‘When I go to a restaurant, I don’t need to meet the chef,’ top California legislator says about new maps
Top California legislators are touting their “transparent” process to gerrymander the state’s congressional map—while refusing to say who is responsible for drawing it.
“Who exactly is responsible for the maps?” KCRA 3 California capitol correspondent Ashley Zavala repeatedly asked California Assembly Elections Committee chairwoman Gail Pellerin (D.) on Tuesday.
“There were several people involved,” Pellerin said.
“Who specifically?” Zavala asked.
“I don’t have the full list here with me, but we can certainly get that to you. These maps are transparent,” Pellerin said. “When I go to a restaurant, I don’t need to meet the chef. I just enjoy the food.”
California Senate Elections and Constitutional Amendments Committee chairwoman Sabrina Cervantes (D.) gave a rambling response when asked the same question.
“There were many folks, stakeholders, who had an input on the map-drawing process, but ultimately this is up to the decision of California voters,” Cervantes said Tuesday. “This is the most transparent process in the nation.”
Competing answers as to who created the maps have emerged in recent days. Pellerin said there was a “collaboration” of people, but the proposed legislation says she and Cervantes’s committees “prepared” them. Yet Paul Mitchell, a Democratic consultant, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee also claimed credit on Friday.
The maps were adjusted sometime between Friday and Monday, but it’s unclear who made those changes, according to Zavala.
California launched its redistricting effort in response to the Texas legislature’s move to redraw its own congressional map in order to make the state more favorable for Republicans. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D.) plan, the “Election Rigging Response Act,” would give the Democrat-controlled legislature power to bypass the state’s independent map-drawing commission and redraw the Golden State’s congressional boundaries to favor the Democratic Party. Californians will head to the ballot box in November to vote on the plan.
The lack of clarity comes as Newsom promises the process will be transparent.
“I’m deeply grateful … to have this opportunity in a transparent way to have this conversation—this private conversation—more publicly,” Newsom said during an Aug. 10 episode of his podcast, This is Gavin Newsom.
Newsom repeated promises of transparency in the days following. During a Thursday conversation with Heather Cox Richardson, he said, “We’ll do it in a transparent way by putting the maps up and make them available for public review. And we’ll do it in the most democratic way. The people will ultimately decide.”
The next day, Newsom appeared on Pod Save America and said, “This is an emergency measure, again, temporary, transparent, and very democratic since we’re going to ask the people to ultimately decide.”
Hours before Newsom announced his redistricting plan on Thursday, a Politico-Citrin Center-Possibility Lab poll found most California voters wanted to keep the California Citizens Redistricting Commission, the independent panel the state created in 2008 to determine its congressional maps, which Newsom seeks to bypass. Just 36 percent said they “support returning congressional redistricting authority to state legislators.”
Nearly one week later, Newsom’s longtime pollster, David Binder, released a poll that showed Golden State voters are warming up to Newsom’s redistricting plan, according to Axios. Binder found 57 percent of California voters support the redistricting plan, while 35 percent are opposed.
