Race and Partisanship in California Redistricting

From the 1965 Voting Rights Act to Present

Olivier Richomme

Race and Partisanship in California Redistricting: From the 1965 Voting Rights Act to Present studies redistricting and its evolution in California since the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. It poses the question: What is the interactive play of race and partisanship in redefining the meaning of political representation through redistricting? Unlike other studies of redistricting, it focuses not on the South but on the West, not on White versus Black, but on the difficulties of diversity. It tells the story of redistricting in California, which has now become one of the most left-leaning states and is considered a harbinger of political trends in the United States. Ultimately, this is a book that looks forward by looking backward at the tug-and-pull of redistricting efforts aimed at ensuring greater equality in a racially diverse democracy and asks: What is the role played by race and partisanship in the voting rights revolution? How does that vary far from the traditional flashpoints of American race relations? What does that tell us about the redefinition of political representation in the past half-century? And––most crucially––what does it foretell, for the next half century?

Lexington Books

Pages: 432 • Trim: 6¼ x 9

978-1-4985-8592-7 • Hardback • April 2019 • $140.00 • (£108.00)

978-1-4985-8593-4 • eBook • April 2019 • $133.00 • (£102.00)

Subjects: Political Science / Political Process / Campaigns & Elections, Political Science / California Government

Race and Partisanship in California Redistricting

From the 1965 Voting Rights Act to Present

Hardback

Summary

Race and Partisanship in California Redistricting: From the 1965 Voting Rights Act to Present studies redistricting and its evolution in California since the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. It poses the question: What is the interactive play of race and partisanship in redefining the meaning of political representation through redistricting? Unlike other studies of redistricting, it focuses not on the South but on the West, not on White versus Black, but on the difficulties of diversity. It tells the story of redistricting in California, which has now become one of the most left-leaning states and is considered a harbinger of political trends in the United States. Ultimately, this is a book that looks forward by looking backward at the tug-and-pull of redistricting efforts aimed at ensuring greater equality in a racially diverse democracy and asks: What is the role played by race and partisanship in the voting rights revolution? How does that vary far from the traditional flashpoints of American race relations? What does that tell us about the redefinition of political representation in the past half-century? And––most crucially––what does it foretell, for the next half century?

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 432 • Trim: 6¼ x 9

978-1-4985-8592-7 • Hardback • April 2019 • $140.00 • (£108.00)

978-1-4985-8593-4 • eBook • April 2019 • $133.00 • (£102.00)

Subjects: Political Science / Political Process / Campaigns & Elections, Political Science / California Government

Author

Olivier Richomme is associate professor of American history at the University of Lyon.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: “One Person, One Vote”: How Minorities Benefitted from the End of Malapportionment

Chapter 2: Gridlock over one (Latino) seat in 1971

Chapter 3: The Battle for the Latino vote and the Burton Plan of 1981

Chapter 4:Race and Redistricting in LA County: Garza v. County of Los Angeles

Chapter 5: Strategic Gridlock of 1991: Republicans Bet on the Judiciary

Chapter 6: The status quo gerrymander of 2001: MALDEF sues the Democrats

Chapter 7: The California Civil Rights Act of 2001: Latinos end at-large districts

Chapter 8: Tenth Time is a Charm: The California Redistricting Commission (CRC)

Chapter 9: Conjoined Polarization in California: how the correlation between race and partisanship changed redistricting

Reviews

“If you want to understand the tangled connections between law and politics, resistance and reform, and above all, race and partisanship, in the last 50 years of politics in the American states, start here. Appropriate for students and interested lay readers, as well as for scholars of redistricting and the politics of race, this book is a key to understanding how politics has worked in the nation’s largest state in the recent past and how it might work throughout the nation in the future.”
— Morgan Kousser, Caltech

“In Race and Partisanship in California Redistricting Olivier Richomme studies 50 years of redistricting state legislative and U.S. House districts. In great detail and with extensive documentation, he examines the processes employed to revise these districts, the contentious politics involved in doing so, and the resulting districts, which were often alleged to be either racial gerrymanders, partisan gerrymanders, or both. But Richomme does not stop there: he also provides considerable attention to important contemporary developments affecting redistricting in California.”
— Richard L. Engstrom, Duke University