San Francisco is posing huge challenges for political line-drawers

SACRAMENTO – From a bird’s eye view, San Francisco appears to be a relatively easy place to draw new political maps, as its residents are densely populated on a narrow peninsula and numbered to occupy a congressional district and multiple legislative seats.

In practice, however, creating new district lines proves to be a pain as the city has many strong ethnic and cultural communities. Sometimes moving a line a few blocks can have a significant impact on a block’s voting rights.

This difficult balancing act is playing out as the California Citizens Redistricting Commission draws new political boundaries for the next decade to accommodate the population changes reflected in the recent U.S. census.

“It’s such a melting pot that it’s hard to draw boundaries that communities don’t divide,” said Samuel Garrett-Pate, a spokesman for Equality California, an LGBTQ advocacy group, of the San Francisco relocation. “It’s possible, it just takes hard, thoughtful work. Communities don’t live in pretty little boxes in which you can draw pretty lines around them. “

The commission has proposed few significant changes to the city’s congressional seat held by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi or the Senate seat held by Scott Wiener, both Democrats.

But the commission’s work card would change the city’s two assembly districts dramatically. The proposal has angered some local leaders who say it would dilute the influence of Asian Americans, Latinos, African Americans, and LGBTQ residents.

Your proposal to have a working ‘visualization’ at this point could be published as a draft map next week and the Commission will seek public comments. The Commission has until the end of December to adopt its final cards.

The commission has tried to draw more Asian American majority counties across California, including the west side of San Francisco. But by moving more colored voters to an assembly district on the west side of the city, it could also create a white majority district on the east side. Both districts currently have a sizeable Asian population.

David Lee, executive director of the Sino-American Voter Education Committee, said community leaders fear the card could inadvertently reduce minority representation by cramming colored voters into a district.

“Why is the east side of San Francisco getting whiter under this plan?” asked Lee. “Some have suggested that this could be viewed as packing, trying to put all Asians into one district and thereby dilute their power.”

For decades, San Francisco’s assembly districts have essentially divided the city in half from north to south, with District 19 on the west and District 17 on the east. Both areas have elected Asian-American MPs for many years, most recently with members of the Democratic Assembly, Phil Ting in District 19 and David Chiu in District 17 (Chiu recently resigned after being appointed city attorney).

The advocates of the map commissioners would instead divide the city into two ornate L-shaped districts:

• In the south, several multi-colored working-class neighborhoods – including Bayview-Hunters Point, the Outer Mission and Visitacion Valley – would be incorporated into District 19.

• In the north, several predominantly white and affluent neighborhoods – including the Marina District, Pacific Heights, and Sea Cliff – would join District 17.

Reallocation officers have spent little time discussing these changes in their public line drawing meetings. A commission spokesman did not respond to a request for comment on concerns about the proposed San Francisco boroughs.

If the cards are ultimately adopted, the demographics of the boroughs would change dramatically.

According to an analysis by the Sino-American Voter Education Committee, white people would make up about 56% of voters in District 17, instead of 40% in the current district. District 17 would also have a much smaller percentage of Asian voters: 25% versus 34% today.

In the meantime, District 19 would become more diverse, with fewer white voters and slightly more Asians. Asian Americans would make up 49% of the district on the new map, compared to 47% today.

David Ho, a political advisor and long-time organizer in Chinatown, said someone unfamiliar with San Francisco might look at the map and believe it gives the city a more Asian-American influenced district.

He said this attitude ignored the city’s long history of electing different representatives in both assembly districts. He said it also ignores the nuanced nature of neighborhoods because it would separate Chinatown from other allied working-class neighborhoods like Bayview-Hunters Point and Visitacion Valley.

The map would also break up other color communities in the city, including separating the historic Black Fillmore neighborhood from Bayview-Hunters Point, which is now home to many black residents. The map would also separate the Mission District from the Outer Mission and divide Latino voters.

“I think this card is a bit annoying for everyone,” said Ho. “This iteration is just offensive. I don’t see any group that would support this iteration locally. “

LGBTQ leaders have also raised concerns about the map as it moves two neighborhoods, Bernal Heights and parts of Twin Peaks, to District 19. These neighborhoods have a lot of LGBTQ residents and were previously grouped into District 17 with Castro and SOMA.

“We didn’t see the priority of keeping the LGBTQ community together the way we need to,” said Garrett-Godfather, chairman of Equality California.

David Campos, a former board member running for Chius’ old seat in District 17, lives in Bernal Heights and could be pulled out of District 17. The new card will not be used for this special election, but it will apply for the regular election next year for the district.

Campos said that beyond the potential impact on his campaign, he finds the proposed district lines confusing due to the impact it will have on blacks, Latinos and LGBTQ residents.

“If the goal was to disenfranchise color and LGBTQ communities, they did an excellent job,” he said. “It seems like the visualizations are as bad as you can imagine from a stock perspective.”

Dustin Gardiner is a contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: dustin.gardiner@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @dustingardiner