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Diaz Pushes for Fair Redistricting in Orange County

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UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Initiative Director Sonja Diaz spoke to the Los Angeles Times about the potential impacts of redistricting in Orange County. Nearly a third of Orange County residents are Latino, but current district boundaries divide areas with large Latino populations in Santa Ana and Anaheim. Diaz explained that dividing adjacent cities with ethnic majorities, a process known as cracking, has been a major factor in Latino voter turnout and can dilute political power. The county Board of Supervisors is currently undergoing the decennial redistricting process with data from the 2020 Census and is expected to approve a majority Latino district for the first time. “Orange County has for far too long been dictated by the policy preferences of an aging, white electorate that leans conservative,” Diaz said. “And I say this as a jurisdiction that is increasingly multiethnic and multiracial, with large communities of Asian American and Latino electorates.”

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Monkkonen on Allocating Affordable Housing Units

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Paavo Monkkonen, associate professor of public policy and urban planning, was featured in a CalMatters article about the lack of affordable housing construction in wealthy cities like Newport Beach and Beverly Hills. In the statewide planning process, affluent communities often lobby for fewer affordable housing units than smaller, less wealthy cities located inland. Monkkonen co-authored a paper arguing for a wholesale reorganization of the process, removing the focus on vacant and underutilized land in favor of rezoning in places where people can easily get to jobs and transit. “The cynical interpretation is that they frame local input as a ‘technical process’ that happens to end up with a result that satisfies the preferences of rich NIMBY cities as a way to distract from criticism,” Monkkonen wrote. “Whatever term you use, the result goes against the goals of state housing law, all the lofty rhetoric of SCAG itself about sustainability, and basic social equity.”

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Newton on San Diego’s Unexpected Shift to Blue

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Lecturer Jim Newton spoke to Voice of San Diego about the city’s shift in support of the Democratic Party. After years of being a Republican stronghold, San Diego County has voted blue in the last four presidential elections. When asked in 1989 if deeply conservative Orange County would ever turn blue, Newton imagined it might happen sometime in his grandchildren’s lifetime. However, Barack Obama won San Diego County in the 2008 presidential election, and Orange County joined the movement in 2016 and 2020 by voting for Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. Newton pointed to the rise of the environmental movement and the increase in Latino voters for the shift. He explained that since the GOP drifted toward big business, “it’s hard to take the environment seriously and associate with the Republican Party.” He also noted that the GOP has become associated with deportation and intolerance in California. “It may take time, but political worlds shift,” he said.

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Sangalang on Culturally Sensitive Mental Health Care for Refugees

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Assistant Professor of Social Welfare Cindy Sangalang spoke to TimesOC for a report on the lack of culturally sensitive mental health care services for Orange County’s Vietnamese and Cambodian communities. Sangalang, whose research focuses on health and well-being in immigrant communities, said many Southeast Asian refugees have endured trauma at multiple points in their lives: before they migrated; when they arrived in the United States, adjusting to a new country; in the present, with a rise in deportations; and in moments throughout, amid continued socioeconomic insecurity. She added that it’s important to consider the U.S. role in the conflicts refugees fled. “For us to address the health, education and other needs of these populations, it’s really a way to think about the consequences of the war in that region and how it’s had these ripple effects, and why it’s important for us to address these needs.”

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Park Service Highlights Center for Innovation’s Research

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A new National Park Service article highlighted the findings of a national park visitor survey co-conducted by the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation in collaboration with Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area staff and volunteers. The survey analyzed equity and access by comparing demographics and geographic characteristics of visitors; travel distance, time and cost to visit; modes of park access; activity engagement; and amenities used or desired. By comparing the results of the 2002 and the 2018 surveys, researchers found that the park has grown not only in popularity but also in the diversity of its visitors. Survey respondents stressed their desire to see improvements in trailhead facilities, including bathrooms, drinking fountains, trash cans, and maps of trailheads and trails. The findings will also be used to better allocate resources throughout the national park.

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Wachs Points to Toll Lanes to Reduce Congestion

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Martin Wachs, professor emeritus of urban planning, spoke to the Orange County Register about the prospect of converting carpool lanes to toll lanes on Orange County freeways. Seventy-seven percent of Orange County carpool lanes don’t meet the federal law’s requirement to move at a speed of 45 mph or faster. Turning carpool lanes into toll lanes would help unclog the flow of traffic because drivers willing to pay for access would move out of the general-purpose lanes, Wachs explained. “In every case, the facility is carrying more people than it would have had the lane either been not tolled at all, or remained a high-occupancy-vehicle lane alone.”

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Diaz on Increase in Latino Vote as Counting of Ballots Continues

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Founding director of Latino Policy & Politics Initiative (LPPI) Sonja Diaz was recently featured on KPCC’s “Air Talk”  to discuss the ongoing results of the 2018 midterm elections. As provisional, conditional and vote-by-mail ballots were being counted, Diaz analyzed the increase in the Latino vote compared to 2014 midterm elections. Diaz’s research through the UCLA Luskin-affiliated LPPI found that, while Los Angeles County experienced a 52% increase in ballots cast overall, precincts where Latinos constituted 75% or more of registered voters yielded a “77% increase in the number of ballots cast.” Diaz also acknowledged the impact of Latino voters on the success of Spanish surname candidates like Kevin De Leon running for statewide election. Diaz also cited results from Texas’ Senate race between Ted Cruz and Beto O’Rourke, noting that “exit polls do not capture minority voters as accurately as more traditional or white voters.”

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Yaroslavsky on O.C. Republican’s Reelection Bid

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ABC News spoke to Zev Yaroslavsky, director of the Los Angeles Initiative at UCLA Luskin, for its report on Orange County Republican Dana Rohrabacher’s bid for reelection to the House of Representatives. Rohrabacher, the article noted, is a staunch Reaganite who took an unexpected ideological turn in advocating closer ties with Russia. In the November 2018 midterm elections, he is one of several California Republicans scrambling to defend his seat. Observers noted that Rohrabacher’s longevity and conservative record give him a strong change of reelection.  “He’s been around for almost 30 years in Congress,” said Yaroslavsky, who has known Rohrabacher for decades. “Don’t underestimate him because he will fight.”

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Diaz Comments on Latino Voting Trends in California

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Sonja Diaz, founding director of the Latino Policy & Politics Initiative, commented on Latino voting trends after the California primary election during a KNX radio broadcast. Latino voters appeared to have “bucked the trend and turned in ballots in big numbers” — becoming supermajorities in some precincts — especially in Orange County, according to the report. “In Orange County we see surges in the number of ballots cast in the most heavily Latino precincts and these surges range from 10 percent to upwards of 245 percent over the ballots cast in June 2014,” Diaz said.

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