A Textual Analysis on Redistricting Powers under the California Constitution

Current national events, including the U.S. Supreme Court and Congress’ refusal to

curtail extreme partisan gerrymandering, redistricting related racial discrimination

by other states, and efforts to engage in mid-decade redistricting as a way to offset

voting patterns, have prompted state lawmakers elsewhere to consider redistricting

measures in their own states. Some state lawmakers have argued that a state-bystate

national strategy is necessary to keep Congress representative of the nation as

a whole.

Naturally, attention has turned to the nation’s largest state, California, and the

question is being debated, whatever the merits of redistricting for these reasons, as

to whether the Legislature has the authority in California to respond to these

events by enacting its own revised redistricting maps or whether such action, if

desired, must occur in response to a constitutional amendment adopted the People.

Without regard to whether such an effort is advisable or politically possible, our

inquiry is whether the plain text of the California Constitution authorizes the

legislature to enact redistricting legislation at this time. There are credible textual

arguments that the answer is yes.

While the California Citizens Redistricting Commission has the legal responsibility

to draw districts once every 10 years following the Census, the California State

Legislature has the legal constitutional authority to draw new districts today. In

this memo, we present an independent legal analysis to assess what the text of the

California Constitution prescribes about redistricting, and what the 2008 and 2010

amendments changed in the Constitutional provisions related to redistricting.

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