Although the vast majority of immigrants in California came here legally, the state still has by far the largest undocumented immigrant population in the country, many of whom are young. In fact, it’s estimated that as many as 350,000 young undocumented immigrants living in California are eligible for deferred deportation and work authorization, as a result of the Obama administration’s recent policy shift, according to the Migration Policy Institute.

And while the rate of growth has slowed significantly over the past three decades, the population of undocumented immigrants in California is still far more than 2.5 million strong. – about 8 percent of the state’s total population, according to a report by the Public Policy Institute of California. As of 2008, undocumented immigrants made up more than 10 percent of the populations of Santa Clara, Monterey/San Benito, Imperial, and Napa Counties.

The majority come from Mexico, and the heaviest concentrations are based in urban and major agricultural regions.

Because there are no national or state level surveys that count undocumented foreign-born residents, the data are only indirect population estimates. PPIC used tax returns (filed with Independent Taxpayer Identification Numbers) and corroborated data with recent estimates from The Pew Hispanic Center and the Department of Homeland Security.

Click on each county below for the estimated number of undocumented immigrants throughout California (based on 2008 estimates). The darker the shade of red, the larger the number of undocumented residents in that region.

Map data sources:

• Counting California’s Unauthorized Immigrants (Public Policy Institute of California)

• U.S. Census Bureau

Unauthorized Immigrants in California and all other states (1980 – 2008)

Source: Public Policy Institute of California via Passel and Woodward (1984); Warren (2011)

2011 State Congressional Districts_California Citizens Redistricting Commission

Gerrymandering: it ain’t nothing new in California politics.

For much of the state’s history, the legislature has firmly controlled the once-a-decade redistricting process. New district lines are typically redrawn in a way that directly favors whichever party is in control.

Demographic techniques like splitting apart cities, carving up ethnic enclaves, and leaping across vast geographic swaths to bundle like-minded voters are common gerrymandering tools long used by pols to solidify power.

In fact, investigative news service ProPublica recently reported that California’s Democrats have for decades been extremely effective at carefully redrawing electoral maps to protect incumbent legislators in their party.  Since 2000, no Democratic incumbent has lost a single Congressional election!

Trying to hand the power to the people

In an effort to reduce direct partisan influence in the redistricting process, California voters in 2008 approved Proposition 11, effectively stripping the legislature of their redistricting authority and assigning the role to a new independent group of citizens selected in a lottery process.

Called the Citizens Redistricting Commission, the 14-member group was tasked with redrawing the state’s political boundaries through a less partisan process less not dominated by any one political party. The group included five Democrats, five Republicans, and four other participants who didn’t belong to either major party.

The passage of Proposition 20 in 2010 further expanded the role of the commission to include California’s congressional districts. A prominent group of Democrats – including Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi – helped campaign against the proposition, spending roughly $7 million in a failed attempt to defeat it.

Last year, following the release of federal Census data, the citizens commission held a series of public hearings, collecting testimony from members of communities throughout the state to help guide where the new district lines should be drawn. It then drew and voted on maps for the 53 congressional districts, 40 state Senate districts, 80 State Assembly districts, and four Board of Equalization districts. The maps, which withstood an initial court challenge, will be used for the next decade starting with the current election (2012).

A video by the Greenlining Institute on California’s new system

What other guidelines did the commission have to follow?

In accordance with the California Constitution, the Citizens Redistricting Commission (CRC) was mandated to draw its district maps in accordance with the following criteria (in order of priority):

1. Equal population: this follows the “one person, one vote” principle in the U.S. Constitution.
2. Compliance with the federal Voting Rights Act: the law prohibits voting practices that discriminate against minorities, including redrawing district maps in such a way that deny voters the right to elect a candidate of their choice. Passed by Congress in 1965, the VRA was specifically aimed at curbing disenfranchisement among African American voters in southern states, where district lines had historically been redrawn to limit the political influence of those communities. For districts with a history of minority voter discrimination, any changes to district lines or voting practices must be reviewed by the federal government. In California, this applies to King, Merced, Monterey, and Yuba counties.
3. Contiguity: every part of a district has to remain attached in some way.
4. Keeping political subdivision, neighborhoods and “communities of interest” intact: a newly drawn district shouldn’t divide up clearly defined communities. Proposition 20 defined a community of interest as “a contiguous population which shares common social and economic interests that should be included within a single district for purposes of its effective and fair representation.”
5. Compactness: a district should be as geographically compact as possible.
6. Nesting: to the extent possible, each of the 40 State Senate districts should contain two or more of the 80 Assembly districts.

In drawing new district maps, the commission also couldn’t knowingly discriminate against or favor any particular party, incumbent or candidate. They also had to be drawn without regard to where an incumbent or candidate lived at the time.

Spicing things up

The rules have resulted in some interesting contests. For instance,  Rep. Jerry McNerney who for years has  represented District 11 on the outer edges of the East Bay, found himself running for re-election this year in a Central Valley district he didn’t even live in! McNerney actually picked up and moved to Stockton, the heart of the newly drawn ninth district.

And, as a direct result of redistricting, Rep. Howard Berman and Rep. Brad Sherman, who are both current Democratic members of Congress from Southern California (and formerly represented different districts), now find themselves facing off against each other in a bitter over one remaining district.

So how well did the new system work work?

Like everything in politics – depends who you ask. Many political observers praised the process, contending that the new independent system marked a dramatic improvement over the rife partisan influence of California’s past redistricting efforts.

But … not all was rosy. In ProPublica’s investigation of the process, it found that the commission was victim to political wrangling and questionable partisan influence. Operatives from both parties – but particularly the Democrats – went to great lengths to influence how the group drew its maps. Among the beneficiaries, according to the report, was Rep. Jerry McNerney. His reelection bid was initially expected to be threatened by the redistricting process. But instead, with the help of a campaign run by a front group, the new maps placed McNerney in a significantly safer district than had initially been anticipated.

In its investigation, ProPublica wrote:

“The citizens’ commission had pledged to create districts based on testimony from the communities themselves, not from parties or statewide political players. To get around that, Democrats surreptitiously enlisted local voters, elected officials, labor unions and community groups to testify in support of configurations that coincided with the party’s interests.

When they appeared before the commission, those groups identified themselves as ordinary Californians and did not disclose their ties to the party. One woman who purported to represent the Asian community of the San Gabriel Valley was actually a lobbyist who grew up in rural Idaho, and lives in Sacramento.”

California Citizens Redistricting Commission site (with all the new maps)

See how your district has changed_Sacramento Bee

Redraw California 

Sacramento Bee’s interactive redistricting map (to see how your district has changed)

An interactive redistricting game! (from USC Annenberg)

U.S. Department of Justice’s redistricting legal page

Natural-Bridges State Beach, near Santa Cruz (credit: Ca. Dept. of Parks and Recreation)

“These state parks are our cathedrals. This is what defines us as Californians to the rest of the world.  But they are not cheap to run. And so I think Californians need to decide whether it’s worth it to them to save these parks … I think it begs a much deeper question of what we value as Californians.”
- Ruth Coleman, California state parks director

Last year Gov. Jerry Brown announced that 70 of California’s state parks would permanently close by July 1, 2012. The proposal, intended to save the state about $22 million, would reduce the state’s vast 278-site park system by roughly 25 percent, the first time California has ever considered such a massive shutdown of public lands.

Some parks saved

As of mid-March, 10 of the 70 parks had been saved from imminent closure, mostly through private donations. Castle Rock State Park, a sweeping expanse of more than 5,000 acres in the Santa Cruz mountains, was the latest site spared from the chopping block, after a private environmental group put up $250,000 to keep it open for at least another year. While these last minute private-public partnerships have been welcomed by the government, some state parks supporters view them warily, concerned that private influence will change the nature of what was created as a fundamentally public-owned institution.

In July, when the remaining 60 parks on the list are slated to shut down, the gates will remain open and people can still enter the property (partly in an effort to discourage vandalism and illegal activity that could result from complete abandonment). However, there will be no services available. That means no restrooms, no maintenance staff, no  rangers, no emergency services.

Big Basin Redwood State Park (credit: Dick Rowan)

The closure list includes towering redwood groves, stretches of pristine oceanfront, vast desert landscapes, and almost half of all the historic sites in the state’s system.

“I think of it as unprecedented,”  says Joseph H. Engbeck, Jr.,  a veteran California’s state parks writer and historian.

Two years ago Californian’s had the opportunity to prevent this situation. In 2010, voters turned down a ballot measure that would have increased annual vehicle licensing fees by $18. Proposition 21, had it passed, would have generated $500 million for the parks system, and kept all current sites open and running. But the $18 out-of-pocket fee swayed the majority of voters from supporting the measure.

A sign of government dissatisfaction

Engbeck argues that the measure’s defeat was not so much an indication of how much people value their parks, as it was a sign of increasing dissatisfaction with government.

“People have become disgusted with government, rightly or wrongly,” he notes. “And it’s rubbed off on the issue. People love parks, but they’re still a part of government.”

So … what is a park worth?

And that brings up some important questions: How much do parks really matter? And how much are they worth? Right now California’s in the midst of a pretty major financial crisis; across the state, the unemployment rate is one of  the highest in the nation and our state’s government is struggling to adequately provide

Portola Redwoods State Park (credit: CDPR)

even some of the most basic services. So,

how much sense does it really make to use precious funds to keep open a bunch of parks?

A whole lot more than you’d think, says Engbeck.

“I think it’s more important than a lot of essential services,” he argues. “There’s urgent, and then there’s important. State parks are important but not urgent. If you think about the role of parks in overall society … you pretty quickly get to the place of, hey, this is a really important function of government.”

California’s state parks, he adds, are a way of “preserving precious natural places, remembering who we have been and how we got to where we are, and of recognizing our various mistakes and successes.” Closing  them down puts us on a “path toward becoming a poor state.”

Lincoln and the first park

Engbeck references an oft-overlooked watershed moment in the evolution of America’s protected public lands. The year was 1864. The Civil War was raging. And in the midst of the crisis, President Abraham Lincoln quietly authorized a federal land grant that ceded the entire Yosemite Valley and surrounding area to the State of California. The act created the first state park in the nation (which, ironically, was poorly managed and later receded back to the U.S. government as part of the newly founded Yosemite National Park).

“He knew that more people would be more likely to support the Union if they were proud of their homeland,” Engbeck says. “Parks give people a feeling of belonging and pride. They’re not required, but they’re more important than lots of things that are required.”

Since 1950: California’s Prison Building Boom

Scroll over the markers below for info on each of the state’s 33 prisons