California Proposition 20 (2010)

A California Congressional Redistricting Initiative, Proposition 20 was on the November 2, 2010 ballot in California. It was approved by 61.2% of voters. Election officials announced on May 5 that the proposition had collected sufficient signatures to qualify for the ballot. The measure is known by its supporters as the VOTERS FIRST Act for Congress.

The Congressional Redistricting Initiative:

Ballot language was filed by Charles Munger, Jr., who was also Proposition 20's largest financial supporter. Munger, the son of billionaire Charlie Munger, was a supporter of Proposition 11 in 2008, which created a new way for political districts to be drawn for California's state legislators and its state Board of Equalization.

A competing initiative that also qualified for the November 2 ballot, California Proposition 27 (2010), sought to repeal Proposition 11.

Proposition 20 and Proposition 27 each had a so-called "poison pill" provision. This means that if they both received a majority vote, the proposition that received the highest majority vote is the law that would go into effect. Since Proposition 20 passed but Proposition 27 did not, neither provision was triggered.

If this initiative had not succeeded, the next Governor of California and members of the California State Legislature would have chosen how to draw lines for however many U.S. Congressional districts California is determined to be entitled to after the 2010 census. Estimates are that California will have somewhere between 52 and 54 seats in congress after those census calculations are completed.

From 2000 to 2010, the population in California has undergone a major shift eastward, with people moving to California's inland areas from its coastal enclaves. This means that California's congressional district boundaries will certainly undergo major upheaval after the 2010 census. As one example, the San Francisco Bay Area grew less than 1% since the last redistricting, while the Central Valley area has grown by 21%. Los Angeles County has grown 5%, while San Diego, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Imperial Counties have grown by 17%.

Another notable factor is that California's population hasn't grown relative to the population of the rest of the United States, and may even have proportionally shrunk. There were fears at the time that California could lose one or two seats in Congress. In the end California's representation in Congress remained the same, which was the first time the state had not increased its congressional representation since the reapportionment following the 1920 census.

...
Wikipedia