BILL ANALYSIS �
SENATE COMMITTEE ON ELECTIONS
AND CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS
Senator Lou Correa, Chair
BILL NO: AB 2692 HEARING DATE: 6/19/12
AUTHOR: ASM. E&R COMM. ANALYSIS BY: Frances Tibon
Estoista
AMENDED: AS INTRODUCED
FISCAL: NO
SUBJECT
Electoral districts and precincts
DESCRIPTION
Existing law establishes the boundaries of Senate,
Assembly, BOE, and congressional districts based on the
2000 census.
Existing law establishes the Citizens Redistricting
Commission (CRC), and gives it the responsibility for
establishing the district lines for Senate, Assembly,
Congress, and the BOE.
Existing law prohibits elections officials, when
establishing precinct boundaries, from establishing any
precinct so that its boundary crosses the boundary of any
supervisorial district, congressional district, senatorial
district, assembly district, BOE district, judicial
district, incorporated city, ward, or city council
district. Requires elections officials, to the extent
possible and without subjecting voters to significant
inconvenience, to avoid crossing census tracts or
enumeration district lines when establishing precinct
boundaries.
Existing law requires the county elections official in each
county to compile and make available to the Legislature or
any appropriate committee of the Legislature any
information and statistics that may be necessary for use in
connection with the creation of new legislative districts,
including election returns for each precinct. Requires the
elections official, when providing this information, to
identify each precinct according to the census tract or
enumeration district in which it is located.
This bill repeals obsolete provisions of existing law that
specified the boundaries of Assembly districts that were
used for elections to the Assembly for terms commencing
between 2002 and 2010. This bill also repeals obsolete
provisions of existing law that specified the boundaries of
congressional districts that were used for elections to the
United States House of Representatives for terms commencing
between 2003 and 2011.
This bill provides for the repeal, on January 1, 2015, of
provisions of existing law that specified the boundaries of
Senate districts that were used for elections to the Senate
for terms commencing between 2002 and 2010, and also
provides for the repeal, on January 1, 2015, of provisions
of existing law that specified the boundaries of Board of
Equalization (BOE) districts that were used for elections
to the BOE for terms commencing between 2003 and 2011.
This bill repeals a provision of law that requires
elections officials, when establishing precinct boundaries,
to avoid crossing census tract or enumeration district
lines to the extent possible and without subjecting voters
to significant inconvenience.
This bill repeals a provision of law that requires
elections officials, when providing the Legislature with
information and statistics necessary for use in connection
with the drawing of legislative districts, to identify each
precinct according to the census tract or enumeration
district in which it is located.
BACKGROUND
Legal Descriptions of Legislative, Congressional, and Board
of Equalization Districts : With the approval of
Propositions 11 (2008) and 20 (2010), the authority for
establishing the boundaries for Assembly, Senate,
congressional, and BOE districts was transferred from the
Legislature and the Governor to the newly-established CRC.
Because the CRC establishes districts by adopting a
resolution, and not through the enactment of a statute, the
legal descriptions of the 2001 districts that were
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established by the Legislature remain in the Elections
Code. In printed versions of the Elections Code, these
legal descriptions of outdated district lines can take up a
few hundred pages.
This bill would repeal the legal descriptions of the 2001
Assembly and congressional districts effective January 1,
2013. Additionally, this bill would repeal the legal
descriptions of Senate and BOE districts effective January
1, 2015. The Senate and BOE district boundaries would
remain in statute until 2015 because members of those
bodies elected in 2010 will continue to represent those
district boundaries until their terms expire in late 2014
(in the case of the Senate) or early 2015 (in the case of
the BOE). Additionally, the Senate district boundaries
will remain in the Elections Code until 2015 because any
special election held to fill out the remainder of a term
of a Senator who was elected in 2010 will be conducted
using these 2001 district lines.
Precinct Boundaries : Existing law requires elections
officials, when they are creating precinct boundaries, to
avoid crossing census tract lines to the extent possible.
Additionally, when elections officials compile and report
precinct-level information and statistics that are used for
redistricting purposes, the officials are required to
identify each precinct by census tract. While census data
is vital to the redistricting process, census tracts are no
longer used in describing district boundaries. As a
result, the requirements in existing law that precincts be
identified by census tract needlessly add additional cost
and complexity for elections officials when creating
precincts and reporting election information.
COMMENTS
1. According to the Author : This is one of the Assembly
Elections and Redistricting Committee's annual omnibus
bills, containing various minor and technical changes
to provisions of state law governing elections.
PRIOR ACTION
Assembly Elections and Redistricting Committee: 7-0
AB 2692 (E&R COMM.)
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Assembly Floor: 73-0
POSITIONS
Sponsor: Author
Support: California Association of Clerks and Election
Officials (CACEO)
Oppose: None received
AB 2692 (E&R COMM.)
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