!FREE! California State Congressional Districts By Zip Code
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Not sure of your congressional district or who your member is? This service will assist you by matching your ZIP code to your congressional district, with links to your member's website and contact page.
The Find Your Representative service matches the ZIP code information you provide with a list of congressional districts. If you receive an error due to a missing ZIP code or incorrect member information, please use the Contact Webmaster form to report the problem. Select the appropriate error category (Report an error in the Find Your Representative service.) and provide as much information as possible to assist us in researching the problem. Please be sure to include: Your Street Address, City, State and ZIP code, the member or congressional district information you are trying to reach and the member or congressional district the service is reporting that you feel is in error.
California uses an independent commission to draw congressional and state legislative districts; the first 8 commissioners for the 2020 cycle were chosen on July 2, 2020, and the remaining 6 commissioners were chosen on Aug. 7, 2020. For the 2020 cycle, redistricting deadlines were extended by the state Supreme Court in light of the delay in receiving Census data. On Dec. 26, 2021, the commission voted unanimously to approve final state legislative and congressional maps.
In the 2010 cycle, the independent commission voted on Aug. 15, 2011 (12-2 for congress, 13-1 for state legislature) to approve final legislative and congressional maps; the maps were precleared on Jan. 17, 2012. State and federal lawsuits challenging the congressional and state Senate maps, and a state challenge to the composition of the commission itself, were rejected.
At present, candidates must file for congressional and state legislative primary elections by Mar. 11, 2022, unless an incumbent running for reelection fails to file by that date, in which case the filing deadline is Mar. 16, 2022. [Cal. Elec. 1000, 8020(b), 8022] These dates may be adjusted in light of the extended deadlines for commission plans.
Like all states, California must comply with constitutional equal population requirements. California law requests that the redistricting commission adjust census data for both congressional and state legislative districts in order to count incarcerated individuals at their last known residence. [Cal. Const. art. XXI, 2(d)(1), Cal. Elections Code 21003]
The California constitution further requires that districts be contiguous. To the extent possible, they must also preserve the geographic integrity of cities, counties, neighborhoods, and communities of interest. To the extent practicable, and where so doing does not violate higher-priority constraints, districts must also encourage compactness, defined by lines that do not bypass nearby population in favor of more distant population. Finally, where practicable, and where not in conflict with the criteria above, state Senate and Assembly districts must be nested within each other. [Cal. Const. art. XXI, 2(d)]
The congressional and state Senate plans were challenged in state and federal court, and the composition of the commission itself was challenged in state court. No challenge was successful. [Vandermost v. Bowen, No. S196493 (Cal. Sup. Ct. Oct. 26, 2011); Radanovich v. Bowen, No. S196852 (Cal. Sup. Ct. Oct. 26, 2011); Radanovich v. Bowen, No. 2:11-cv-09786, 2012 WL 13012647 (C.D. Cal. Feb. 9, 2012); Connerly v. California, No. 34-2011-80000966 (Cal. Super. Ct., Sacramento Cnty. Nov. 6, 2017)]
The state Senate and congressional plans were challenged in federal court, and the state Assembly plan was challenged in state court. No challenge was successful. [Cano v. Davis, 211 F. Supp. 2d 1208 (C.D. Cal. 2002); Nadler v. Schwarzenegger, 137 Cal.App.4th 1327 (2006)]
The California Health Maps project aims to provide data for geographies beyond the county level to better serve cancer control, public health, and policy efforts. It allows users to interactively map health data for California at different geographic levels: census tract aggregation zones, medical service study areas (MSSAs), census designated places, congressional districts, state senate districts, state assembly districts, and counties.
Many districts were formed by aggregragating complete county shapes obtained from the National Historical Geographic Information System (NHGIS) project and the Newberry Library's Atlas of Historical County Boundaries. Where Congressional district boundaries did not coincide with county boundaries, district shapes were constructed district-by-district using a wide variety of legal and cartographic resources. Detailed descriptions of how particular districts were constructed and the authorities upon which we relied are available (at the moment) by request and described below.Every state districting plan can be viewed quickly at -district-boundaries(clicking on any of the listed file names will create a mapwindow that can be paned and zoomed). GeoJSON definitions ofthe districts can also be downloaded from the sameURL. Congress-by-Congress district maps in ERSI ShapefileAformat can be downloaded below. Though providing somewhatlower resolution than the shapefiles, the GeoJSON filescontain additional information about the members who served ineach district that the shapefiles do not (Congress member informationmay be useful for creating web applications with, for example, GoogleMaps or Leaflet).
The district shapes are organized for download by Congressand stored in the common ESRI Shapefile format. Each uniquedistrict has been given a unique identifier with the followingformat SSSBBBEEEDD where SSS is the state FIPS code, BBB isthe number of first Congress in which that district was used,EEE is the last Congress in which that district was used andDD is the district number.
Our enumeration of the districts in effect in a particularCongress follows Martis. At-large districts are numbered"0". In a few cases, shapes describing Indian territorieswithin states during the 18th and early 19th centuries areincluded in the shapefiles. These territories are alwaysassigned district number "-1". The Congressional districts inthe shapefiles match districts contained in rollcall votingdata files and Congressional roster files available on KeithPoole's Voteview site hereand here. There are avery few instances in which there is no member representing aparticular district in a particular Congress (a fileenumerating all known discrepancies between the Voteview dataand these shapes is available here). A description of eachmetadata variable included with each district shape can befound here. Starting with the 103rd Congress, district boundary filesare produced by the USCensus, and we rely on those shapes for Congressesbeginning with the 103rd. US Census Tigerline filesassociated the 1990 Decennial Census were used to constructdistricts from the 98th to the 102nd Congress (except wherenoted in the documentation files below). For Congressesbetween the 1st and the 97th, district boundaries were formedin one of two ways. For districts that were made up ofcollections of complete counties, historical county boundariesfrom NHGIS or the Newberry Library's Atlas of HistoricalCounty Boundaries were dissolved to form district boundaries.Districts that divided one or more counties were formed on acase-by-case basis. Sources relied upon for these districtsare described in the documentation files below.
For districts that split counties, we provide Excel .xlsxfiles that contain references and documentation related to howeach district shape was drawn. Metadeta associated with eachdistrict shape is included in the shapefiles that indicateswhether a particular district was formed by joining counties.For districts formed by combining counties, the shapefilemetadata includes a list of counties used to form eachdistrict. For districts not formed by joining counties, theshapefile metadata also includes the name of the .xlsx filethat documents how that shape was drawn. Access to thesefiles is limited due to possible copyright issues (some of thedocumentation files include images of maps). To obtain accessto these materials for research purposes, please email jbl...@ucla.edu. Filenames indicate the state and range of Congresses covered bydistricts described in a particular documentation file.
California is the most populous U.S. state; as a result, it has the most representation in the United States House of Representatives, with 52 Representatives. Each Representative represents one congressional district.
Per the 2020 United States census, California lost a congressional seat which it had gained after the 2000 census, reducing its total seats from 53 to 52 starting from the 2022 elections and its subsequent 118th Congress.[1] This marked the first time in the state's history where it lost a seat.[2]
The 1990 census gave California seven additional congressional seats. Legislative attempts to draw new districts failed, as Republican governor Pete Wilson vetoed all three plans made by the Democratic-controlled state legislature. In September 1991, the Supreme Court of California took over the redistricting process to break the stalemate and, under its direction, a panel of retired judges determined the boundaries of the new districts.[10][11]
In the 2004 elections, a win by less than 55 percent of the vote was quite rare. This was seen in only five out of 80 State Assembly seats and two out of 20 State Senate seats up for election. The congressional seats were even less competitive than the state legislative districts - just three of the 53 districts were won with less than 60 percent of the vote in 2004.
Proposition 11, a California ballot proposition known as the Voters FIRST Act, was approved by the voters on November 4, 2008. It removed from the California Legislature the responsibility for drawing the state's congressional districts, and gave the responsibility instead to a 14-member Citizens Commission.[13] The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of removing the responsibility from the legislature. The proposition also required that the districts drawn up (1) comply with the federal Voting Rights Act; (2) make districts contiguous; (3) respect, to the extent possible, the integrity of cities, counties, neighborhoods and "communities of interest"; and (4) to the extent possible, make districts compact. Several of these terms are not defined in law.
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