On Nov. 2, a record 22% of the California electorate was Latino. They voted heavily for Democrat Brown — somewhere between 64% and 80%, depending on which poll you believe.
Whatever the real figure, it should scare the GOP because Latinos are by far California's fastest-growing voter group.
"Republicans need to understand that they live in suburbs with second-generation Mexican American neighbors whose parents came here and worked in agriculture and the service industries and are very proud" of their families' success, Stutzman says.
"They sit around at cocktail parties and they listen on talk shows and hear their parents referred to as 'illegals.' And we wonder why these people don't want to register as Republicans."
Gov. Arnold Schwarzeneggerrefers to it as the "ribbon of shame,'' a congressional district that stretches in a reed-thin line 200 miles along the California coast from Oxnard to the Monterey County line. Voters there refer to it as "the district that disappears at high tide."
Democratic lawmakers drew it that way to make sure one of their own won every election. The party has held the seat throughout the decade — since the last redistricting gave it a big edge in voter registration there.
Critics of that 2001 remapping have cited the coastal ribbon as Exhibit A — the reason, they say, that Californians were right to strip elected officials of the power to choose their voters and give the task of determining political boundaries to more ordinary citizens.
The Milken Institute has excellent ideas on how to "Restore California's Promise." Great charts here.
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