SACRAMENTO — New political districts prepared for the state Supreme Court can be expected to produce dramatic gains for the Republican Party next year, possibly giving the GOP control of California's congressional delegation and, for the first time in two decades, one house of the Legislature.
Lawmakers and political consultants working for both parties also said Tuesday that Latinos should see their fortunes rise under the plan. The Republican and Latino gains both would come at the expense of Anglo Democrats.
Democrats, who have controlled the Legislature since 1970, would find themselves squeezed out of a number of seats because the state's population--and its political districts--are shifting increasingly from Democratic-oriented urban areas to Republican strongholds in the suburbs.
The plan, released publicly Monday, was drafted by three retired judges appointed by the high court to break a deadlock between the Democratic-dominated state Legislature and Republican Gov. Pete Wilson, who could not agree on how to redraw the boundaries to reflect population shifts reported in the 1990 U.S. Census.
The lines, possibly with some changes, will become law in January unless the Legislature and the governor agree to an alternative plan or lawmakers muster the votes to override a gubernatorial veto.
But the prospects for either of those possibilities dimmed measurably Tuesday when lawmakers for the first time saw the partisan political impact of the proposed boundaries. Republicans, for the most part, are happy with the lines and see no reason to bargain with Democrats for anything different.
Democrats hold 47 of the 80 state Assembly seats and 24 of 40 seats in the Senate, where there also are two independents and a Democratic-leaning vacancy. Democrats occupy 26 of California's 45 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Within a year, however, if the court adopts the lines presented to it, Republicans could control the Assembly with 42 or 43 of the 80 seats, experts in both parties suggested. They might whittle the Democrats' advantage in the Senate down to 21-to-19.
And Republicans could hold a majority of the expanded congressional delegation of 52 seats, which would represent a dramatic GOP gain of at least eight seats over what they hold today. Five of the seven new congressional seats are in Southern California and two are in the north. They appear to be split 4-to-3 in favor of the Republicans, based on registration figures in the proposed districts.
