Anaheim’s (Now 5+) Maps, Part 6: Euclidean vs. Non-Euclidean Cartography in the Remaining Maps

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Last Wednesday evening, the retired judges on the Advisory Committee on Electoral Districts (“ACED”) chose five maps for further consideration.  Three of the maps came from the public:

• the fourth map submitted by Brian Chuchua and myself (“Chuchua 4”)
• the map submitted by Benita Gagne (“Gagne 1”), which is a revision of Consultant Map 1
• the second map submitted by Oscar Reyes (“Reyes 2”), who seems to be affiliated with, and is certainly supported by, OCCORD and other Latino activist groups.

(Consider this to be my disclaimer to this story, for obvious reasons, but I’m not hostile towards the Gagne or Reyes 2 maps.)

Two maps by the city’s Consultant, Justin Levitt, are also being considered — “Consultant Map 3” and “Consultant Map 4”.  Let’s once again set them all out here, in the above order, to facilitate comparing them:

CHUCHUA Map 4: “Euclidean”; one Latino majority district, two Latino and two White plurality districts in the flatlands, plus white-majority Anaheim Hills; combines Resort District with Platinum Triangle.

GAGNE Map 1: “Euclidean”; two Latino majority districts, three White plurality districts in the flatlands, plus white-majority Anaheim Hills; combines Resort District with Platinum Triangle.

REYES Map 2: “Euclidean”; one Latino majority district, two Latino and two White plurality districts in the flatlands, plus white-majority Anaheim Hills; splits Resort District from Platinum Triangle.

CONSULTANT Map 3: “Non-Euclidean”; two Latino majority districts; three White plurality districts in the flatlands, plus white-majority Anaheim Hills; splits Resort District from Platinum Triangle.

CONSULTANT Map 3: “Non-Euclidean”; two Latino majority districts; three White plurality districts in the flatlands, plus white-majority Anaheim Hills; splits Disneyland/GardenWalk from Convention Center and Platinum Triangle.

Clearly, the three maps submitted by the public look pretty similar to each other and the two submitted by the Consultant look more like each other than like any of the other two.  The most obvious reason for this is that the first three use Euclid St. as the dividing line between the western 1/3 of the City and the eastern 2/3.  I call these “Euclidean” simply because they follow Euclid (and I like puns — in this case to the related field of Geometry.)

The Consultant’s maps draw a much more jagged line; neither follows Euclid, which means that we can call them “non-Euclidean.”  (Seriously, this is a great pun; sorry if you don’t get it.)  Consultant Map 4 uses I-5 and Ninth Street, plus the Union Pacific Railroad tracks that continue north from where Ninth St. ends (plus a little jag along Broadway.)  Consultant Map 3 uses six streets; the easternmost border of its second-westernmost district reaches almost to Harbor Blvd.

(Note: I don’t intend the above as a criticism of the consultant; after all, his Map 1 was the same in this respect as the three publicly submitted maps selected for further consideration.  The consultant has made clear that part of his task is to introduce new and otherwise largely unconsidered ideas and approaches into the mix, which is a good thing.  At some point, though, contrarianism runs its course and one has to note that a lot of people — including most members of the public to whom Brian and I have spoken — see Euclid as being a legitimate dividing line separating West Anaheim from the rest of Anaheim.)

The Judges asked for revised versions of the Chuchua 4 and Reyes 2 maps that would have two Latino majority districts.  I provided one; I don’t know whether Reyes did.  They also seemed interested in maps that split the Resort District proper from the Platinum triangle (and the Honda Center and Anaheim Stadium), so I drew one of those too.  Then I drew one that did both — which wasn’t pretty.  I then came up with a slightly better version of the map that does both in which the lines are nicer but the strong second district falls about half a percent short of 50% majority.

I understand that the judges are concerned that they don’t approve lines that seem insufficiently fair to Latinos; my concern is that even the best lines can be defeated by running multiple Latino candidates to split the vote — as has happened before in Anaheim and will likely happen again under any map approved and long into the future, so it makes sense to draw three districts that give a leg up to Latino voters even if two of them fall short of a 50% majority.

I understand that some people are concerned that combining the Resort District with the Platinum Triangle gives one Council Member too much power; as I’ve written here before, I think that this simply ignores how politics works in Anaheim, where Disney and its associated interests are not going to limit themselves — at all — to seeking influence in the district where their park happens to be.

We’re having some technical problems with loading images right now, but I hope to get images of these latter four “Chuchua” maps uploaded by this afternoon.