San Luis Obispo County turned back the clock on April 18 and adopted a new redistricting map that mirrors what it’d used for the decade prior—before the county transitioned to the redrawn and controversial “Patten map” last year.
The 3-2 Board of Supervisors vote formalized a court settlement reached last month with SLO County Citizens for Good Government and the League of Women Voters of SLO County, which sued the county to stop the Patten map from being implemented, alleging that it gerrymandered the five districts to favor the Republican Party.
“[The new map] is best for us because it goes back to where we were,” 3rd District Supervisor Dawn Ortiz-Legg said in support of the repeal-and-replace at the April 18 hearing. “We didn’t have to change the map in the first place, that came through from the census. By 2030, that will change, and I do support an independent redistricting committee.”
Ortiz-Legg, 2nd District Supervisor Bruce Gibson, and 4th District Supervisor Jimmy Paulding all favored the redistricting map titled Map A—one of the three under consideration to replace the Patten map. All three were finalists during the 2021 redistricting process, and all three made significantly fewer changes to the 2011 district lines than the Patten map.
“We need a fair and equitable map that does not favor a particular political party. We need a map that will keep communities of interest together,” Paulding said. “I support Map A.”
Map A keeps all local cities in single districts except for the city of SLO, which is split between the 2nd, 3rd, and 5th districts. It reunites the communities of Los Osos, Morro Bay, Cayucos, Cambria, and San Simeon in the 2nd District. It keeps Paso Robles, San Miguel, and Shandon in the 1st District and groups Atascadero, Santa Margarita, Pozo, and the California Valley in the 5th District. Nipomo, Oceano, and Arroyo Grande are back together in the 4th District, while Avila Beach, Pismo Beach, Grover Beach, and the Edna Valley are in the 3rd District.
The map divides the town of Templeton between the 1st and 5th districts—a splintering that faced an unsuccessful legal challenge in 2011—and breaks Cal Poly into two districts.
Opponents of Map A–1st District Supervisor John Peschong and 5th District Supervisor Debbie Arnold—highlighted those jurisdictional divisions and defended the legality of the Patten map.
“There are no court rulings on the Patten map,” Peschong said. “They did not rule. There is no gerrymander because the court did not rule there was.”
Arnold echoed Peschong, and lamented the fact that a closed session settlement is what triggered the Patten map’s repeal.
“This map never got to have its day in court,” Arnold said. “For a process that the state goes out of its way to make sure there’s a lot of public input, then to have it end with a settlement done by a few people behind closed doors, I think is a really sad thing.”
Supervisors traded jabs on April 18 about the events that took place since Arnold, Peschong, and former 4th District Supervisor Lynn Compton voted in the Patten map in December 2021.
In February 2022, soon after SLO County Citizens for Good Government filed a lawsuit against the map, a SLO County Superior Court judge denied the group’s request for a preliminary injunction to bar the county from using the map for the 2022 elections. The California Supreme Court upheld that decision on appeal.
But the local judge did note in her ruling that the petitioners had a “reasonable probability of prevailing” in the case due to the fact that the Board of Supervisors deliberately refused to consider evidence that the Patten map favored one political party.
“The prior board went against legal advice of our county counsel to consider that evidence,” Supervisor Paulding said at the meeting. “The reason we’re here is because there was a movement in our community around democracy, transparency, accountability, and good government.”
In arguing for Map A, Gibson, Paulding, and Ortiz-Legg noted that it keeps longstanding communities of interest together—like the North Coast and the Oceano/Nipomo dunes area—and respects most city boundaries. They added that while they considered political demographic evidence on Map A, it did not influence their decision-making.
According to political data submitted by Citizens for Good Government attorneys, Map A has two strongly Democratic districts (2nd and 3rd), one strongly Republican district (1st) and two swing districts with slightly more Republican voters (4th and 5th). Under the Patten map, per the analysis, the county’s two swing districts gained wider Republican advantages despite a countywide Democratic edge in voter registration.
On the other hand, local resident and longtime California Republican Party attorney Charles Bell wrote in a comment letter that the Patten map did retain two swing seats, like the 2011 map. He called Gibson’s and Paulding’s election victories last year “the best evidence that the claimed ‘discriminatory effects’ of the Patten map simply did not exist.”
About an hour’s worth of public comment mostly sided with the supervisors’ decision to repeal and replace the Patten map. Patricia Gomez, a board member with Citizens for Good Government, called 2022 “a surreal election cycle,” which required voters to “overcome the gerrymander.”
“We citizens saw that our voices were being quelled and our rights to representation were being stripped. … We would have none of it. The Patten map sparked an incredible community mobilization and a reminder that with togetherness, we have power,” Gomez said.
Others weren’t as pleased. Paso Robles resident Allen Duckworth complained about a sliver of the 5th District in Map A that extends south down the Cuesta Grade into portions of the city of SLO and Cal Poly. He called it the “ribbon of shame.”
“The only reason to do that is to dilute the conservative vote in the 5th District. That’s gerrymandering,” Duckworth said.
While Map A supporters celebrated the board’s decision, many asked that it be the last time the SLO County Board of Supervisors draws its own district lines.
“Once the new map is adopted, it’s time to begin the process of establishing an independent redistricting commission,” said Cindy Marie Absey, president of the League of Women Voters of SLO County.
After they selected the new map, county supervisors voted 3-2 to ask staff to explore the possible routes to establish a citizens redistricting commission in time for the 2030 cycle.
While the Patten map’s overturn restored the map to its 2011 architecture, it will cause more disruption to residents’ voting cycles. Because the 2022 elections were held under the Patten map, the same communities that were denied the chance to vote in 2022 will lose that chance again in 2024 after the switcheroo. Those communities include Oceano, Los Osos, and Morro Bay, which now won’t vote for a supervisor until 2026—an eight-year drought.
But Los Osos resident Don Maruska said that correcting the redistricting mistake is worth the sacrifice.
“We lost our opportunity to vote in the last election, and to return to a legal map, we will also sacrifice our opportunity to vote for a supervisor in 2024,” Maruska said. “So now we each have a choice: We can wallow in our many losses and grudges, or we can pivot from this moment of conflict. … We can each choose to let go of our losses and move forward together for the successes that we can have as a county.” Δ
This article appears in Apr 20-30, 2023.
Point 1: DIstricts are required to ensure minorities are not denied an opportunity to elect candidates from their part of the whole. San Luis Obispo does not have areas of minority populations. Certaintly this or any other proposed map cannot take our scattered intregrated minority population into consideration. It would be easier for members of a minority group to elect someone from their group if Supervisors were elected At Large since every member of a minority group [or political party] could vote for an At Large candidate of their group [or political party] thereby electing a representative of their Group [or political party].
Point 2: San Luis Obispo is geographically divided into a] North, b] Central [City of SLO and Cal Poly],c] South and d] North Coastal and possibly e] Inland. If at all possible those geographical lines should be honored.
Are the numbers of voters within the Five CItes, the North County, San Luis Obispo City, etc such that they cannot be within the same District?
Do any of those areas really need to be spit.
The 2nd District below is the only one that completey keeps like communites together.
“We need a fair and equitable map that does not favor a particular political party. We need a map that will keep communities of interest together,” YES INDEED WE DOI gkl
“Map A keeps all local cities in single districts except for the city of SLO, which is split between the 2nd, 3rd, and 5th districts. VERY BAD gkl
“It reunites the communities of Los Osos, Morro Bay, Cayucos, Cambria, and San Simeon in the 2nd District. GOOD. gkl
“It keeps Paso Robles, San Miguel, and Shandon in the 1st District and groups Atascadero, Santa Margarita, Pozo, and the California Valley in the 5th District. ALSO GOOD gkl
” Nipomo, Oceano, and Arroyo Grande are back together in the 4th District, while Avila Beach, Pismo Beach, Grover Beach, and the Edna Valley are in the 3rd District.” NOT GOOD gkl
The map divides the town of Templeton between the 1st and 5th districtsa splintering that faced an unsuccessful legal challenge in 2011and breaks Cal Poly into two districts. NOT GOOD gkl
Why Districts at all?
I suggest a vote on districting would fail if the voters actually understood that Distiricts dilute their vote for their favored Group or political party. gkl
So… will District 2 have another election for Supervisor since many constituents were illegally removed from District 2 and, therefore, unable to vote for their choice of Supervisor?
The logic used by Supervisor John Peschong in saying, “… They [the courts] did not rule. There is no gerrymander because the court did not rule there was.” speaks volumes about the contemptuous way the previous Board treated the public. Even if you didn’t see the sunrise, you can be pretty sure it came up without a judicial finding of fact.
In fact, the definition of gerrymandering doesn’t mention courts at all: “[Gerrymandering] manipulates the boundaries of (an electoral constituency) so as to favor one party or class.” Geez, what kind of person would do that??
When the previous Board opted to ignore sensible recommendations to gently adjust district lines to account for population changes, they (by definition) engaged in gerrymandering. If there was any question about this (there wasn’t), the fact that the author of the map they voted for is a big honcho in the county’s Republican party seals the stinky deal.
It’s sad that the remaining “conservative” board members didn’t take away a more important lesson from electoral defeat: give average citizens credit for being discerning and thoughtful and they might vote for you and your policies.