I watched the California Citizens Redistricting Commission on-line presentation of the proposed new districts.  They said it is version one of what could result in modifications before the August 15 finalized maps are established.  It will come as know surprise if they are challenged in court. I looked at the maps posted on the internet and did grimace at some of their decisions.  However, The Los Angeles Times editorial seems on target.

Lines drawn by a citizens commission should put more power in the hands of voters.

SOME DEMOCRATS are bound to hate it, because it may jeopardize their party’s lock on a seat in Congress or slow their drive to capture two­thirds of each house in the Legisla­ture. Some Republicans may dismiss it, be-. cause it doesn’t reinventCaliforniaas a GOP stronghold. Politicos of all stripes will probably scoff at it, because it’s the result of a citizen-driven process and not a politi­cian-controlled backroom deal. And some reformers may even rail at it, because it doesn’t differ enough from the map of dis­trict linesCaliforniahas had for decades.

And that’s just fine. The preliminary re­port to be issued Friday by the California Citizens Redistricting Commission, which features new district maps for the state’s congressional and legislative districts, is both a work in progress and a triumph for citiZens no longer content to allow political parties to carve up the state for their own purpqses. The commission was created af­ter a painstaking and admittedly complex process mandated by two ballot measures thatCaliforniavoters adopted over the fierce objections of the political establish­ment. The goal was to strengthen the power of voters in the decennial redrawing of dis­tricts that follows each national census.

Recent redistricting efforts, handled by Democratic and. Republican party officials, too often resulted in districts in which politi­cians picked and chose their voters rather than the other way around. A Democrat in the Assembly, for example, might be re­warded for prodigious political fundraising by having a Senate district drawn to favor him and disfavor a more independent ­minded colleague. A Republican lawmaker might be similarly be rewarded with a con­gressional district drawn just for her: The parties may have struggled against one an­other to win a seat here or there, but for the most part they were only too happy to work together and cut deals to protect their own incumbents while drawing district lines.

The maps released Friday will not be per­fect, because perfection in drawing district lines is impossible. The initiatives require the commission to, as much as possible, keep “communities of interest” together, but there are many ways of defining such com­munities. Households might be· grouped by income, geography, lot size, propensity to vote, ethnicity or anyone of dozens of other criteria. Add to that the desire to make dis­tricts more competitive. Ballot measure lan­guage provides some guidance, but if there were no need for judgment calls, the lines could be drawn by computer. They can’t.

As part of the unprecedented public role, voters are invited to attend commission· meetings or suggest alternative lines at we­drawthelines.ca.gov. Participants may find the process less tidy than the old way: leav­ing the decisions to political parties. But the goal is not tidiness. The goal is a fair and functioning democracy.