Senate Bill 1414, authored by State Senator Eloise Gómez Reyes (D-Colton), aims to establish a citizen commission that would decide San Bernardino’s county boundaries for elections.
The independent commission proposed in the bill would comprise 14 county residents. Among other qualifications, to apply for the board one must be a registered voter, and cannot have held or run for local, state or federal office representing San Bernardino in the past eight years before the date of their appointment.
Teamsters Local 1932, the union who represents thousands of San Bernardino County workers is asking Gov. Gavin Newsom to veto the bill, saying it would disregard an already approved redistricting process established through Measure J. The measure passed in 2020 and created a citizen advisory commission to advise the County Board of Supervisors through the redistricting process every ten years.
“The question for Sacramento is, are we just going to run over what the citizens of San Bernardino County already voted on?”,” said Robert Gonzalez, a spokesperson for Teamsters Local 1932.
Gonzalez said the issue with the bill is not that the model proposed by Reyes’ bill is flawed, but that it dismisses the voting process.
“If the voters wanted an independent redistricting commission, don’t you think they would have shot down Measure J?” Gonzalez asked.
The county Board of Supervisors also opposed SB 1414. In an opinion piece featured in the Daily Bulletin, San Bernardino County Supervisor Dawn Rowe wrote that Measure J exceeded the public engagement requirements proposed in the bill.
“SB 1414 would eliminate this transparent process and replace it with a state-mandated model expected to cost local taxpayers more than $2 million,” Rowe wrote.
Reyes told KVCR in an interview that San Bernardino is the only county with a population above 2 million without an independent redistricting commission.
Reyes said there’s a conflict of interest when San Bernardino’s County Board of Supervisors have the final say on their own voting maps.
“It should be the other way around,” Reyes said. “It is the county residents who should be selecting who represents them.”
“I think we want people that are interested in their civic duty,” Reyes said. “I’d like to have diversity, not only in the people, diversity in different ways, including occupational diversity.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom has until September 14 to sign the bill into law. If signed, the bill would not go into effect until after the next census results in 2030.