution of residents around the state. In any case, Ms. MacDonald said, even speculating about what a new map might look like is impossible. “I could make a lot of money if I knew,” she said. [Read The Times’s editorial board’s argument for making the House more representative.]
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And Finally …
Recently, I was cleaning out a closet and stumbled across my old, white brick of an iPod. Firing it up — yes, I also kept the charging cord — was a nostalgia trip. (“Take Me Out,” anyone?) My brush with the technology of yore reminded me how little of my favorite music I’d be able to listen to and how few of my favorite movies I’d be able to watch today without streaming services. I also couldn’t remember the last time I backed up the photos from my iCloud to an external hard drive. If any of that sounds familiar to you, or you’re simply looking for ways to be less reliant on companies that are hoovering up your personal information, my colleague Brian X. Chen wrote about how to maintain your own backups. California Today goes live at 6:30 a.m. Pacific time weekdays. Tell us what you want to see: CAtoday@nytimes.com. Were you forwarded this email? Sign up for California Today here. Jill Cowan grew up in Orange County, graduated from U.C. Berkeley and has reported all over the state, including the Bay Area, Bakersfield and Los Angeles — but she always wants to see more. Follow along here or on Twitter, @jillcowan. California Today is edited by Julie Bloom, who grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from U.C. Berkeley.
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