The San Francisco Examiner today picked up some New York Times coverage about the work of the California Citizens Redistricting Commission, including what follows, which speaks to some issues and districts in rural California, including in the Central Valley and exurban southern California. The tory starts with the announcement of Devin Nunes, who has represented a district in the southern San Joaquin Valley (specifically parts of Fresno and Tulare County) for two decades that he will not run for re-election:
No longer able to count on his rural, agricultural base, Nunes would have had to win over the gracious neighborhoods along Van Ness Avenue in Fresno, with their verandas and Black Lives Matter flags, and the hipsters of the city’s Tower District, who have more affection for Devin Nunes’ Cow, a Twitter account mocking the congressman, than the man himself. The commission appears intent on giving Latinos in the Central Valley a chance to elect their first representative ever.
Nunes could have moved to a new district taking shape along the Nevada border, which will be heavily Republican, but he chose to go elsewhere. He was not alone in pondering a new future. After losing his San Diego-area seat to a Democrat in 2018, another outspoken conservative, Rep. Darrell Issa, moved to a conservative district abandoned by indicted Republican Duncan Hunter. That seat could end up far more competitive.
The Duncan Hunter district, in eastern San Diego County, is arguably exurban, as is a district that includes parts of northern Los Angeles County, in the area of Santa Clarita and the Antelope Valley, which the article also discusses:
Rep. Mike Garcia, a Republican, won a special election to replace a young Democrat felled by a sex scandal, then shocked Democrats by winning reelection last year by 333 votes in a district that Biden won by 35,000. The commission, however, appears intent on lopping off Republican-heavy Simi Valley from Garcia’s district in north Los Angeles County, leaving him holding on by a thread to a considerably less conservative seat.
Finally, the early maps of the California state assembly and senate districts are out, and they show a single state senate district down the eastern side of the state, from the Oregon state line south to Death Valley. It is greater than the size of the state of Kentucky and would take 12 hours to travel from north to south. A screen shot of the map follows (look right to the state's border with Nevada). The only urban area in this district is in Redding the far north. Lake Tahoe is roughly equidistant between north and south:
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