How San Diego's Redistricting Map Could Shortchange Democrats

I am Maureen Cavanaugh. It's Tuesday, February 23. Here are some of the San Diego stories we are following in the you in the newsroom, rallies will take place at Apple stores in San Diego and across the country today to support the company's refusal to help access the iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino shooters. Local rally will get underway at 530 this afternoon at the fashion Valley Apple Store. Carlsbad voters are going to the polls today to decide the fate of the dining and retail development proposed near the Aqua heady on the lagoon. It was approved by the city Council, but it's opponents collected enough petition signatures to force a public vote. Listen for the latest news through the day right here on KPBS. Our top story on Midday Edition without a single vote being cast in San Diego city Council races, one longtime political analyst is predicting the outcome. Districts five and seven will keep their incumbent Republican council members, districts three and nine will elect Democrats, and in the pivotal district 1 race, Republican Ray Ellis will win in June. Vlad Kogan now professor of political science at Ohio State University says his predictions can be traced to the redistricting commission five years go. He said even with a large Democratic voter registration city Council is likely to have a Republican majority. He wrote about his story joining me now is Vlad Kogan author of paradise plundered fiscal crisis and governance failures in San Diego. Vlad, welcome to the program. Thank you for having me. The commission set new boundaries for nine districts back in 2011. Can you remind us who was on the commission and how those districts were drawn up? Commission have members that were chosen by retired judges from the local courts. I do not have the list of numbers before me. It was a variety of people who were fairly active in the community. The maps that they adopted very much followed along the previous maps. One of the priorities that was a priority for a lot of constituents and folks miss but before the commission was making sure that minority communities represented. We got that. We get a districting plan they had to Latino majority districts. One heavily African-American district, and one very LGB T friendly district. Although this may have been good to ask certain extent these communities, it had the effect of inefficiently packing Democratic voters in a few districts making it hard for them to win a majority. Music over the whole process, do you think the process was fair? I think the process was as fears it could be. The folks that showed up and gave testimony were the folks that had the most influence on what happened. There was a lot of consensus in San Diego about the maps should look like. Again, all these communities came together. This was a bottom-up grassroots effort to try and convince the commission to go along these lines. I think is a process, you cannot faulted. The question is more about the final outcomes. I think it's important to separate the process and the outcome. He said most of the Democrats are concentrated in a few districts. Where are those districts? These are districts south of Interstate 8. The southern part of San Diego is historically the most diverse part, the oldest part, and it is the area where most Latinos and African American voters with. And those communities also tend to be the most democratic communities in San Diego. Did the commission want to create a few -- a few safe seats? I can't get into the commission's minds, but I don't think there was anyone for whom that was the primary goal. A lot of this was bottom-up grassroots. The priority was not on safe Democratic seat but on districts that would elect representatives that look like the communities that they are representing. Those that would elect Latinos, LGB T representatives. In order to secure those districts, you draw very safe Democratic seats with not enough Democratic voters left over for the rest of the city. You say there aren't enough Democratic voters left over for the rest of the city. But there are more Democrats in many of the districts. There are more registered Democrats than Republicans in most districts. It's really important when we're talking about elections to separate voters who are registered from voters who actually vote. A big problem in San Diego and communities across the country is that Democratic registered voters tend to turn out less, especially in offside goal, midterm, primary elections. So when you have a slight Democratic advantage on paper, it rarely translate into an advantage on election day. As a result, there is often a Republican advantage. And speaking with Vlad Kogan, he is now a political science professor at Ohio State University. He used to live here, hero paradise plundered fiscal crisis governance failures in San Diego. Do they still have a majority on the city Council until 2014? Yes. They did. A lot of those were voted under the previous set of maps. This explains the phenomenon we're seeing. One of the things that we have to think about is the partisan advantage in the district. We also have to think about incumbency. For local advantages and incumbency, if you are an incumbent City Councilman Councilwoman, voters know you. As these have kicked in and a lot of the districts previously represented by Democrats who won their seats by a comfortable margin, now we have open seats and there is no Democratic incumbent running, those are becoming much more can have it if -- competitive. Now we're seeing the same thing this year in district 1. One of the object's of the redistricting commission, if I recall correctly, was to have a compact district, districts that made sense geographically. In order to get the kind of spreading out of the Democratic vote that you are talking about, wouldn't you have to have these oddly shaped districts that we so often associate with gerrymandering? Is it a bad thing to have compact districts? I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. Again, if you look at the map, the districts don't look that compact. They follow certain natural boundaries. But I think generally, we have this expression that you should not judge a book by its cover. And in redistricting you should apply the same thing. You shouldn't judge a districting plan by how looks. That is an aesthetic criteria. It might be helpful for looking at works of art, but it tells you nothing about the quality representation that the redistricting plan will generate. Fundamentally redistricting is about representation. If it comes down to nice-looking districts that don't effectively translate voter preferences until election outcomes versus a map that looks less pretty but has desirable Democratic qualities, I would choose the less pretty map the does a better job of representing voters and their demands. Any of the drawbacks you find for registered Democrats in these swing districts, the don't seem to be the map's fault, but it seems if it's the Democrats fault. If they can't get people to follow -- turnout for elections, if they had this idea that they want to have this diverse representation in a few districts, isn't that really the parties goal to get their voters out to vote? Absolutely. Again, there is a certain amount of verdict ability to elections. A lot of the things you mentioned turned out, that is known today, but that has been known for decades not only in San Diego but nationally. I think the broader question, and from my perspective the more philosophical question is what is the goals of redistricting? One is descriptive representation which is electing representatives that look like the communities they serve versus substantive verse which is getting the policies people want. I think the Democratic communities in San Diego especially a lot of the communities active in this distressing product Jack didn't recognize the that the difference between these two. They were creating a risk that one day Republicans would take power and ultimately leave these representatives in a minority with very little to do with policy items. I think that trade-off has to be acknowledged. The folks who are working at redistricting need to take that into account. Which is descriptive representation mean when it comes to the practical districts? One district that's always going to have of Latino representative for instance? I think there is evidence that there are benefits. There's research showing that representatives who are minorities are more likely to respond to constituency request from minorities. It was also interesting work showing that African-American mayors tend to have a very positive outcome effect on labor map marking outcomes for African-Americans. I don't want to play -- downplay, but there is a trade-off that all those things might come at the expense of a democratic majority, and all these communities, they are all overwhelmingly Democratic. They are all overwhelmingly Democratic, so in order to get those districts with somebody in the LG BT community for instance would have a really good chance of always having a member of the board that represented that community. That is how the district was drawing is that what you're saying? Yes. I guess I'm saying in order to do that there is also going to be fewer Democrats elected citywide. Unfortunately if you are a black Democrat or you are in LGB T Democrat in San Diego, you have to decide which is more important to you is being represented by someone that looks like me, important, or is it having my co-partisans in a majority of the city Council where they are dictating policy. Is it more important to me? There has to be a trade-off, you can have both. You have to choose. Why don't Republicans run into the same problem? I think Republicans in San Diego, not only San Diego but nationally, they are to distorted much more scientifically. We see this phenomenon that Democratic voters are heavily concentrated in a few dents urban areas. That crates province with redistricting. Be if you were to follow national G -- natural geographic boundaries, you would create a redistricting the plan where the Democrats are packed into a few districts. Republicans are much more spread out. In the suburbs they tend to be pretty Republican. Rural areas are fairly Republican. It's residential patterns and how we choose to live. There is a natural advantage for Republicans in that sense. But in San Diego, it's not just the result of the natural advantage but a result of the efforts that were made to maximize specific representation. So if not descriptive representation, how do you think Democrats should align themselves across the city? I think that is a difficult question to answer. I don't want to put forward, redistricting land could be optimal. I think folks have different priorities. It comes down to what we value the most. The only point I wanted to make with my piece is to point out that the efforts that were made in 2011 in making the heavily African-American district more heavily African-American, making LG BT district more LGB T friendly, all of those came at a cost. All of the voters that were moved into or out of the districts made this problem worse. I guess some people would argue that it is potentially better for the city for the city Council members to have to work together to have to compromise rather than have one party dominate politics? I know that you are saying help Republicans have a good chance to be majority now on this Council, but with the swing districts, it means that either or Democrat or Republican might be elected in those particular districts. That is going to be interesting to see. A lot of the districts where the Republicans have been elected have been elected because of sizable margins. It has been because of up cycle elections. They face electoral pressure for Democrats. It's something worth following as the city Council is sworn in. That is very interesting. Thank you I know you are speaking to us from Ohio. Think you for taking the time Vlad Kogan, a -- assistant professor at Ohio State University. Great to talk to you.