Choosing Your Political District? There’s a Tool for That
Lolita Lopez and Phil Drechsler
“How those lines are drawn can often be the difference between whether a Democrat or Republican is running and winning, whether a person of color or not, a woman or not,” Sara Sadhwani, a commissioner on the California Citizens Redistricting Commission, told the NBC4 I-Team.
“It impacts the lives of so many people through the funding streams of millions of dollars that will ultimately trickled down to communities on the ground,” she added.
Sadhwani is part of a 14-member group comprised of five Republicans, five Democrats and 4 people not affiliated with either party. They’ll make the final decisions on district boundaries.
Unlike other states where politicians decide, California uses this bi-partisan commission that in turn relies on public input, and they’re already getting calls.
“We’ve had a number of folks calling in from Orange County, from that Little Saigon area, calling and saying ‘we want better representation. currently the lines split our community into three different congressional districts and we want to be kept together into one community,” Sadhwani said.
