City Council Criticizes Congressional Redistricting Plan

Diamond Bar's city council has voiced opposition to a recent proposal that would put the city in the same U.S. Congressional district with cities to the west like El Monte, Arcadia, and Monterey Park.

The first draft of the new district boundaries would put Diamond Bar in a group of other cities all within Los Angeles county, which city officials say ignores the level of regional collaboration that occurs between cities like Diamond Bar, Chino Hills, and Brea at the tri-county border between Los Angeles, Orange, and San Bernardino Counties.

Transportation

A regional coalition of cities making up the Four Corners Policy Committee — currently chaired by Diamond Bar Councilmember Carol Herrera — and said that the group of cities near the county borders share regional concerns and should be represented together.

According to a statement from Diamond Bar's city council, one of the negative effects of the "San Gabriel Valley - Diamond Bar" district would be a "western-eastern tug of war for limited federal funding necessary to carry out differing but equally important traffic improvement projects."

See the map of of the proposed changes to California's 42nd Congressional district.

Two large transportation projects are currently in the works on both ends of the proposed district. On the western end, the light-rail Gold Line project is on its way and in Diamond Bar the 57/60 freeway interchange's "Big Fix" is still waiting for a path to completion.

Diamond Bar City Manager Jim DeStefano said he is also concerned that the San Gabriel Valley district could cause Diamond Bar to lose Rep. Gary Miller (R-Diamond Bar), who he said has been a champion of the "Big Fix" and other transportation goals.

Political Impacts

The first draft of the new districts would place Miller, a former mayor and current resident of Diamond Bar, in a tougher electoral battle if he wished to continue representing Diamond Bar.

The new district groups Diamond Bar with Monterey Park, where Democrat Judy Chu made her mark as the first Chinese American woman elected to Congress with 62 percent of the vote during a special election in 2009.

UC Berkeley political scientist Bruce Cain told the Los Angeles Times that the new San Gabriel Valley district would have an historically unprecedented 40 percent Asian population.

What will happen as a result is still speculation politically — two more drafts of the redistricting maps are pending — but the current maps would leave Miller the choice to continue representing his home city of Diamond Bar in a tougher race or run for a South Orange County district that includes much of the territory he currently represents.

State Senate and Assembly Lines

Herrera said at a June 21 council meeting that she hopes the redistricting commission will ultimately decide to cross county lines with the Congressional district as they have with California Senate and Assembly boundaries around Diamond Bar.

The Senate and Assembly districts for Diamond Bar were further consolidated, truncating the northern portion of Sen. Bob Huff's (R-Diamond Bar) current district and rounding out the the Assembly district represented by Assemblyman Curt Hagman (R-Chino Hills).

See maps comparing old Assembly and Senate districts to the new proposals.

The California Citizens Redistricting Commission is expected to release a second draft of the Congressional boundary maps on July 7 and a final version on August 15.

An interactive version of the redistricting maps can be viewed for the whole state at http://rosereport.org/draftplans.

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