With several proposals being discussed about how California's political districts should be drawn, the California Voter Foundation (CVF) is providing a full set of maps from the previous and current rounds of redistricting on the organization's Web site. The maps are part of the California Map Series, one of CVF's most popular Internet resources.

The district maps in place during the 1990s were drawn by a panel of retired judges after then-Governor Pete Wilson, a Republican, vetoed the maps drawn by the Democratic Party-controlled Legislature. Current district maps, adopted following the 2000 Census, were drawn by the Legislature and approved by then-Governor Gray Davis.

"The two sets of maps provide the public with a sense of how political districts take shape depending on who's drawing the lines," said Kim Alexander, CVF President. One significant difference is that the 1991 districts were "nested," so that each State Senate district contained exactly two Assembly districts. The current maps are not nested, and in comparison to the 1991 maps are less compact.

CVF's Map Series features five statewide overview maps, maps of each of the state's congressional and legislative political districts, and maps of each of California's 58 counties. The maps were created to give the public a better understanding of the political districts and jurisdictions citizens live and vote, and were designed to provide a clear picture of each district's boundaries and general location. The Map Series web pages also include links to redistricting information on the State Legislature's web site, and additional sources of redistricting data.

The California Map Series is supported through a grant from The James Irvine Foundation. CVF's 1990's map collection was created in collaboration with UC Berkeley's Institute for Governmental Studies. The California Voter Foundation is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to promoting and applying the responsible use of technology to improve the democratic process.