Advocates and lawmakers are calling for fully independent commissions to decide election districts for cities and counties across California. While about a dozen new commissions drew maps after the 2020 Census, in many other places, politicians or their appointees did.

“The county did hold hearings, but elected officials drew the lines themselves, which just really isn’t a best practices model and left certain communities feeling unheard,” said Ashby, a former member of the Sacramento City Council, which has an independent commission that helped diversify geographic representation by creating a second seat in the fast-growing Natomas area.

Ashby’s bill includes some parameters such as barring commissioners who have run for office in the previouis decade, or who have other conflicts of interest. Like Durazo, Ashby said she’d be willing to fold her bill into a larger statewide effort, but wanted to introduce SB 314 to get the conversation started.

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