NYT feature on the consequences of California redistricting on rural northstate

Kellen Browning reports for the New York Times under the headline, "They Wanted a Conservative State. They Might Get a Democratic Representative Instead."  The story is a richly textured look at how the residents of far northern California feel about the November passage of Proposition 50, which adopted new congressional districts that will temporarily override the decisions of the state's independent redistricting.  As I've written about previously here, here, here and here, this means residents of the current District 1, an inland district stretching from Butte County, about 80 miles north of Sacramento, all the way to the Oregon state line, are likely to be represented by a Democrat after the 2026 midterm elections.  This is because parts of current District 1 will be combined with a strip of coastal wine country stretching down into Marin County, just north of San Francisco.   The current 1st District is shown in lavender in the map below.  Much of it will be subsumed into a new 2d District, outlined by the dotted orange line. 

Source: We Draw the Lines California, California Legislature
Credits: Jeremia Kimelman, CalMatters

Excerpts from Browning's story follow.  Some highlight rural-urban difference and others highlight the feelings of rural voters in California' north state.  

For decades, residents in the rural north have longed for a political earthquake that would cleave their region out of California and allow them to create their own fabled “State of Jefferson” with conservatives in Southern Oregon. They have increasingly felt underappreciated and misunderstood by the liberal Democrats who run California and dominate the congressional delegation — who, in their telling, siphon away their water and prioritize environmental regulations that undercut farmers’ livelihoods.

Now, they not only lack a conservative State of Jefferson, but their entire region is also likely to lose its Republican congressman and have him replaced by a Democrat after next year’s midterm elections. 

“People in the cities don’t have a clue what it takes to survive out here,” said Terry Williams, a 75-year-old rice and walnut farmer who moved to Richvale in 1974. “I don’t think people that were born and raised in the cities can represent us to the same extent.”

Here's a quote from Gene Lifur, a 52-year-old from Orland, population 8,2998, which claims to be the "Queen Bee Capital" of North America for its role in raising the pollinators:  

There was definitely a feeling of throwing up your hands.  You’re going to lose a lot of the interest for voting in the North State.

Another resident, DaNell Millerburg, 62, who manages the Richvale Cafe, "said the idea of her small town being represented by someone from the Bay Area was 'scary.' ...'They want to save the opossums and the beavers and the snakes.  But it’s not good for the farmers, because those animals dig holes in their ditches.'"

Browning meet many of those he interviewed at the cafe, "a nonprofit kept afloat by locals, who wanted to ensure that the area’s solitary farmers had a place to meet."  Richvale, population 234, is the home of current District 1 Congressperson Doug LaMalfa who asserted, "I understand people here far better than a Bay Area interloper."

Rural residents, Mr. LaMalfa said, grew crops enjoyed by California’s cities but were scorned by those living in cities. He said that Democrats were passing expensive pollution regulations, tearing down crucial dams in the name of protecting salmon populations and introducing wolf packs that attacked their herds. Proposition 50 was the latest affront.

“Their voice is being silenced on how they feel about the issues here, because Newsom and the three-to-one ratio of Democrats wanted to see if they could steal five seats,” Mr. LaMalfa said of the governor and state lawmakers.

* * *

“I’m furious,” [LaMalfa] added, “because I’ve had my people kidnapped from me.”

* * *

The Democrats running against Mr. LaMalfa agreed that rural Californians have been neglected by many in their party. But they also argued that Republicans like Mr. LaMalfa have hurt farmers and agrarian communities with their policies.

Those Democrats include Mike McGuire of Geyserville, in Sonoma County, who until recently was president pro tem of the California Senate, and Audrey Denney, who grew up on a coastal cattle farm but has lived and worked for 20 years in Chico, a college town in the same county (Butte) as Richvale.  Denney has already run twice, unsuccessfully, against LaMalfa.  McGuire's California Senate district stretches from Sonoma County all the way to the Oregon state line, but hugs the coast, a more progressive region.  I have observed over the years that he takes the needs of his region's very rural reaches very seriously.  Read about that here and here.  Denney will presumably vie to represent the new 1st District, and McGuire will seek to represent the new 2d District.  

I'll close with this quote from another resident, Chris Culp, 62, a retired Navy officer, who Browning found at the Last Stand Bar and Grill:  

Somebody from Santa Rosa, Oakland, they’re not going to understand, and honestly I don’t think they’re going to take the time to get educated about what’s going on up here.  We’ve got different needs than the people in the dense cities and the coast.

Other posts highlighting the different needs of rural and urban California and long-standing agitation related to the would-be State of Jefferson are here.