California Political Maps

A map of the 2013-14 Assembly Members and Districts (from capoliticalmaps.com)

For the true California politics enthusiast, it’s hard to imagine something more exciting that finding a useful new resource.

As someone who has spent many hours building a library of legislative district maps, I was very impressed by the new maps sold by the people over at California Political Maps. Although they could have been a little more creative with the naming of their business, they’ve done an excellent job producing a beautiful set of maps that present a lot of information.

The brightly colored maps depict county boundaries, district lines, and cities. The maps also include insets that detail the smaller districts in the more urban parts of the state.

Finally, the maps include pictures of the legislators (which is helpful with the huge number of new legislators in the new session) as well as the constitutional officers and Supreme Court justices.

A map of the 1891 State Senate Districts (from the 1895 California Blue Book)

It used to be easy to keep track of legislative district lines; the first bill to divide the state into legislative districts fit on a single page (it had grown to thirteen pages by the 1891 redistricting).

Prior to 1966 redistricting, counties were rarely divided between legislative districts, and good maps could be printed on a single 8.5″ x 11″ page. Following the court decision in Reynolds v. Sims, districts were required to be equal in population and the maps got much more complicated.

California Political Maps has created a solid product that communicates a massive amount information in a colorful and well-designed format.

You can check them out at capoliticalmaps.com.

Assemblyman Ferrell

An email from Brian Ebbert of the Assembly Chief Clerk’s office shed light on something we had missed before:

F. Douglas Ferrell

F. Douglas Ferrell

The Rev. F. Douglas Ferrell, who represented Los Angeles as an Assemblyman for two terms, has died. Actually, Ferrell died in 1982, but our research (which initially focused on the 1850s and has been working towards the present) had yet to catch up with the early 1960s legislator.

JoinCalifornia.com has been updated to reflect his passing.

Two Candidates Drop Out

Two candidates appearing on the November ballot have dropped out of their races in the last week;

In Assembly District 69, Republican Jose Moreno has withdrawn from his race after learning that his candidacy was a violation of the federal Hatch Act. “The Hatch Act restricts the political activity of individuals principally employed by state or local executive agencies and who work in connection with programs financed in whole or in part by federal loans or grants.” [OCPolitical article]

In the current Special Election to fill Senate District 4, candidate Nonpartier Ben Emery announced that he would be withdrawing after learning that his employer “bought a new building with a state grant last year… and one of the group’s committees has been working with Logue to resolve some issues with the state regarding the building. ” [Chico Enterprise article]

Both will remain on the ballot in their races.